Abstract The study explores the narratives on the 1988 death of 28 year old British tourist, Julie Ann Ward in Kenya's Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Julie Ward's death in Kenya attracted widespread attention in Kenya and Britain culminating in at least three true crime books, significant media coverage and rumours in Kenya. The study reflects on the narratives on Julie Ward's death, with particular interest in the discourses that gained expression through, or were inscribed, on Julie Ward's death and the quest for her killers. The study is also interested in the ways in which the Julie Ward case and the discourses it inspired offer a critique of rationality, and the accompanying unity of the subject, expressed through a logocentric impulse as key tenets of a Western modernity that continues to mediate metropolitan readings of postcolonial Africa. The study reveals that Julie Ward's death traversed various discursive sites, which were laden with specific ideas on race, gender, the postcolonial African state, Western modernity, female sexuality and black male sexuality, among a host of other issues; all of which tinted British and Kenyan narratives on the circumstances surrounding the death. The study argues that the authors of the three books on the Ward tragedy rely on colonial archives on Africa, and actively mobilize notions such as the myth of the uncontrollable black male libido and its threat to the vulnerable white woman in understanding the Ward tragedy. While these writers cling to these notions of the black peril, the noble savages, Africa as the tourist's wildlife paradise, and the dysfunctional postcolonial state; Kenyan publics read the murder as another symptom of a criminal political elite's brutal deployment of violence to secure immunity for its criminal activities.However, the two sets of ideas are largely disarticulated, and as the study reveals, the British stakeholders in the case are blinded by a rigid polarization of Kenya and Britain, which presumes a superior British moral and technological integrity. These assumptions blind the Ward family to British complicity in the cover up of the truth in Julie Ward's murder; while at the same time, rendering them illiterate in the local textualities which remain inaccessible to the instruments of Western modernity that are privileged in the quest for truth and justice in the Julie Ward murder. Julie Ward’s presence in Kenya, her death and the subsequent quest for her killers is consistently haunted by neat dichotomies, derived from various masternarratives. The study traces these dichotomies, in a bid to outline their configurations and the outcomes of their deployment, while consistently keeping the grey areas of entanglements between these dichotomies in sight. It is in these grey areas that we see the contradictions, blindspots, critiques, complicities and forms of agency that were at play just under the radar of these neat polarities. From these grey terrains, we catch glimpses of the workings of these dichotomies as discursive masks which conceal the faultlines that rend the masternarratives. The study finds that in many ways, Julie Ward's death in Kenya may be positioned in a transitional space between colonial whiteness and an emergent postcolonial whiteness, which betrays heavy imprints of the grammars of colonial whiteness, including the messianic white male authority, wildlife tourism and conservation. To this end, the study suggests, one of the factors that hampers the quest for truth and justice in the Ward case is the failure to forge viable grammars of whiteness in the postcolonial context. Such viable grammars would be able to access local textualities and retain an awareness of the underlying complicities and faultlines that now rig colonial Manichean binaries, which are largely mediated by the interests of capital. The novel The Constant Gardener and the film Ivory Hunters (1989) - both of which make implicit allusions to the Julie Ward case – eloquently articulate these complicities and faultlines.

The future is constantly growing as a more and more significant matter of interest, both in the academic fields and in everyday conversations. This thesis focuses on a specific perspective of the future: what if cities were no longer static by nature, but cruising across the world? By analysing three works of literary fiction, the aim is to illustrate how fiction, and more specifically ‘anticipation fiction’, can participate in shaping our social imaginaries, the understanding we have of the world, both when it comes to our present and our future. If the influence of future fiction has been shown before, this thesis will focus on the specific imaginary of moving cities in the future, to highlight how those authors imagine the future, covering the historical and geographical contexts of those futures, the urban logic of those moving cities, the social implications that follow, and finally the value given to humanity in those ‘realities’. Because of the fundamentally indeterminate nature of the future, future studies such as this one do not aim for a fixed answer, but rather for a deeper understanding of the relation of influence between present and future, of how the future shapes us just as we shape it.

