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Based on an empirical survey of rancher commitment in environmental programs in Southern Arizona, this paper analyzes the evolution of rangeland conservation practices and more broadly of natural resources management in semi-arid areas of the American West. Far from the image of the cowboy conquering and destroying the wilderness, which some environmental organizations still convey, it shows how ranchers get involved in ecological practices, enabling us to consider their social (re)valorization as conservation entrepreneurs empowered to co-produce ecological knowledge. In this perspective, the survey shows, (1) the way in which nature conservation programs no longer valorize the planning of 'wilderness areas', but rather collaborative programs based on working landscapes and, (2) the conditions for valorizing a kind of cowboy ecology that might contribute to the renewal of natural resource management and practices dedicated to nature conservation. The scientific originality of this paper is thus to outreach a 'political ecology of ranching', showing how the valorization of rancher knowledge and know-how fits into the renewal of rangeland ecological science and socio-economic transformations. It demonstrates that this ecological acknowledgment of ranching is due to the specific knowledge of the ranchers, which contributes solutions for the preservation of biodiversity that seem adapted to the environmental constraints of semi-arid areas. More broadly, it invites us to revisit the way in which cowboy ecology is now supported by administrative agents (and even environmentalists) to face ecological risks other than grazing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the economic efficiency of flood protection strategies to aid funding decisions of public bodies. The Brague river is a 68 km2 catchment located on the Mediterranean Sea shore in South East France. It experienced disastrous flash floods triggering costly damages and casualties in the communities of Biot and Antibes. Several possible flood protection strategies using conventional civil engineering measures or Nature-based solutions were tailored mixing engineering and participatory approaches. They were then assessed in terms of i) protection efficacy and avoided damage using numerical modelling, ii) environmental gains or alterations using an indicator on the morphological quality of the river, and iii) willingness-to-pay of the citizens for the various strategies, assessed both by top-down transfer methods, as well as by interviews of about 400 citizens. A dual cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was finally tailored to help the various decision makers involved in the management of the catchment in the context of the Gemapi law (management of aquatic environments and flood protection). A top-down CBA was performed to help national and regional stakeholders decide whether they would support the strategies. In the meantime, a bottom-up CBA was performed to capture the local perception of hazards, the social acceptability of various mitigation measures and to help the basin managers decide on the relevant strategy to be implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tafilelt, as a new urban extension in the south of the ancient ksar of ben-Isguen in the M'Zab Valley of the Algerian Sahara, seems to have a considerable potential for sustainability. It is worldwide recognized as a sustainable and ecological city in a country which is not entirely involved in these concepts. One of the main factors of this qualification seems to be the association between the ancient know-how of the 11th century and the new notion of sustainability of the 20th century. The first objective of this paper is to understand Tafilelt's black box to contribute to the current debates on the correlation between the reinterpretation of heritage values and sustainable development. The second objective is to produce knowledge on the importance of the contemporary reinterpretation of the vernacular and socio-cultural built heritage and the role of this process in safeguarding the image of the M'Zab Valley. This research work is based on a qualitative analysis supported by the on-site observational study methods. The approach is at once descriptive, explanatory, and prescriptive, attempting to analyze the case of Tafilelt city, measure its potential in sustainable urban environment, and produce knowledge on the importance of a contemporary reinterpretation of the vernacular and socio-cultural built heritage. The results show that a significant potential is found in the use of vernacular resources and the reinterpretation of the built and socio-cultural heritage of the region. The latter seems to be defined as an essential operation for achieving urban and societal sustainability, which succeeds in making people react, bringing them together and unifying them. Within this context, the paper looks at how Tafilelt's civil society has approached urban sustainability and discusses the importance of its principles, objectives, and strategies inspired from the M'Zab's heritage and vernacular resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the third part of a reflective work on building a socio-hydrological approach. It focuses on the interdisciplinary dialogue between members of a research team associating the social and biophysical sciences. The key point is the construction of the interdisciplinary dialogue when it is not anchored in the previous experience of shared fieldwork. The creation of a framework to structure the dialogue is based on the premise that sharing experiences is crucial for negotiating a convergence between social and biophysical perspectives on reality. The first stage is to select an object on which to focus a collective analysis, in the present case the small-scale irrigation canals. The second stage consists in testing the framework during a three-day workshop. Third comes the collective negotiation of the analysis presented in the paper. Analysis of the construction, experimentation and evaluation process of the framework is considered an integral part of the interdisciplinary process. The