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Between 2014 and 2017, during three "Doctoriales" sessions, 84 young PhD candidates in humanities and social sciences were given the opportunity to present their work. Based on this experience, and a short survey done in 2017 by the authors, this paper aims to analyze the state of "young" research on water in human and social sciences. Even if most of the papers presented during the "Doctoriales" relate to geography and economy, overall 12 disciplinary fields were represented. A great variety of approaches and methods were also noted with, however, disciplinary specificities concerning a normative or constructivist approach, references mainly to Anglo-Saxon or French literature, and so on. General trends have also been identified, such as a widespread multidisciplinary approaches and, for most young researchers, the wish to remain in academia after their PhD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in social sciences has grown significantly in recent years in the field of oncology with a major focus on the development of psychology research which is the only social sciences discipline that gathers clinical interventions (from clinical psychologists) and research. One of its purposes is to assess and figure out the magnitude of the physical and psychological consequences of a cancer diagnosis on the quality of life of patients in order to provide them relevant care and interventions as part of the overall management of patients in supportive care. Two psychooncology studies will be introduced in this paper to highlight how research in psychology and clinical psychology can complement each other and show the contribution of research in social sciences in supportive care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In France, more and more employees, whether they are employed by state-owned or private enterprises, readily admit they suffer from stress. Although subjected to both deep and difficult transformations, post office counter clerks do not use the word. A three-year research study with counter clerks of La Poste, led by clinical sociologists from the viewpoint of clinical sociology, invites us to question the notion of stress. To begin, the paper takes the opportunity to clarify the use that a clinical sociologist makes of this English notion usually connected with individual psychology. It then shows in which circumstances the counter clerks, including those who work in offices considered 'calm', are in fact confronted with working conditions that qualify as stressful. Finally, through clinical cases, the paper contests the North American view of stress by showing that it is essentially founded on an individual understanding of this pathology and that it abusively overlooks the collective dimension of work in its account of a real suffering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the emergence of the "sustainable city" concept, urban issues are assuming increasing importance in research and debates relating to the environment. In order to contribute to reflection on achievements and interdisciplinary research perspectives, this paper proposes a retrospective and prospective account of city and urban analyses conducted in the journal Natures Sciences Sociétés. Based on the corpus of writings published in the journal since its inception, the author develops a critical analysis around five themes: urban nuisances and the quality of the urban living environment; local pollution and heritage management of urban living environment; urban atmospheric pollution and human health; urban ecology and nature in the city; from urban ecology to the sustainable city. The paper then shows the contribution made by these articles and considerations in the development of an interdisciplinary perspective to investigate the relationship that people have with nature. This analysis highlights the heuristic potential offered by the broadening of problematics and the decompartmentalization of approaches as well as the conceptual, methodological, and epistemological difficulties and stumbling blocks of interdisciplinary approaches that link natural sciences and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking Sartre's philosophy as a starting point, our paper is deliberately both theoretical and action oriented. It aims to promote a way to develop the adequate scientific practices which the sustainable development utopia requires. To this end, it is written as a manifesto designed to stimulate debates and controversies. Following a critical review of all that is being said and done in the name of sustainable development in the political sphere as well as in the relationships social sciences entertain with the political sphere, this paper is a call to consider rigorously the difficulties and even the impossibilities of moving "from the utopia to the concepts". Introducing and articulating the almost contradictory dimensions of sustainability in real urban territories demands that a relevant method be developed to investigate this complex object. We propose the concept of "socially sustainable milieu" to try and reach this objective which requires the interdisciplinary linking of physical and social sciences. GIS and modelling need to be associated with anthropological methods. Most of all, the paper underscores the need to set "inhabitants" at the heart of the scientific project, thus reversing the usual focus and starting with an investigation of the way each individual reconciles the "three pillars" of sustainable development and builds his/her relationship with sustainable urban milieus. This may help rise above the still top-down views of governance, thus enabling scientists to contribute to developing the political sustainable utopia in real sites and situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical and methodological works of Sir Karl Popper that have in sight the status, the scope as well as the methods of human sciences/social sciences are still important, outstanding and influential among the specialists. In what concerns the effort carried on by the scientific community in order to build up the human sciences, Popper points out and analyses - beginning with the '40's of the XXth century - some obstacles inherent