Why do middle class kids go to middle class schools? It all began with the story of a father’s dream. It was sometime in April in 2008 and I was in the midst of my undergraduate fieldwork. I had been exploring the resurgence in the ‘Gorkhaland’ movement across the hills of Darjeeling in North Eastern India. I had been interviewing various people who had been engaging in hunger strikes in pursuit of the cause. In the process of these interviews and in my general experiences during this time, I was struck by the constant rhetoric that they fought not for themselves or their own futures but for the futures of their children and generations to come. I was staying in the small town of Sukhia about 20 km outside of Darjeeling town. On that particular April day I had found myself temporarily housebound in the home of my host family, in the wake of a sudden tumultuous downpour. The weather it seemed was conspiring against my research, forcing me to postpone another interview. I sat in the kitchen waiting for the weather to pass, sharing an afternoon cup of tea with a side of sliced bread and jam, with Prabin, a member of my host family. Prabin worked in the office of the District Magistrate and thus was a man with a keen eye on local politics. As such, he had volunteered himself to be my unofficial research assistant. It had been a quiet Saturday about the house, as Prabin’s wife Binita and their 3-year-old son, Pranayan, were out shopping in the market. Prabin’s mother and father were visiting other family nearby, and Prabin’s younger brother, Pramod, had travelled into town to collect some supplies for his school. There was no sign of the rain letting up soon so Prabin and I continued to chat. Prabin’s son had recently started school and we were discussing his son’s apparent indifference towards schooling. ‘Everyday he cries! He doesn’t like school very much’. Prabin was convinced that his son would stop crying once he had learned the value of school. I had been working as an English teacher in a small private school and had seen first-hand how parents like Prabin acknowledged the importance of schooling choice, even as their children began their schooling journeys at around 2 years old. Prabin was keen to reinforce the idea that his son’s present school, a small building only 5 minutes’ walk up the road, was just the beginning. Prabin told me that he wanted his son to get a ‘good education’ in contrast to his own schooling experience, which he described as ‘simple’. Prabin told me that he dreamed of his son going to England and making enough money to support the whole family. Prabin knew that if his son was going to fulfil his dream then he would need to succeed at school, but not just any school. ‘I want my son to go to St. Joseph’s School; this is the best school in Darjeeling’. I was aware that there were many schools in Darjeeling, both in the town itself and in the surrounding areas, all of which professed to offer a high level of English medium education, so I was keen to know what made St Joseph’s such a certain choice. ‘Have you been there?’ he challenged me, as if to say that anyone who would lay eyes upon this place would know what he was talking about. ‘We will go there someday; it is a very nice place’. He was keen to emphasize how ‘nice’ this school was even if he had only seen the building from the road. ‘Others schools can teach English but [St. Joseph’s] is more than that. They play all the sport[s], they have good Rector, they have nice student[s], good discipline, this is the right place for my son’. Prabin emphasized that he dreamed of a good life for his son and in order to get there he first had to go to the right school. This was the first time I had even heard of St. Joseph’s School, but it provided a provocative insight into perceptions of the roles of schooling in India today. Prabin’s dream outlined a particular future for his son, which depended upon a foundation within a specific kind of schooling. I was immediately drawn to how he had mapped out a prospective educational trajectory, which leaned on certain intangible aspects of schooling that were perceived to subsequently guide his son towards a certain livelihood. St. Joseph’s had been singled out, as it offered something that others were perceived not to have. Perhaps most importantly of all, Prabin had never been to the school which he dreamed of. His ideas of St Joseph’s were ultimately imagined through an amalgam of stories that he had heard from work colleagues, interspersed with his own fleeting encounters in passing the school building. The imagined view of the school was integral in shaping Prabin’s actions. He was planning for his son’s future around a dream. Prabin’s perspective reflected a wider trend within literature pertaining to the Indian middle class, indicating a certain preference for a particular kind of schooling as being a necessary prerequisite for a specific, ultimately idealised, future livelihood. Donner (2006) identified a similar kind of career mapping amongst middle class Bengali families in Calcutta. The families, particularly the parents themselves, sought to admit their children to particular pre-schools, which were seen as the foundations of a scholastic career. Admission to future primary and secondary education hinged on the previous stage and as such, investment in each stage of the schooling process was vital in establishing the necessary trajectory for their child to progress on to specific occupations that would offer the necessary array of capital - financial, social and cultural – that would lead to a middle class life. What I became interested in was the concept that shapes this process. Why do middle class Indians choose certain schools and not others? What is the apparently intangible quality that leads parents like Prabin to desire St. Joseph’s over all the others? What is it about schools like St. Joseph’s that make them stand out from the range of available schools? It was with these questions that I headed off to St. Joseph’s for some answers.