dual approach of this contribution, i.e., experimentation and reflexivity, allows the analysis of the modalities of the interdisciplinary dialogue and questions the importance of frustrations in the progress of the interdisciplinary negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a positional paper and an ontological contribution to the modelling of socio-ecosystems (SES). It is also an epistemic position that is anchored on the object-oriented approach. We thus propose a model of knowledge organisation that allows more complexity to be integrated into the multidisciplinary deconstruction and analysis of SES. This object-oriented ontological proposal is based on six concepts of high abstraction level allowing a transdisciplinary portability around the structures, functions, connections, phases, scales and adaptations of SES. After defining our position on object-oriented spatiotemporal modelling, we present the six concepts and explain the interest of a top level, object-oriented, ontology for SES to conclude on the perspectives of knowledge organisation that extends our proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a participatory process set up in the Drôme river basin to get citizens to support the updating of the water management scheme. Some citizens were engaged at an early stage in selecting and structuring their own participatory process. Such co-engineering raised their awareness about the importance of these decisions, fostered social learning and triggered conditions for an efficient regulation. It clarified the links between participation and institutional governance. But co-engineering was abstract for participants. Co-engineering requires clear participation rules and sufficient awareness of the issues and vocabulary of participation. To conclude we propose adjustments to the co-engineering of participation according to the expectations and resources available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores interrelations between artists, environment and rural gentrification, through researches conducted in England and France. In these geographical contexts, it will be argued that artists emphasize socio-spatial changes and emerging socio-environmental inequalities. Firstly, the paper highlights multiple links between artists and rural and protected areas, in particular spatial forms of artistic establishment and their effects in terms of gentrification. Secondly, the paper seeks to deconstruct the role of artists in rural gentrification. Either pioneers or catalysts of the process, artists can locally boost social and spatial forms of domination. For some artists, gentrification can embody an opportunity from a professional point of view. Therefore, through their creations, artists can exacerbate tensions and support new forms of exclusion. Nevertheless, art proves to be a relevant tool to freshen dialogue within gentrified countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over three decades, the model of participatory irrigation management promoted by the government and donors faces severe difficulties. Considering that irrigation management has both social and technical dimensions, this paper uses political ecology and science and technology studies to show how public policy can assume many forms, depending on the material conditions it faces on the ground. Four irrigation systems in Cambodia are documented on the basis of qualitative interviews; these enabled us to show that water user associations emerge as irrigation management actors only if they can exert control over water sharing infrastructures that we call "anchor points". Whether water user associations play a significant role in irrigation management largely hinges on (1) the process followed for their establishment and the support they receive, (2) the process followed to design irrigation infrastructures and (3) the relations between the water user associations and other power holders. This paper highlights that a hybrid political ecology approach that would not only look at social structuring forces (e.g. power) but also at the material conditions of the environment (e.g. infrastructures) is particularly adapted to study irrigation sociotechnical dynamics, and notably the way water user associations and irrigators engage with their environment through a process of "inscription", that is of building "into infrastructures" their expectations about how these have to be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental problems and the climate issue point to the responsibility of human activities in the disturbances of the global ecosystem. It appears that Earth's changes can no longer be set apart from those of society, as expressed by the notion of Anthopocene. Researchers in the natural and social sciences are now induced to work together on issues that have become shared. In this context I was asked as a sociologist to join an interdisciplinary team of researchers in Earth sciences, chemistry and engineering, to work on a project aiming to produce non-carbon hydrogen from waste of the iron and steel industry. This paper is based on fieldwork conducted as part of this project. Its purpose is to question what it is that natural sciences, in this case geology, are studying if we consider that an autonomous nature, independent of humans and of society, does not exist. Observation of geologists at work, mainly on their research field in the Alps, and the interviews I had with them, has led me to point out the intimate relationship that links them to the environment they are studying. This environment has little to do with some abstract natural world or with the global environment such as that of climate change for example. This definition of what is at stake in Earth sciences will impact on the understanding of environmental problems and on the collaboration between the natural and the social sciences that it implies nowadays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societies are facing social ecosystemic crises which affect the highly anthropized and globalized Planet and which constitute major issues and a huge challenge for the future. Addressing these issues requires facing the very tough