The Voice and the Eye

Book excerpt: This book outlines a means of identifying, behind reactions to social situations, those actions which contribute to the self-production of society and its transformation. He accords the greatest improtance to "social movements" which put social power itself in dispute. Touraine argues that such movements can be studied by a means of "socialogical intervention!, a method which he has applied to research on student unrest, anti-nuclear oppostitin and a nationalist movement in France and will also use in future studies of trade unionism and the women's liberation movement.