This thesis discusses the increased amount of information available online, and how we use it in our daily lives to make decisions. It aims to open a discussion on the complexity of accessing and evaluating digital information. As the Internet has grown, the amount of information available to the public has exploded. Not only have we gained access to what seems to be an unlimited amount of sources, but also the number of producers has grown. By means of a case study, this thesis explores practices of trust assessment within the shared economy. Through the lens of Actor-Network-Theory as well as Modern Social Imaginaries, media practices are studied by using the example of Airbnb, an online, shared economy platform for accommodation. Airbnb users as well as other travelers are asked about their media practices through an online survey with 229 respondents as well as in-depth interviews with 7 users of Airbnb. Results show that practices of trust assessment differ within and outside of the platform. There is a strong dependency on social information, produced by fellow platform users, especially in the form of reviews. In addition the study finds support for a social imaginary, in which the platform defines the accepted behavior for the users of the platform, who within the economic constraint comply with the social norm set by the organization, in order to be able to use the services of Airbnb.

In the age of imperialism the British Empire imposed multiple projects of water management,like the Aswan Dam, on its colonies. These projects had to bring economic benefits to the colonies and coloniser while British politicians and engineers saw these projects also as an instrument to modernise and civilise the local people. This study explores the motivations behind the construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt within the public discourse. Previous research has primarily relied on several political documents and technical reports about the Aswan Dam and has thus focused on the political and economic motivations behind the construction of the dam. Through economic and political perspectives these studies have characterised the dam as an economic project not only for the beneficence of Egypt, but also for the British Empire. This study, however, investigates newspaper articles from The Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail between 1894−1902 from the planning to the completion of the dam. This is carried out through a discourse analysis to explore how the Aswan Dam was justified towards the public to add a new social-cultural perspective. Findings indicate that newspapers represented the dam within different social imaginaries as an achievement of British engineers, the British monarchy and the British Empire. The Aswan Dam was thus not only justified through economic purposes. The dam was rather represented in the newspapers as a way of bringing back the glory of Egypt and as “England’s greatest enterprise” that would make the British Empire surpass the great empires from the past.

Submitted by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2018-05-02T22:30:15Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Dissertacao_Alejandro_Maldonado.pdf: 2674076 bytes, checksum: aa8ae4e062430ea3031aba31fe90e3f9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Aline Batista (alinehb.ufpel@gmail.com) on 2018-05-03T20:48:21Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao_Alejandro_Maldonado.pdf: 2674076 bytes, checksum: aa8ae4e062430ea3031aba31fe90e3f9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-03T20:48:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertacao_Alejandro_Maldonado.pdf: 2674076 bytes, checksum: aa8ae4e062430ea3031aba31fe90e3f9 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-21 / Sem bolsa / Esta dissertação aborda a relação entre os imaginários da insegurança e as transformações da vida cotidiana e na paisagem urbana nas cidades de Pelotas e Rio Grande – RS. Valendo-se de uma abordagem qualitativa que se enquadra no denominado desenho de estudo de caso e combinando diversas estratégias e técnicas de coleta de dados desde uma perspectiva etnográfica – observação sistemática, questionário e entrevistas não estruturadas –, esta pesquisa analisa as ressignificações dos imaginários sociais que advêm da cultura do medo e da vigilância para dar conta, por um lado, das mudanças na cotidianidade e, consequentemente, na sociabilidade naquelas cidades; e, por outro, da incorporação de dispositivos de securitização na paisagem urbana. Essas transformações acontecem no âmbito da segurança privada, que reflete e estrutura as significações que compõem os imaginários, a partir das valorações e as moralidades que acompanham a dinâmica de consumo desses dispositivos, como estratégia da qual se valem os indivíduos para se proteger e cuidar. Por fim, oferece considerações que, partindo de um enfoque centrado nas expressões simbólicas e materiais observadas nas cidades de Pelotas e Rio Grande, servem para teorizar e deixar abertas perguntas sobre a questão da insegurança e da sociedade contemporânea. / This dissertation approaches the relationship between insecurity imaginaries and transformations of everyday life and the urban landscape in the cities of Pelotas and Rio Grande - RS. Using a qualitative approach that fits the so-called case study design and combines several strategies and techniques of data collection from an ethnographic perspective, e.g. systematic observation, questionnaire and unstructured interviews, this research analyzes the re-significances of social imaginaries that come from the culture of fear and surveillance to account, on the one hand, of the changes in daily life and, consequently, in the sociability in those cities; and, on the other hand, the incorporation of securitization dispositives into the urban landscape. These transformations take place within the scope of private security that reflects, at the same time as it structures the meanings that make up the imaginaries, based on the valuations and moralities that accompany the consumption dynamics of these dispositives, as a strategy that individuals use to protect themselves and take care. Finally, it offers considerations that based on a focus centered on the symbolic and material expressions observed in the cities of Pelotas and Rio Grande, serve to theorize and leave open questions about the issue of insecurity and contemporary society.

