Time & Space in the Works of Maurice Halbwachs (1925-1945)

Marie JAISSON

Summary :
The concept of social space was not part of Emile Durkheim’s sociological toolbox. Maurice Halbwachs defined it. In order to understand how his thinking developped, given his style of research and the context which can be discerned throughout his works, it is necessary to translate his sociological theories on the nature of memory from the 1920s to the 1940s. During this period his programme of social morphology came into focus. Driven into fixed positions on account of his desire to provide a scientific answer to the rise of Nazism, and to the criticism he received about his first theory of the nature of memory, Maurice Halbwachs conceived a very original notion of social space which appears not to have directly inspired younger sociologists.

Key words : Social space, Social time, Memory, Social Morphology, Durkheim, Bergson, Halbwachs
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