Contenu du sommaire : Sociologie politique des sciences

Theoretical Roundabouts and Analytical Level Crossings: Is an Encounter between Political Sociology and the Sociology of Science Possible? In its early stages, the sociology of science was concerned with the place of scholarly knowledge in power relationships, mechanisms of political legitimation, and dynamics of institutionalization. In other words, it maintained close contacts with political sociology. Then, the development of science and technology studies loosened these contacts and gave priority to broader thoughts about the interplay between knowledge and power—in tune with political theory. The papers gathered in the thematic issue that we present here provide the means to reopen a dialogue and to rediscover the path of a political sociology of science. In order to move in this direction, it seems that some theoretical frameworks should be swept aside inasmuch as they preclude any encounter between the sociology of science and political sociology. One should rather focus on analytical crossings. Emphasis should be laid on the autonomy of scientific activity in the face of political authorities—in other words, on the political orientation of science and technology and on scholars' ability to direct policies. One should also encourage research about the status of scientific expertise and its evolutions, especially as a result of mechanisms designed to involve lay people in political decision making.

How “Big” Is Ecology? From One Ecotron to the Other
In order to explore ecology's current claims to status and relevance, this article proposes to describe the economy of scientific bigness at stake in the case of the experimental research infrastructures called ecotrons. I conducted a sociological inquiry into the case of two ecotrons recently built in France. This research included interviews and the reconstitution of experimental patterns and scenarios in the ecotrons. I compared them with the ecotron built in London at the beginning of the 1990s in order to shed light on the evolution of the types of bigness and the types of disciplinary models and hierarchies at stake. I argue that French ecotrons are about making ecology big by combining a reference to “hard science,” following the model of physics, with a reference to the relevance of science, following the model of climate science. The use of climatic scenarios and the focus on microorganisms in the ecotrons contribute to turning ecology into anticipatory and engineering science that helps secure the functioning of ecosystems in a context of global changes. Finally, I stress how, from the ecotron in London to the French ecotrons, ecology's relevance was renegotiated in terms of a securitization of nature as vital infrastructure to human societies—away from issues of nature and biodiversity conservation.

Scientific Competition and Political Action in a Transnational World
This paper analyzes how competing networks of disaster studies emerged in different national settings, disciplinary contexts, and historical periods. It combines two different but interconnected qualitative and historical pieces of research on the transnationalization of disasters at various scales and places. It shows how seismology and American-centered disaster studies first shaped international understandings of disasters during the Cold War era, with hazard-oriented research projects focused on natural disasters. In the late 1970s, development studies and geography contested the former approaches. This criticism flourished in Latin America in the 1980s, where social scientists promoted notions of root causes and vulnerability. From the 1990s onwards, the social sciences increasingly shaped international disaster policies, rendering disasters less “natural” and more “social.” This, in turn, contributed to the development of disaster studies in other parts of the world, such as South Africa. This connected history of disaster studies reveals how disasters were interpreted differently by various disciplines. Furthermore, the comparison between regions enables changes to these configurations according to global political and scientific contexts. Taking into account different scales and places sheds light on the competition between sciences entangled in a conflict over the power to define disasters at different moments (the Cold War, developmentalism, and climate change).

The Scientist, the Guinea Pig, and the Antivivisectionist
The nineteenth century was a period that featured a great development of experimental rationalism in the biological sciences. This rationalism was based on research methods that involved living animals—that is, vivisections. The knowledge, concepts, and practices that these sciences comprise nevertheless did not obtain the instantaneous recognition that a teleological reading of the phenomenon would tend to assume. Modes of diffusion and acceptance varied considerably from one country to another, with contrasts and discrepancies being particularly apparent between France—which, along with Germany, was at the time one of the centers from which these fields of knowledge were developed—and England, where the importation of experimental physiology helped the development of antivivisectionism, a social movement and an ideology that was hostile towards these new sciences, in the second half of the century. Using a synthetic approach that articulates the analysis of different levels of integration, this article proposes to explain the different processes found in France and England for universalizing the principles of these sciences.

Capturing and (Co)Producing Scientific Knowledge under Constraints: The “Expert Turn” of Surfrider Foundation Europe. Because it is mainly focused on the association process between scientists and nonscientists, the coproduction model tends to homogenize numerous and different actors into a common social and cognitive space. In this paper, my aim is not to establish a strict boundary between science and common sense but to maintain the heterogeneity of actors when they are placed together within scientific networks. Through the case of Surfrider Foundation Europe, a French surfers' organization, and by taking into account the logics of the political space as well as the moral dimensions of scientific activities, it will be argued that including science in an organization's repertoire of actions leads not only to asymmetrical sets of power between activists and legitimate scientists but also to internal constraints and struggles between activists.

Scientists' Entry into the Organization of the Agricultural Market: The Promotion of Short Circuits. Usually, the role of mass distribution and professional agricultural organizations is analyzed to emphasize the social construction of agricultural markets. However, with the promotion of short circuits, it emerges that control over the state, one of most powerful makers of markets, is also carried out by scientists. Thanks to increasing funds coming from local communities, researchers have succeeded in making short circuits a promising subject within the agricultural sciences. The intellectualization of public policies has facilitated their entry into a working group organized by the agricultural minister to define short circuits. Moreover, it encourages the emergence and the redefinition of a request for expertise, of which scholars are the recipients. Scientists are no longer only the link between economic actors and the state responsible for the regulation of market exchanges. Rather, they contribute to redefining intermediations between farmers and consumers.

Stigmatization and Redemption. Wearing the Veil as a Resilience Test
To withstand the challenges they face every day due to the veil they wear, the Muslim women whom I interviewed make use of an original view of the veil question in France: the religious theme of resilience in the face of difficulties. Far from being a call for collective mobilization in the name of Islam, it rather translates what Weber called “the ‘theodicy of suffering'—that is, the way in which religion gives meaning to suffering, thereby changing it from a source of revolution to a vehicle of redemption” (Peter Berger).After demonstrating how the stigmatization of veiled Muslims is transfigured into a resilience test by religious discourse, I identify how women use this theme and the reasons why they are aligned with it.

The Birth and Life of an Unexpected Alliance between Occupational Victims of Pesticide and Environmental Organizations. Building on an analysis of a social movement that brings together French farmers who denounce the impact of pesticide on their health, we consider the role of political coalitions in the emergence and development of “victims'” movements. In our case, we demonstrate that the creation of the farmers' movement was greatly facilitated by environmental organizations, which helped the farmers to group together and gave them access to resources and frames through which to mobilize. We analyze how the political distance between farmers and environmental activists has put their coalition under stress over time and identify factors that helped the coalition to hold up. More broadly, this article illustrates the importance of analyzing this coalition work over time to understand the evolution of victims' mobilizations.