complexities of extensively anthropized ecosystems whose understanding demands interaction between the full range of environmental sciences (ESs), i.e. earth, life, human and societal sciences. Interdisciplinarity is not an option, but a structural constraint. The author presents a comprehensive interdisciplinarity facility which he designed within the French CNRS and implements since 2007 to address with this situation: the Human-Environment Observatories (Observatoires hommes-milieux, OHMs). Thirteen of these have been created in France and in other countries in 2019. In 2012 they were the French Governement's PIA1 laureate with the Labex DRIIHM (InterDisciplinary Research Facility on Human-Environment Interactions) for an 8 years funding which has just been renewed for 5 years (2020-2024). The OHMs are dedicated to the study of heavily anthropized sites hit by a "disrupting event" which has upset the ecological, economic and social balances that have developed over decades in the local socio-ecological conditions (for instance, a coalfield mine and its shutdown). In this paper, the author states the qualities needed for this interdisciplinary work in order to deal with these social ecological issues, and specifies the definition of multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity. He remarks that, within the OHMs, an "enlightened disciplinarity" spontaneously develops between all ESs due to a heuristic open-minded attitude called "indisciplinarity". Three examples of this mode of functioning are presented. They highlight the flexibility and simplicity of the process and its efficacy in developing links among scientists and between these and society in a sustainable development outlook. The OHMs facility provides one of the possibilities to take up the challenge of confronting the hypercomplex ecosytemic crises that arise in highly anthropised socio-ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geodiversity, as evoked in this paper, refers to geographical, not to geological diversity. The interdisciplinary approach adopted here aims to point out that the forming of geodiversity follows the same patterns as biological and cultural diversification processes. Darwinian evolutionism explains biological diversification through Earth's ecology, by the isolation of populations and their adaptation to the environment. But during the peopling of the Earth by human populations, their ways of life – geographical techniques mainly related to habitat, food and mobility – took the place of evolution for Homo sapiens, consequently allowing the active adaptation of human populations through the alteration of their environment and the control of isolation owing to geographically-linked techniques and to territories. Humankind thus enters history as a result of its geographical activity, geography being considered here as the science that studies the footprints (or graphics) produced by human populations on Earth (Geo). This process gives birth to Geodiversity, i.e. the diversity of human geographies at regional scales reflecting the diverse and sustainable ways of living on Earth. The peopling of Austronesian Oceania and its consequent cultural diversification such as the adaptation of the Vezo people to the marine environment of the southwest coast of Madagascar, are examples of how ways of life and territories may produce geodiversity. Preserving and inventing geodiversity provide the means to live sustainably on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate various so-called 'decision aiding' practices based on 'economic arguments' used to design and implement environmental public policies. We analyse these practices to determine whether they truly provide an aid to decision-making. We tackle this issue using a case-based inquiry applied to the 'red muds' of Gardanne. This case exemplifies practices, which claim to take advantage of economic science, but are in fact based on fallacious rationales incapable of meeting even minimal rigorousness and scientificity requirements. We do not claim to produce quantitative evidence that our observations are generalizable. Rather, we claim that our empirical elements can be used to articulate ideas whose generality should be investigated in future quantitative studies: (i) decision aiding, when applied to environmental public policies, is barely, if at all, based on economic science; (ii) it is nevertheless overrun with economic vocabulary, which suggests that (iii) the legitimacy of environmental public policies can be undermined by decision aiding practices which, for lack of a robust anchorage in economic science, weaken the possible justification of these policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates, from a sociological perspective, the emergence of nutritional (epi)genomics, a field of research that has emerged from the Human Genome Project and whose aim is to renew the diagnosis, prevention and management of foodrelated chronic pathologies. By identifying more precisely the genetic and epigenetic risk factors at the individual level, this would indeed lead to the development of personalized nutrition. As such, it is often presented as a scientific revolution. The first part of the paper defines this research field by discussing its main scientific issues and presenting its medical applications that consist in biotechnology which has been available on the market over the past decade (nutrigenetic testing) as well as a public health program which is currently being drawn up (the "first 1000 days" initiative). Then it focuses on its social, ethical and political consequences as it could induce new forms of responsibility at the individual, intergenerational and political scales, and also heighten the medicalization of food and, consequently, its individualization. Finally the paper tries to understand to what extent the field of nutritional (epi)genomics may contribute to (re) consider the dialogue between social, biomedical and life sciences regarding the food and health relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the scientific reasoning that led us to institute the "night environment" as new interdisciplinary research topic from a