En deuil

Orlando Fals Borda, sociologue colombien, décédé il y a quelques jours déjà.

Je l'ai connu grâce à Marta Anadon.

Il retrace l'histoire de son oeuvre dans l'excellent Action Research Handbook de Reason et Bradbury. Il a établi de solides remparts contre le positivisme.

"Do not monopolise your knowledge nor impose arrogantly your techniques, but respect and combine your skills with the knowledge of the researched or grassroots communities, taking them as full partners and co-researchers. Do not trust elitist versions of history and science which respond to dominant interests, but be receptive to counter-narratives and try to recapture them. Do not depend solely on your culture to interpret facts, but recover local values, traits, beliefs, and arts for action by and with the research organisations. Do not impose your own ponderous scientific style for communicating results, but diffuse and share what you have learned together with the people, in a manner that is wholly understandable and even literary and pleasant, for science should not be necessarily a mystery nor a monopoly of experts and intellectuals." Fals Borda, cité dans The Guardian.

C'est une de mes principales sources d'inspiration, qu'il s'agisse de recherche, d'enseignement ou de vie :

«We feel there is still a need for active crusaders and heretics for the great adventure of people's emancipation, in order to break the exploitative ethos that has permeated the world with poverty, oppression and violence for much too long.» Fals Borda, dans Reason et Bradbury, p. 32

Nous voilà avec un merveilleux hérétique en moins.