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ABSTRACTThis article discusses the Weberian theses on why capitalist forms emerged only in the West and not elsewhere. At first, Max Weber stressed the importance of the interrelation between religion and social stratification. But in addition to the Protestant ethic that gave its adherents a whole new perspective on both God and Life, Weber did put forward a few other elements that contributed to the formation of rational thinking and rational socio-economic behavior. Despite its great expansion in the classical period (7th-10th century), the Arab monetary economy began to crumble in the second half of the 10th century, thus preventing capitalism from taking roots in the Arab Mashreq. On his part, Weber tried to explain this phenomenon in accordance with his comparative work on major religions. But do Weber's theses on the growth capitalism adequately apply to the historical evolution of this region?

With the rise of environmental concerns and the advent of the precautionary principle, disaster risk reduction has become a central issue in public policy. In this context, researchers and operators of monitoring networks of telluric phenomena are increasingly called upon by the authorities and the general public to intervene as experts. However, the transition from the practice of research to the situation of expertise is not without difficulty. In that respect, the case of volcanic risk in the Lesser Antilles arc is particularly revealing given the highly variable spatio-temporal scales that characterize it, the numerous actors spanning the entire spectrum of society, the intrinsic and considerable epistemic and aleatory uncertainties, its low recurrence rate compared to other risks, but also the considerable chain-link specificity of its impacts that can significantly effect small vulnerable island states embedded in the legacy of a complex history, regional, and international context. One of the difficulties—rarely addressed by researchers acting as experts and by researchers studying expertise situations—is the fragmentation of disciplines into different specialties. This issue can only be tackled by transcending traditional disciplinary boundaries. This article, written jointly by researchers in political science and in Earth sciences, illustrates how knowledge of the epistemological tensions that underlie Earth sciences can contribute to enriching the analysis of public action on the issue of risk management. Our reflection is illustrated by two case studies: the crisis associated with the phreatic eruption of La Soufriere in Guadeloupe (in 1976), and the crisis associated with the magmatic eruption of the Soufriere Hills Volcano of Montserrat (1995-ongoing). It reveals that the tools mobilized by politists—like the concepts of expertise, controversies, instruments of public action or even epistemic communities—cannot fully capture the plurality of knowledge and know-how developed by experts facing intricate problems. This observation is not unique to volcanic risks. Most of the phenomena that threaten our societies today require, indeed, to take into account a complexity that goes well beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. Getting out of the disciplinary isolation is difficult. This is evidenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) experts' efforts over more than three decades to harmonize not only the contributions of different research communities but to articulate them to make them operational for international public policy. Yet, the analysis of public action can only enrich itself to make the bet of such a dialogue.

Keywords: réduction des risques de catastrophe, expertise, risque volcanique, politiques publiques, gestion de crise, disaster risk reduction, expertise, volcanic risk, public policies, crisis management

Echoing an approach that Jean-Guy Goulet has implemented over the years, both with the Wayùu of Colombia and with the Dene Tha of Canada, and in reaction to one of his papers on prayer and the media published in Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, I present the approach of the intergenerational knowledge transmission workshops (ATIS), developed with Jarich Oosten and the Nunavut Arctic College in the early 2000s, and on the use of the camera. Through the example of qilaniq, a divination ritual that the Inuit have practiced since the 16th century, I suggest that the format of the ATIS allows to respond to two great classic criticisms addressed to anthropologists. The first, formulated by J. Fabian, deals with a problem of temporality, the time shared during the meeting between the ethnologist and his participant being different than that of the anthropological narrative. The second concerns the manufacture of anthropological knowledge widely attacked by postmodernists. I argue that by making the context of enunciation more transparent and by favoring an experiential anthropology close to that advocated by Jean-Guy Goulet, the ATIS makes it possible to consider the anthropologist as a participant, and not just a facilitator. In the context of performances recorded on video, “acting as if” opens up new possibilities in terms of experimentation. At the same time it allows Inuit elders to highlight their traditions at a time marked by urgent needs in the field of education and in the transfer of knowledge.