social-ecological perspective. Sociocultural, ecological and health costs of artificial light at night (ALAN) have been gradually highlighted since the second half of the twentieth century in a range of scientific fields, from astronomy to medicine through ecology and energy. At the same time an environmentalist movement was emerging: the "dark-sky movement" which condemns "light pollution" and carries its demands within local, national or international arenas. In the 1990s, the requalification of urban lighting as light pollution gave rise to the ill-defined notion of night environment. This notion aims to understand the systems, both human and non-human, that are functionally related to the night and darkness. Building on medium and long-term observations of the processes of construction, legitimation and territorialization of the nocturnal environment, we demonstrate that this notion enables to establish a junction between the different strongly compartmentalized meanings and approaches of the roles, functions and effects of ALAN, and more specifically of urban lighting. We propose to approach its study based on the social-ecological systems framework. This requires creating strong interactions between the different approaches of ALAN: those of the social sciences and those of the experimental, life and health sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recovery of the grey wolf population in France has generated numerous conflicts, which have been studied by many disciplines including the social sciences. Our paper shows that a discursive approach to these controversies can offer new insights and help to understand the continuing oppositions between the various actors involved. A comparative analysis of the argumentative discourses developed in two articles published by two national French newspapers, Libération and Le Monde, highlights two contrasting representations of environmental equilibria. The first aims at an equilibrium between livestock and nature (Libération), the second at an equilibrium between wolves and nature (Le Monde), each equilibrium being disrupted respectively by wolves and humans. The stability of the social-ecological community is based on the exclusion of one actor. Despite a similar formal structure, each article develops a specific authority through the interaction between the peritext and the text, and through the enunciative system in order to legitimate the author's representations. In the Libération article, we show that the scientific authority serves to objectify and thus legitimate the argumentative discourse, whereas in Le Monde, a militant authority subjectifies the discourse. In both papers, the authority is also closely linked to the identity of the country (France). Both articles have a polemical dimension, which is however more explicit in Le Monde where the opponents are clearly identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Résumé Cet article part d’une réflexion concernant des écarts importants obtenus chez deux auteurs pionniers dans la question du profilage géographique (D. Canter et K. Rossmo), le premier étant Anglais et le second Canadien. Si leur postulat de base était identique, leurs résultats divergeaient. Nous nous sommes alors intéressés à la question de l’environnement immédiat, les écarts topographiques et l’urbanisme dans ces continents pouvant être une des variables expliquant certaines des différences constatées dans ces comportements et la forme qu’ils revêtaient entre les deux côtés de l’Atlantique. Si le rôle joué par l’environnement primaire, les premières interactions avec les parents, n’est pas négligeable dans le développement psychoaffectif et la constitution de la personnalité d’un individu, nous nous focaliserons à travers ces pages sur la place tenue par l’environnement urbain, au sens premier du terme « environnement », dans les actes d’agressions sexuelles sérielles. La question en filigrane étant de considérer en quoi la perception de l’espace des auteurs d’agressions sexuelles sérielles (AASS), leurs « cartes mentales », dépendrait essentiellement de la culture dans laquelle ils se développent et comment cela pourrait avoir des incidences sur leurs zones « d’action » ? La forme de ce travail est celle d’une revue de la littérature, en partie du fait de la difficulté d’accès à cette population pour des travaux criminologiques. Les illustrations cliniques proviennent soit de ressources personnelles, après modifications des noms, soit livresques. Ce travail ne proposera pas de valeur statistique mais plutôt une hypothèse de réflexion. Objectives This article deals about an aspect not taken into consideration often when considering violent sexual offenses. The term “crime scene”, which got widespread into common language, depicts all the elements collected at the place where a crime occurred and which could later become pieces of evidence. However, the place by itself, the link between the offender and the place, the influence of the urban environment and the cultural aspect of it do not receive that much attention in the literature. This paper originates from a comparison of the work of two psychologists specialized within the field of geoprofiling, D. Canter and K. Rossmo, the latter being a Canadian citizen and the former an Englishman. If their postulates were similar, their findings however diverged. If primary caretakers and early interactions are not to be underestimated regarding their roles into the personality development, we will in these pages consider the urban environment by itself in serial sexual offenses. Methods Due to a restricted access to this type of patients, we mainly focused our hypothesis on a literature review and a few patients of ours, met during previous research works. Concepts used in this paper overlap various fields such as psychodynamic, criminology, criminalistics, psycho-sociology and even urbanism. We focused in this paper onto the importance of the culture and the urban concrete environment as probable variables explaining these discrepancies observed into the behavioral patterns and distances covered by Serial Sex Offenders between the two shores of the Atlantic. The underlying question being