to these sciences that appear in the very process of their "construction". According to their nature, a demarcation has been introduced (by A. Boyer) between the so-called "epistemological obstacles" and "real obstacles" that threaten the "house" of humanities. Our paper proposes, on Popperian basis, a critical analysis of the "epistemological obstacles", especially having in sight the scientism, the essentialism and the positivism from the point of view of the challenges of the knowledge society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to study the notion of proximity from a communicative perspective. It asks two questions : how best to define proximity in a trade and media context and which model offers communication sciences the best way to study it and seize the representations and understand the organization. This semiotic analysis of France 3's latest advertising campaign illustrates, and sheds lights on the notion of proximity and so attempts to define it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Primequal research program, aimed at studying air quality at the local scale, was initiated in 1995 by the Ministry in charge of the Environment and by ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency). Designed as a multidisciplinary program, it centered chiefly on the physico-chemical and sanitary aspects of air pollution. Human and social sciences, though regularly invited to participate in the program, have remained little involved. To overcome this problem, a special call for research wholly dedicated to the field was set up in 2004. Eight projects, whose results are briefly summarized and discussed in this paper, were funded. For the authors, one of the main findings of this research is the remaining gap, due to poor governance, between the institutional approach to air quality based on monitoring and administrative overseeing and the population's lack of grasp and involvement regarding an issue to which they are, however, highly sensitive and whose sanitary implications they are strongly aware of. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using professional knowledge in building scientific knowledge; a comparative analysis of several case studies. This paper results from cross-disciplinary reflection by social and biotechnical researchers engaged in surveys with experts from the agriculture and nature spheres: farmers: technical advisors, managers of nature conservation programmes and biologists. The purpose was to analyse the way professional knowledge is used by researchers to enrich their body of scientific knowledge. How professional knowledge is used depends in part on each scientific discipline, but far more on the final research aims. We first identified three ideotypes based on whether professional knowledge is used (1) in a comprehensive way to understand its origins, (2) to build new biological knowledge complementary to the one produced on an experimental basis, or (3) to build operational knowledge to help professionals manage their problems. A cross-analysis of the survey methods used then led to discussing the nature of the scientific knowledge developed from professional knowledge and the innovative potential of such surveys. Finally the heuristic potential of surveys is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author looks for to give a cross-sectional vision of the governance concept and to try to determine the logic that characterizes it, considering that is a notion that has been mainly the object of a critical literature. After remembering the origin of the governance concept, the author successively deals with the subject of the governance like new conception of the territories, of the crisis of the governance to the light of the crisis of the democracy and the principles of the governance, before concluding on the controversies relative to the governance. It makes a precise scan, as much of the "analytical uses" of the governance concept, these are those that try to develop with her a tool of understanding of changes in the art to govern, like of this "normative uses", in the sense to determine the conditions necessary for "good to govern" (good governance). This ambivalence of the use of the concept of governance and one reviews critic and rigorous of literature (classics, compilers, analysts and "practitioners ") it allows the author to develop the thesis according to which in political science, it is impossible to find an author who has structured the debate on the governance. Like conclusion, the author indicates that the governance shows the same imprecision that the democracy, because it does consensus on its necessity but not on which it is. It is by the way a "word suitcase" but that helps politicians as to investigators to be understood as much. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The closure of Université de Moncton's sociology department in the spring of 1969 constitutes a unique event in the history of Canadian academics. In this paper, the authors examine the causes behind this closure. They present an intermingling and collision of motivations of different actors and movements in Acadian academic life during the late sixties: student associations, the young sociology professors, the professors association, the university administration, etc. Beyond being simply a historical anecdote, the closing of the sociology department symbolizes a larger political crisis, where two social conceptions compete: the administration envisaged a rational administration of the social, while the sociology students and professors wished for a society based on socialist and participative principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an introduction to papers related to sociology that appeared in the 2005 issue of the journal "Social Compass."

Abstract: This paper analyzes the issue of time for the infant. Present seems to be what matters for the infant, who is unable to do without. The position of withdrawal from the present time is understood as an important way for the psychological development, and as defence mechanism if sustained, thus impending on development. The assessment of social withdrawal trough the alarm distress baby (adbb) scale is presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]