Keywords: Inuit, Canada, traditions orales, ateliers, chamanisme, divination, film, Inuit, Canada, oral traditions, workshops, shamanism, divination, film, Inuit, Canadá, tradiciones orales, talleres, chamanismo, adivinación, cine

In both Canadian and American law there is the problem of “fighting words” versus freedom of speech and press. Under both systems of law, the problem is how far one can go in expressing one's thoughts and ideas and yet not go beyond the bounds of what is permitted in a free society. In the United States, Terminello v. Chicago and Feiner v. New York spell out what these bounds are. In Canada, Boucher v. The King is the key case. Decided in 1950, this decision of the Supreme Court of Canada set out new limits in this area of speech and press which resemble those set out one year earlier by the Supreme Court of the United States in Terminello v. Chicago. Recently, at least in the Province of Québec, there appears to have been a retreat from the rule announced in Boucher v. The King. In Dubois v. La Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, the Court of Appeal of Québec overturned a Superior Court decision that would have extended Boucher v. The King to political debate — to the limits reached in the United States in Terminello and perhaps even beyond. Unfortunately, Dubois v. La Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal was not appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and the views of Canada's highest court on problems such as those presented by that case are not known. In this article, the author discusses Dubois in the light of both the Canadian and the American law on the subject.

The Borowski case first establishes Borowski's status and right to represent the unborn in his action to have the provisions of the Criminal Code concerning abortion declared a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The author, Borowski's lawyer, then presents his arguments in favor of the rights of the unborn: Sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter, confirm his rights by guaranteeing the right of “everyone” to “life, liberty and security” and by protecting his against “discrimination based upon mental or physical disabilities”. In spite of the testimonies of the world's outstanding authorities in the fields of perinatology, neonatalogy, embryology, gynecology, neurosurgery and abortion, the Trial court, turning to Section 206 of the Criminal Code, concluded that until a child leaves the body of his or her mother in a living state, he or she is not a human being. Moreover, the unborn is not “someone” encompassed in the word “everyone” of Section 7 of the Charter.English and Canadian jurisprudence is then reviewed by the author. He proceeds to analyze the impact of important decisions rendered in Spain, West-Germany and the United States and examines the consequences of the Morgentaler decision.

The protection of personal information as well as the right of an individual to be informed of the existence of identifying data in files concerning him brings into question two basic principles: the right to information and the right of privacy. The search for one's biological origins in the case of adoption as well as recently in the context of the new reproductive technologies is particularly problematic. The physician-patient relationship has also seen changes as to the amount of information to be communicated prior to medical treatment and with respect to the confidentiality of such highly charged information as is the case with AIDS. The author stresses the importance of evaluating the impact of the communication of such information on the patient or his family or friends in the context of reproductive technologies or communicable diseases before exploiting them as the means of effecting social change in the search for a more open society.

Despite the fact that we may consider the right to association as a fundamental right, the State attempts to control, limit and regulate the formation and actions of associations. The recognition or not of an association as a charitable organism has a great impact on the economic and fiscal benefits which will be attributed to it. This study entails the examination of conditions for the recognition of a charitable organism, and of the battle in the course of the last decade where the State attempted to restrain the recognition of the organism for the reason that it pursued political objectives.

This study aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators in accessing services for children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder from the perspective of parents and service providers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight Francophone parents and eight Francophone service providers living in New Brunswick. A thematic analysis of participants' stories was conducted to identify barriers and facilitators in accessing services during three key moments in the family journeys, namely first concerns, diagnosis, and school entry, as these moments reflect periods of transition in services for families.

Keywords: Trouble du spectre de l'autisme, services en santé mentale, enfants et adolescents, ACCESS-MH, Autism Spectrum Disorder, mental health services, children and adolescents, ACCESS-MH

Drawing on evidence from five detalled case studies, this paper focuses on the relationship between technical innovation and non-manual skills and work organization. In none of these cases could the introduction of new technologies simply equate technical innovation with deskilling and enhanced managerial control. Indeed, one of the more interesting and important findings of the research was that technological change has been more favourable for technical than for clerical occupational groups.