how their space conception, their “mental maps”, depends of the culture they were bred in and how it could have an incident onto their offense zones? Results The findings highlight an inherently cultural variation of the spatial conception, but also how the space is built up and integrated between the USA (and all the large and historically “recents” territories) and Europe. American sexual serial offenders are more likely to cover larger distances, almost twice as much than their European counterparts. It seems that our hypothesis is relevant; a cultural distinction may exist on the way spatial environment is perceived and could thus have incidences into the offense patterns. Conclusions With the development of the E.U., our spatial conceptions as European citizens evolve. Thanks to mass transportation, and the Erasmus programs, it is not uncommon for an Italian individual to study in Scotland or Finland for instance. This is of some importance into how the spatial mobility is becoming more thinkable, and somehow how it induces a shrinkage of the distance into the mental mapping process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of Solid Waste is at the center of national and international debates because the urban environment in particular undergoes, in recent decades, a regression due to the technological advances and the change in lifestyle. The development achieved is accompanied by a continuous increase in the Urban Sustainable Residues generated by human activities. In this regard, the environment is nowadays a major concern of the public authorities through the establishment of panoply of regulatory texts and the creation of institutions with the aim of preserving public health and sustainable urban development. In Annaba, a city in Northeastern of Algeria, demographic and urban growth has generated varied solid residues in quantity and quality potentially harmful that must be taken care of. The latter affect not only the environmental indicators (water, air and soil) but also the living conditions in the city. This paper explores the production, composition and management system of the Solid Waste in the city of Annaba. There treatment seems inefficient and requires a continuous improvement via a local strategy based on awareness, training and greater involvement of the citizen and stakeholders. The method of treating Solid Urban Residues through composting and recycling remains a shortfall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration, avoidance and conflict between disciplines around a shared field. This article addresses collaborations, conflicts and avoidances that develop between disciplines over a shared field of study. In this perspective and using the notion of border zone (Kohler, 2001 and 2011), I analyzed the Sénart forest on the outskirts of Paris, the study area of researchers working on Lyme disease and its primary vector, ticks of the Ixodes genus. For sciences such as ecology, geography or epidemiology that base their assumptions on field observation and the interpretation of indices, Sénart is an exceptional site. It combines all the risk factors currently identified as favoring the persistence and development of Lyme disease cases. However, these various factors and their combinations exceed the scope of a single scientific community or a single researcher. To investigate the risk factors. interdisciplinary work developed on the Sénart case through common research projects. However, instead of remaining mere collaborative work, the project turned out to be a source of conflicts, competition and critics within the research teams involved. These issues still need addressing. In this paper I discuss the kinds of relationships and the various learning processes enabled by this shared space. I show in particular that researchers view study representativeness differently depending on their field practice. To conclude I show that the relations between these various actors seem to be determined in fine by three types of nested conditions: institutional, cognitive, and ethical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the first outcomes of a research program "Environment and Sustainable Development in the Caribbean space" co-funded by the European Union, the Région Martinique and the Université des Antilles et de la Guyane under the European Union operational programme 2007-2013. Since the middle of the last century, the Caribbean countries, regardless of their great diversity and political fragmentation, are faced with the recurring problem of development. Having explored different paths, they are looking now for new development models. This challenge which becomes obsessive over the decades, is now a major concern: indeed, the Caribbean territories are per se vulnerable and highly exposed to natural risks due to climate change. In addition, this relates to areas where tensions between exploitation and conservation of a rich biodiversity are particularly strong. Based on the promotion of tourism and services as part of an "open regionalism" at the intersection of global and local scales of public action, the current development strategies give rise to a dual approach with, however, rather mixed results: on the one hand, a discursive use of sustainable development, apprehended through its environmental dimension, evidences a new way of looking at the region and a change in the way the region sees itself; on the other hand, a political use of sustainable development through cross-cutting policies, is hindered by the complexity of structures, the multiple levels of action and regulation, and the difficult appropriation of public-policy organization by local communities and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-benefits of climate policies: a potential keystone of climate negotiations? This paper analyzes the challenges related to the assessment of co-benefits of climate policies underpinned by the implementation of multi-objective policies which seek synergies between climate policies and other development objectives (poverty alleviation, employment, health etc.). The analysis highlights the increasing interest in co-benefits in the latest 5th IPCC report, in