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Participation is frequently implemented to define localized common goods. The aim is to obtain a larger and more coherent legitimacy of the decisions compared to the traditional public action which supposes a preliminary conception of the general interest. In order to avoid the privatization of common goods by private interests, public policies tools recommend to associate a great diversity of actors with the deliberative process. Drawing on experience from a research program on multifonctionality of the forest in the south of France, we will wonder whether the implementation of these principles guarantees a more democratic definition of the public interest. It was observed that the discussions in connection with forest multifunctionality were mainly managed by forest actors. For as much, the problems resulting from the deliberative process do not confine the forest in a role of production. It assigns a fragile function of protection and especially a social function to it (recreational activities). We attend a publicisation of the forest whereas the frame of the participation forums cannot be described as democratic. This paradox questions us on the link commonly established between the stakeholders’ diversity and the protection of their private interests. We propose assumptions to explain this result which can appear paradoxical.

In France, the intense public debate on pesticides is still hardly accessible to agricultural workers, even though they are expected to change their practices and are highly exposed. This configuration of pesticide use "transition" raises health, environmental and social justice issues, as do specific social movements, such as Environmental Justice in the United States or "ecologism of the poor" in the South (Martinez-Alier, 2014). We hypothesize that the weak voice of farmworkers in the public space is a sign of hindered capabilities (Sen 2000, de Munck 2008). Whether they are employees or farmers participating in winegrowing work, our research aims to identify the social processes, sometimes different, that strengthen or weaken their capabilities to express their concerns about pesticides. We test this hypothesis using an original methodological choice, an action-research committed to empowering vineyard workers in Gironde. It turns out that "strong" frames (risk management and occupational health policies) make it impossible for workers to express their concerns about pesticides. Other structural factors on the scale of the territory and the wine sector mean that the silencing of workers is dominant without being total. The "operational" difficulties in setting up a group of winegrowers, and even more so for the employees, are therefore particularly revealing of these antagonistic processes of (in)capacity at play in the transition to pesticides.