A future more human? Uncovering the intellectual project of the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne in France, 1927-1939

Young, Samuel 2023. A future more human? Uncovering the intellectual project of the Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne in France, 1927-1939. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

For much of the interwar period, Jeunesse ouvrière chrétienne (JOC) was the largest working-class youth movement in France. At a time of growing political and economic turmoil across Europe, the JOC mobilised thousands of young working men and women with the aim of instilling in them a distinctly Catholic worldview – one that would protect them from the ideological temptations of communism and, by the late 1930s, fascism. There remains, however, limited understanding of this jociste intellectual mission. While historians have discussed the movement’s ideological rivalries and its innovative approaches to youth mobilisation, few have considered exactly what image of a brighter future the JOC sought to cultivate in the minds of young French workers at this time of acute crisis. Using original JOC publications, teaching notes, surveys and other archival material, this study traces the intellectual project of interwar French jocisme by identifying how the movement’s leaders and propagandists formally responded to the interlinked crises of the late 1920s and 1930s. It then uses the analytical lens of Catholic social teaching to interrogate these responses and uncover the web of theological principles that bound the worldview of the interwar JOC together. It argues that this worldview was built around a creative refashioning of the core Catholic theological principle of human dignity, which provided the cornerstone of the intellectual project that the JOC’s leadership employed to insulate young workers against more modern, materialistic ideologies. In doing so, this thesis builds on the growing field of academic writing that seeks to reintegrate theology into the study of religious movements operating in a secularised world. In turn, this offers an opportunity to reflect on our own time, as recent crises in the liberal capitalist order have created space for religion to return to the forefront of social, cultural and political debate.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Modern Languages
Funders:	AHRC South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	22 April 2024
Last Modified:	24 Apr 2024 08:19
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/168208

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