Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Viewed as a duration, a rhythm and a moment, Sunday, as an object of analysis, is addressed from an alternative, more anthropological perspective. It shows the extent to which time, as a social frame, structures our existence. The anthropological meaning of Sunday is in total contradiction with the concept of week: gratuity is opposed to performance, fantasy to rationality, and symbolism to instrumentalism. Based on empirical evidence, the article makes an inventory, albeit not exhaustive, of some of the major approaches to Sunday: e.g., the theme of nature, the binary theme of body and soul, that of celebration associated with the sacred, that of the family, and that of boredom as opposed to happiness. These conceptual representations and attributions are related, in different combinations, to certain typical practices which reveal some models, sorts of ideal types of the Sunday person. Sunday, as a category of analysis, by showing us what people do when they have nothing to do, seems capable of explaining various lifestyles in our contemporary societies. © Presses de I'Universite du Quebec. |