本文旨在探討加拿大哲學家泰勒(Charles Taylor)的政治思想。泰勒政治思想深受個人身為英裔魁北克人、英加兩地學術薰陶、以及參與加拿大新民主黨活動等因素所影響，並與其亟欲建構哲學人類學之鴻圖，有著緊密的關係。泰勒反對笛卡兒式與洛克式的心靈理論，卻採取梅洛龐蒂的觀點，主張感知性知識乃是一種行動者知識的樣態，感知的內容從不是偶然地與世界連結，感知的主體是世界的化身，其身處的困境無法置外於其行動者的結構。泰勒更進一步抨擊當代自然主義假設背景祇不過是我們認知的因果性前提的看法，他主張背景乃是知識之先驗性、超越性的條件，但它不能完全地客體化，因為任何客觀的知識宣稱要被理解，其本身必需具備背景預設，這種反思之先驗性、超越性的層次充份顯示出客體化、表徵化世界的限制。泰勒遂借用加達瑪的視域融合概念來說明社會科學的詮釋邏輯，與自然科學的邏輯大異其趣。他更抨擊行為主義過度簡化人類的行為，竟將價值和實踐分離，導致價值和行動在具體生活經驗中的關聯性遭受排拒。泰勒更明確地批評原子式個人主義者的信念，也拒斥工具理性。泰勒因此提倡善的客觀性，強調人們與其道德經驗，從而建構其道德實在論。泰勒的政治理論則係挑戰現代以普遍主義為基礎的憲政民主制度之合理性，其批駁當代程序式的自由主義者對個人自主性之錯誤理解，並提出本真肯認之理論。從宗教、經濟、政治與道德等多元角度，泰勒爬梳西方現代性的源流，就中探討宗教在俗世政治中所扮演的角色，它竟成為政治認同的關鍵。他也追尋現代社會想像如何崛起，預視多元現代性的到臨。面對俗世時代人類處境，泰勒則導正孤傲人文主義之偏頗，企圖拯救大眾虛空無聊的生活。最後，本文對泰勒的理論在道德視域、政治哲學及現代性加以檢討，並以臺灣經驗的反省作結，期收他山之石，可以攻錯之效。

242f. / Submitted by Oliveira Santos Dilzaná (dilznana@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-07-22T17:43:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Anamaria Morales.pdf: 1765753 bytes, checksum: cb73d991b216f25f1935d4341b2d70a2 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Portela(anapoli@ufba.br) on 2013-07-24T18:40:18Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Anamaria Morales.pdf: 1765753 bytes, checksum: cb73d991b216f25f1935d4341b2d70a2 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-07-24T18:40:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação Anamaria Morales.pdf: 1765753 bytes, checksum: cb73d991b216f25f1935d4341b2d70a2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / CAPES / O presente estudo sobre a migração de europeus para a Bahia nas últimas décadas procura explicar um movimento migratório que, não se restringindo ao móvel econômico e ao modelo comunitário, é impulsionado por processos individualizantes e uma consciência de matiz cosmopolita. Tal movimento pode ser visto como resultante da atual globalização cultural, em que a multiplicação das conexões planetárias estimula a imaginação social e incita indivíduos de todas as partes a se desterritorializarem, fazendo da mobilidade um recurso integrado aos seus projetos de vida. Analisando a vinda desses indivíduos ao Nordeste brasileiro para residir, o estudo traz à discussão, por um lado, o imaginário sobre a globalização e a emergência de uma subjetividade contemporânea , e por outro, os imaginários sobre o “outro continente” na interação entre a Europa e a América Latina, que terminam por inserir o Brasil nos projetos de vida de migrantes europeus de perfil aventureiro e cosmopolita, que vivem “lá e cá”. Buscou-se também verificar como o país se construiu como destino para aqueles que optaram por viver sua vida no hemisfério sul, para em seguida contrastar a sua vivência concreta com a “vida imaginada” no sul global. Levando em conta as dimensões subjetivas e objetivas que trazem esses europeus ao Nordeste brasileiro, vemos entrar em operação o imaginário de um mundo interconectado em que alguns países e regiões emergem enquanto outros retrocedem, numa hierarquia das nações em transformação segundo critérios que hoje contemplam a qualidade de vida, a humanização das relações interpessoais e a ampliação do espaço de realização individual, que podemos depreender do discurso dos migrantes estudados. My research on the migration of Europeans to Bahia over the last decades seeks to clarify a migratory movement which , while not restricted to economic motivations or a community pattern , results from rather individualizing processes and a new “cosmopolitan consciousness”. Such movement can be seen as an outcome of present cultural globalization, whereby the multiple planetary connections stimulate social imagination and induce individuals all over the world to deterritorialize themselves making mobility part and parcel of their life projects. This study brings into discussion the imaginaries on globalization and the emergence, on the one hand, of a contemporary subjectivity, and, on the other hand, of new representations on “the other continent” in the interaction between Europe and Latin America, that have inserted Brazil in the plans of migrants with a relatively adventurous and cosmopolitan profile. It was a main purpose to see how the country was built as a destination for those who chose to live in the south hemisphere, for later to contrast their concrete experiences with their “imagined lives” in the global south. Taking into account both the objective and subjective dimensions that bring those Europeans to the Brazilian Northeast , one sees coming into operation the traditional narrative of our interconnected world , wherein some countries and regions emerge while others “submerge”. Such a hierarchy of nations apparently is now undergoing change on account of new subjective criteria that value aspects such as “quality of life”, the humanization of interpersonal relationships and the widening of self-accomplishment perspectives. All this can be drawn from the discourse of the migrants under study. / Salvador

