THE PERIPHERALS ARE SPEAKING TO YOU

Les périphériques vous parlent, beyond examining the problems of our era, is involved in its capacity as a magazine of analysis and commentary, in the social, political and citizen's sphere. It constantly organises meetings, activities and events leading to the formation of work groups involving people of all ages, professions and social backgrounds.

The team is also active in the field of art, with Génération Chaos, in France and abroad, in universities, high schools, colloquia, neighbourhoods, Cultural Centres and concert halls. Beyond producing shows, Génération Chaos is trying to set up an active relationship with the public and its objective is to bring about a profound change in the way culture is seen and lived today.

The review Les périphériques vous parlent was launched in 1993 by students from the University of Paris 8. An instrument of action, expression and reflection, it was born out of the demand that universities should become living places and that the whole question of the relationship between professors and students should be re-examined. Very quickly the review was also distributed outside universities.

Today it is made up of in-depth articles, interviews, short news items on fields as different as universities, work and the workplace, agriculture, town planning, the economy, mental health, philosophy, artistic creation... For the editorial team it is less a matter of piling up a long list of disparate questions than of throwing light on a kind of barrier-breaking transversality which reveals the cross references between different fields, ways of seeing and doing things. The review uses this approach, rather than making a complete analysis of today's problems (increasing poverty and exclusion, crisis of politics, the all-powerful economy...), to do what Michel Foucault called for : « think differently », but also see and act differently.

This is the reason for the review's involvement in the social field and citizen politics, but through its articles and through a series of projects. It accompanies activities and projects potentially capable of giving a content and reality to a form of active citizenship which links thought and action. Meetings and events are constantly organised, often leading to the creation of work groups in France or on a European level.

In 1994 the review organized a seminar on Professors/students : actors or interpreters ? What is to become of the University ? Many students and professors intervened, as did several people coming from outside the university world (associations, writers, workers, unemployed...). The participants decided to create a collective which drew up a Charter of the Emergency University. Since then, a completely new course of lectures has been developed which are open to all. These have been held at Paris 8, the Paris Collège des Beaux-Arts, Brussels Free University and other universities in Germany, Russia...

A debate held at Paris 8 on Philosophy through acts and acts of philosophy led to the creation of the group Philosophers : Stand up ! The idea is to see how philosophy can, by using elements of theatricality, open up a fertile field of experimentation, above all when philosophy becomes an activity carried out for all by all, thereby questioning the magistral philosophical discourse itself. This group intervenes both in universities (Sorbonne, Saint-Denis) and in youth centres and other public places.

Les périphériques vous parlent has always sought to give its activity a political reality, in the sense that politics is the everyday concern of each citizen in all fields of life. With this in mind, it took the initiative to organize the États du Devenir (States of Becoming, States of the Future), a three-day gathering which brought together over 50 associations, groups and personalities with the aim of formulating proposals for the future in the fields of culture, town planning, teaching, life in inner-city areas, economy, research and philosophy. These proposals have been published in n° 7 and 8 of Les périphériques vous parlent, and out of them was born the Fora of Villages and Neighbourhoods of the World project.

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Les périphériques vous parlent, last updated on april 25, 03 by TMTM