Comparing politicization: contemporary claims-making about housing in Paris and Los Angeles

Résumé En

Our empirical study compares everyday methods of politicization in a Paris and a Los Angeles housing advocacy organization. Informed by pragmatist insights on the character of social inquiry, we use the empirical work to introduce a proposal for comparing ethnographic cases that critically combines culture concepts from the “home” culture of each case. French pragmatic sociology investigates different “regimes of engagement,” from action based on explicit, public principles to action driven by what feels familiar. In the U.S. in turn, cultural interactionism investigates “group style” by finding out how collective actors implicitly define adequate participation in the collectivity. Neither framework alone can capture the full range of similarities and differences between the “method of legitimacy” we found in the Parisian Droit au Logement (DAL) and the “method of authenticity” in the Los Angeles Community Action Coalition (LACAN). Both organizations were similarly oppositional and tight-bound, but valorized speakers and distinguished public from personal grievances differently. A double cultural analysis sharpens cross-cultural interpretive statements while expanding the generalizability of causal claims.