Global initiatives regarding environmental change have increasingly become part of political agendas and of our collective imagination. In order to form sustainable societies, education is considered crucial by organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union. But how is the notion of sustainability imagined and formed in educational practices? What does sustainability make possible, and whom does it involve? These critical questions are not often asked in educational research on sustainability. This study suggests that the absence of critical questions in sustainability education is part of a contemporary post-political framing of environmental issues. In order to re-politicize sustainability in education, this study critically explores how education—as an institution and a practice that is supposed to foster humans—responds to environmental change. The aim is to explore how sustainability is formed in education, and to discuss how these formations relate to ideas of what education is, and whom it is for. This interdisciplinary study uses theories and concepts from cultural studies, feminist theory, political theory, and philosophy of education to study imaginaries of the unknown, nonhuman world in the context of education. The focus of the empirical investigation is on teacher education in Sweden, and more precisely on those responsible for teaching the future generations of teachers – the teacher instructors. With help from empirical findings from focus groups, the study asks questions about the ontological, political, and ethical potential and risk of bringing the unknown Other into education. / Utbildning har globalt fått en central roll i strävanden efter att skapa hållbar utveckling. Initiativ tagna av såväl Förenta Nationerna som Europeiska Unionen, där utbildning och hållbarhet kopplas samman, vittnar om att frågor som rör miljöförändringar har blivit allt viktigare både på de politiska agendorna och i våra kollektiva, kulturella föreställningsvärldar. Men hur formas begreppet hållbar utveckling när det ska göras undervisningsbart? Vilka framtider möjliggör hållbar utveckling i utbildningssammanhang och vem inkluderas i begreppet? Frågor av kritisk karaktär är ofta frånvarande i tidigare utbildningsforskning som rör hållbar utveckling. Denna avhandling tar sin utgångspunkt i att frånvaron av kritiska frågor kan ses som del i en samtida postpolitisk inramning av miljöfrågor i såväl utbildningssammanhang som i samhället i stort. Studien undersöker hur utbildningsväsendet, som är en central institution i fostrandet av framtidens medborgare, tar sig an frågor som rör miljöförändringar. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur hållbar utveckling formas genom utbildning samt att diskutera hur dessa formationer relateras till idéer om vad utbildning är och vem som ska utbildas. På så vis söker studien också efter sätt att re-politisera hållbar utveckling i utbildningssammanhang. Avhandlingen är tvärvetenskaplig och använder teorier och begrepp från kulturstudier, feministisk teori, politisk teori och utbildningsfilosofi för att studera vad utbildning som relaterar till natur- och miljöfrågor möjliggör. Empiriskt undersöks svenska lärarutbildare, som ansvarar för att utbilda framtidens lärare. Studien ställer frågor om ontologiska, politiska och etiska aspekter av att öppna upp utbildningen för det som ligger bortom mänsklig kontroll och kunskap. / Sustainable development as an area of knowledge