particular by integrated models. Nevertheless, the quantified evaluation of co-benefits is still confronted to several methodological limitations which reduce the scope of co-benefits, particularly at the global level. In a growing context of climate-development approaches in climate negotiations, this article insists on the need to also assess cobenefits of other policies which induce a significant part of GHG emissions. Considering climate policies focused only on Greehouse Gases emissions reduction limits the range of policy instruments to carbon taxation, tradable carbon emissions permits or dedicated mitigation and adaptation funds. This also hinders the integration of climate objectives in non-climate policies. Analyzing impacts of development policies on Green Gases emissions in the form of co-benefits requires to broaden the range of policy instruments and to take into account other drivers of emissions such as land dynamics. Including these mechanisms in integrated models therefore represents new scientific frontiers for integrated models in the coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between science and politics in the climate regime: In search of a new model of expertise? Over the past 25 years, anthropogenic climate change has been addressed as a global environmental problem, which must be resolved by reducing human greenhouse gas emissions through a global agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN. The role of sciences in the construction of the problem is essential and is aptly summarized by the claim that "science speaks truth to power," with science and politics assumed to be hermetically separated. Although this "linear model" is in fact largely inadequate to account for the much more complex links between climate science and politics, notably within the IPCC, it has long been hegemonic, leading to debates focused on science rather than political responses. This dominant approach has been undermined by the failure of international negotiations: it is now clear that scientific consensus does not suffice to produce significant global political decisions. It is now evident that climate change is a geopolitical, economic, and development problem as much as an environmental one. As the Paris CoP approaches, in a phase of political uncertainties and discussions around the need for a change of paradigm in negotiations, our paper examines critically the evolving relationship between science and politics in the climate regime, revisiting the role of science and discussing emerging critiques, proposals, and perspectives on models of expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is the second stage of a reflective work on building a sociohydrological perspective in the wadi Merguellil watershed (Tunisia). A hydrogeologist and an anthropologist relate their common 2-year fieldwork experience and focus on explaining the main stages that led to effective interdisciplinary research. Being together in the field was found to yield the most structuring effects on developing confidence and consistent exchanges between disciplines. Accordingly, sharing common fieldwork is depicted as a key component to build scientific convergences. It is perceived as a research practice and a base for scientific observations and problematization and is both an actor and product of the interdisciplinary approach. Unexpected similarities between distant approaches emerge from the analysis of this experience, like dealing with uncertainty and invisibility of the study objects or the relationship with the field. Practicing fieldwork enables to share an overall view of the study area and in due course generates a new way of asking and answering questions. The reflective work exposes the specific nature of the interdisciplinary research achieved over the shared fieldwork experience. It is considered as “fundamental, inductive and endogenous”, because it emerged in a free setting, away from any formal interdisciplinary research program and with no prearranged goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper explains the birth of an environmental problem, i.e. light pollution, viewed as a socio-technical controversy. Supported by the actor-network approach, it traces over forty years the conditions of its emergence, transformation and dissemination to local, national and transnational levels and through various professional disciplines. Schematically, “environmentalists” uphold a holistic approach of “nocturnality” and define artificial light as a pollutant. Facing them, the “technicist” defends a segmented approach and defines artificial light as a nuisance. The introduction of this controversy into the political agenda leads to institutional decisions that grasp with difficulty all its social, scientific and spatial dimensions. The spatial spread of the controversy in the zoning and standardization process appears as a partial and segmented regulatory response to this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change controversies in France are often reduced to popular scientists denying human responsibility in global warming. Such polarization overshadows, however, a wide range of problems, actors and positions. In this paper, we show first that the visibility of these controversies is closely linked to the evolution of the climate issue as a public problem, which has moved through several stages over the past twenty years. The most recent period is characterized by an increase in the diversity of controversies and of “dissonant voices”. Part of the disagreements are about climate sciences (especially climate models) and involve the recognition and stabilization of a new disciplinary field and new relationships between science and politics. Another kind of controversy concerns the domain and boundaries of climate sciences, as climate change issues reshape neighbouring scientific fields and confront different epistemic cultures. Finally, political and philosophical disagreements sparked by anthropogenic climate change go beyond the usual conflict between pro and anti- environmentalism, and also concern the very definition of the climate issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]