Cyrille Baudouin & Olivier Brosseau, Enquête sur les créationnismes. Réseaux, stratégies et objectifs politiques

Clair, rigoureux et riche : trois adjectifs qui permettent de décrire l’ouvrage de Cyrille Baudouin et Olivier Brosseau, Enquête sur les créationnismes, paru chez Belin en 2013. Scientifiques reconvertis dans le journalisme et la communication scientifique, les auteurs proposent dans cet ouvrage une grille de lecture épistémologique et politique des différents créationnismes à l’œuvre sur le globe en approfondissant un premier travail initialement paru en 2008, aux éditions Syllepse (maintena..

Turning crowds into communities: The collectives of online citizen science

Over the past two decades, a number of digital platforms have been developed with the aim of engaging citizens in scientific research projects. The success of these platforms depends in no small part on their ability to attract and retain participants, turning diffuse crowds of users into active and productive communities. This article investigates how the collectives of online citizen science are formed and governed, and identifies two ideal-types of government, either based on self-interest or on universal norms of science. Based on an ethnography of three citizen science platforms and a series of interviews with their managers, we show how different technologies – rhetorical, of the self, social, and ontological – can be diversely combined to configure these collectives. We suggest that the shift from individual projects to platforms is a defining moment for online citizen science, during which the technologies that sustain the collectives are standardized and automatized in ways that make the crowd appear to be a natural community

Citizen Science and its promotion at the European Commission Level: Toward a changing conception of public engagement

Through this presentation, we analyse the justifications for the recent promotion of Citizen Science at the European Commission level. We also analyse the genesis of this emerging discourse on Citizen Science. We therefore link its promotion to previous forms of public engagement that have been promoted by the European Commission, and provide insights on the new conception of science-society relationship that is developing

La tête dans les étoiles ? Faire sens de l'engagement dans le projet de science participative SETI@home

De plus en plus de personnes participent à des projets de recherche via des plateformes de sciences participatives (citizen sciences) en ligne, dont les promesses d’éducation, de démocratisation et de production renouvelées des savoirs rencontreraient un public de profanes avide de science. En prenant l’exemple du projet d’astronomie SETI@home, lancé en 1999 et souvent cité comme pionnier des citizen sciences en ligne, nous partons des traces textuelles (profils, messages de forums) laissées en ligne par les participants pour explorer comment ils mettent en scène leur identité et font sens de leur engagement. Loin du « public imaginé » par les concepteurs des projets de citizen sciences, se dessine alors l’image d’une communauté très hétérogène, moins intéressée par la science que par le dispositif même de mise en réseau des participants et de leurs ordinateurs

From Deliberation to Production: Public Participation in Science and Technology Policies of the European Commission (1998–2019)

This article investigates how a discourse about the role and value of public participation in science, technology, and innovation emerged and evolved in the research policies of the European Commission. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, two main discourses have been successively institutionalized: the first focused on participation in policy-making, while the second aimed at participation in the production of knowledge and innovation. This paper distinguishes three main institutional phases: (i) a phase dedicated to public participation in the governance of science and technology (2000–2010); (ii) a reframing period of science and technology policies by the Commission to integrate the growing emphasis on innovation (2010–2014); (iii) a period focusing on co-creation and citizen science as new ways to involve the public in science and technology (2014-today). Factors such as individual commitments of key policy actors, specific epistemic communities and institutional dynamics within the Commission played a crucial role in shaping the policies of participation. But broader factors are also essential to account for these changes. In this respect, the economic crisis of the late 2000s appears fundamental to understanding how the conception and promotion of public participation in the European science and technology policies have evolved over time. This paper thus offers new insights to the analysis of the political economy of public participation

"Citizen Science"? Rethinking Science and Public Participation

Since the late twentieth century, “citizen science” has become an increasingly fashionable label for a growing number of participatory research activities. This paper situates the origins and rise of the term “citizen science” and offers a new framework to better understand the diversity of epistemic practices involved in these participatory projects. It contextualizes “citizen science” within the broader history of public participation in science and analyzes critically the current promises—democratization, education, discoveries—emerging within the “citizen science” discourse. Finally, it maps a number of historical, political, and social questions for future research in the critical studies of “citizen science.

Pratiques d’ingénierie

Ce dossier rassemble des travaux qui tentent d’éclairer les pratiques de travail en ingénierie et leurs relations à la production et à la mobilisation de connaissances. Il s'efforce de combler la méconnaissance des savoirs de l'action. This special issue brings together work that attempts to shed light on engineering work practices and their relationship to knowledge production and mobilization. It strives to fill the gap in knowledge of the action. Este dossier reúne trabajos que intentan arrojar luz sobre las prácticas de trabajo de la ingeniería y su relación con la producción y movilización de conocimientos. Se esfuerza por llenar el vacío en el conocimiento de la acción