Cette thèse porte sur le renouvellement du réalisme dans la production narrative espagnole des années 2000, à partir d’un corpus de quatre romans, et se demande : en quoi consiste l’esthétique réaliste actuelle, quelle est son épistémologie et quel lien entretient-elle avec d’autres discours de savoir ? Quel rôle jouent les récits réalistes dans la configuration des imaginaires sociaux, alors que sont remis en question l’héritage de la transition démocratique et le récit de la modernisation espagnole ? Sont d’abord examinées les conditions de possibilité historiques, socio-économiques et culturelles d’un renouveau du réalisme – cartographié dans le champ littéraire des vingt dernières années. Hypothèse centrale : le réalisme ressurgit du fait que les débats de mémoire historique depuis 2000 et la crise économique, sociale et politique depuis 2008 engagent une révision du mythe de la Transition et du projet de la modernité qui structurait les imaginaires sociaux espagnols depuis les années 1960. Trois parties proposent des études de poétiques réalistes, en diachronie et en synchronie, pour mettre en valeur l’évolution des modes de référentialité réalistes entre le début des années 2000 et le début des années 2010, avec la crise de 2008 et ses prémices pour point d’inflexion. La première partie porte sur deux romans (Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad, 2001 et Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Enterrar a los muertos, 2005) qui dialoguent avec la fabrication sociale de documents et l’historiographie pour réinterpréter la guerre de 1936, de la dictature et de la transition. Les deuxième et troisième parties (Rafael Chirbes, Crematorio, 2007, et Isaac Rosa, La mano invisible, 2011) analysent l’élaboration d’un récit collectif de l’Espagne développementaliste, à l’aube de la crise, par des romans qui dialoguent avec la théorie économique et la sociologie historique. Au carrefour du littéraire, des discours sociaux, de l’histoire et de la sociologie contemporaine de l’Espagne, cette thèse soutient que la réappropriation du réalisme dans les années 2000 participe à la remise en question d’une identité nationale démocratique et moderne, au resurgissement d’une réalité problématique et d’imaginaires sociaux paramodernes après l’écroulement du métarécit d’une transition modèle. Si les romans cherchent tous à prendre en charge le réel social selon ses représentations, ils se différencient par leur traitement de la question politique de ce que « réel » veut dire, par le choix du chemin selon lequel le décrire, et par l’évaluation de la nature des causes historiques et matérielles de la réalité qu’habitent les écrivains. / This thesis studies new forms of realism in Spanish prose in the 2000s, from a corpus of four novels. It contemplates what makes the contemporary reality aesthetic, what its epistemology is, and what links it bears to other forms of knowledge. What roles do realist narrations play in the configuration of social imaginaries, when the heritage of the democratic transition and the narration of Spanish modernisation are called into question? We first examine the conditions of historical, socio-economic and cultural possibilities of a renewal of realism, which is mapped throughout the literary field of the last twenty years. The central hypothesis is that realism springs back up from the fact that debates around historical memory in the 2000s, and since 2008, the economic, social and political crisis prompt the revision of the transition myth and the project of modernity which had been structuring Spain’s social imaginaries since the 1960s. Three parts offer different studies of realist poetics, diachronically and synchronically, to highlight the evolution of the modes of realist referentiality between the start of the 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s, the crisis of 2008 and its beginning as an inflexion point. The first part tackles two novels (Antonio Muñoz Molina, Sefarad, 2001 and Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Enterrar a los muertos, 2005), which discuss the social fabrication of documents and historiography to reinterpret the 1936 war, the dictatorship and the transition. The second and third parts (Rafael Chirbes, Crematorio, 2007, and Isaac Rosa, La mano invisible, 2011) analyse the elaboration of a collective narrative of developmental Spain, at the dawn of the crisis, through novels which interact with the economic theory of liberalism and historic sociology. At the crossroads of literary studies, social discourse, history and the contemporary sociology of Spain, this thesis argues that the appropriation of realism in the 2000s questions a national identity that is democratic, modern, and takes part in the reappearance of a problematic reality after the meta narration of a model transition collapsed. If the novels all try to tackle the social reality according to its representations, they differ through what « reality » means to them, through the nature of its historic and material causes, and through the ways they describe it.