raison d'être

plural raisons d'être · nonstandard plural raison d'êtres · alternative raison d'etre

1. A reason for being; the claimed reason for the existence of something or someone; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone.

   Surfing became his raison d’être.

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   These raison d'etre and this evolution are not merely the achievement of men's conscious activity but are the unintentional results of their social activity.

   1966, Maurice Godelier, Rationality and irrationality in economics, London, published by Francois Maspero, pg. 317 (quoted in Michael W. Coy, "Tugen Monopoly: Capitalism and Conflict in the Mountains of Kenya," Anthropology & Humanism Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2, 1988, pg. 41, Full article - .pdf)

   It [Sacramento] is a town in which defense industry and its absentee owners are suddenly the most important facts; a town which has never had more people or more money, but has lost its raison d'être.

   1968, Joan Didion, “Notes from a Native Daughter”, in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

   One after another, styles supplant one another. The most enduring twentieth-century school, Abstract Expressionism, held sway for at most twenty years, from 1940 to 1960, then to be followed by a wild succession- "Pop" lasting perhaps five years, "Op" managing to grip the public's attention for two or three years, then the emergence, approximately enough, of 'Kinetic Art' whose very raison d’être is transience.

   1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock: Bantam Books, page 174

   National development plans and programs are in particular under harsh discussions and criticism including these raison d'etre in some countries, for these plans and programs have supported construction of rather inefficient infrastructure in less-development area.

   2003, Seta Fumihiko, Kim Chang-Gi, Lai Shen-Chiang and Onishi Takashi, Abstract for "A Study on the Transition of National Development Strategies in Korea, Taiwan and Japan, Characterized by Developmentalism" (「開発主義に特徴付けられた 日本・台湾・韓国の国土開発戦略の変遷についての一考察」), full paper is pp. 52-61 of "Proceedings", International Symposium on City Planning 2003, The City Planning Institute of Japan, Sapporo, Japan, Abstract

   With hindsight knowledge, it is interesting to note that these three raison d’etre and their ramifications were situated in a broader context of contestations over the whole enterprise of knowledge production and consumption.

   2007, Chambi Chachage, "Bringing African Studies Back to Africa: Beyond the ‘African-Africanist’ Divides," paper prepared for the 2nd AEGIS Conference on African Studies (ECAS) at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, the Netherlands, 11-14th July, 2007 (Abstract, Full paper - .doc)