L’approche biographique de l’engagement public dans la modernité avancée

This article pleads for a biographical approach of public engagement in advanced modernity. The author shows how the change of the societal context redefines the problems of engagement and obliges us to consider the latter under a new angle. He wonders then about the reasons which explain the growing importance of the biographical resources in the comprehension of public engagement and defines the four principal types of biographical resources identified in the literature. After a discussion of their contributions and their limits, the author finishes by defending a multidimensional approach of public engagement, based on the complementarity of the organizational, institutional and biographical elements