SAPS_Les Sciences et recherches participatives (SRP) et l'ouverture à des collectifs en zone rurale et péri-urbaine en Lorraine

Keywords

Participatory sciences, Sciences shop, engagement, audience, third sector

Subject details

Over the past decade or so, participation in research has been moving towards institutionalisation. A number of key milestones have marked this process. In 2012, the formalisation of the concepts of participatory science and research by the CNRS's ‘Science in Society' mission, followed by the creation in 2014 of the GDR ‘Participatory Action Research and Citizen Science', aimed to foster the emergence of a community of practice. The following year, the ‘Science-Society Relations' mission was recognised as an additional remit for universities. In 2016, the Houllier report (Houllier, Merilhou-Goudard, 2016) laid the foundations for good practice in Participatory Action Research and Citizen Science (Sciences et Recherches Participatives - SRP in french) and paved the way, in 2021, for 1 per cent of the research budget to be earmarked for dialogue with society (Ruano-Borbalan, Bocquet, 2018, Lefebvre, Savoia, Bocquet, 2019). The ‘rise of participatory approaches' (Piponnier, Ségur, 2022) in the field of research is not solely the result of political decisions. It responds to criticisms levelled both from within (by researchers) and from outside (by civil society) regarding the ways in which research is conducted. Thus, faced with issues of sustainability or ecological and/or social transitions, various scientific voices have helped to bring about what some call two new research regimes better equipped to address the new challenges posed by society (Barré R., Jollivet M. 2023): interdisciplinary research and participatory research. The second framework addresses the need to pluralise the voices at the heart of the research production process. In particular, it seeks to move away from the monopoly on the production of scientific knowledge held solely by the research community. The idea of pluralising knowledge and combating epistemic injustices aims to establish a fairer relationship between the various forms of knowledge and their bearers (Carrel, Fiorini, Gaudillière, Godrie, 2025). In a drive for social transformation, the new research collectives operate on the assumption that the starting point should no longer be supposed needs, but rather concrete questions arising from civil society (Lefebvre, Savoia, Bocquet, 2019). However, in practice, the persistence of a social division of labour in research and of criteria for excellence does not foster either interdisciplinarity or the hybrid collectives characteristic of the social and political sciences. This thesis aims to document the ways in which rural communities engage with hybrid research collectives. The proposed theoretical framework is closely aligned with analyses of research intermediation (although the concept of mediation in science, technology and society is quite distinct from that of popularisation), which offers an analysis of the emerging field of SRP without neglecting the importance of the collectives involved in these initiatives, the mechanisms and tools employed, which break with a linear model of information, education or dialogue initiated solely by researchers. It forms part of an approach to the co-production of knowledge by socio-technical networks (Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe, 2001) and is based on more active models of action, following pragmatic and interactionist approaches, where engagement takes various forms and manifestations (Millerand, 2021) that need to be documented.