Contenu du sommaire : L'expertise en situation

The aim of the article is to picture expertise and counter-expertise as rather stabilized devices of the civil society. The more our so-called “risk societies” show they are able to reduce harm by building devices with low thresholds, the more they must accept to be societies of uncertainty. Uncertainty, linked with the growth of reflexivity, leads to a lot of misunderstandings in the relationship between experts and others. First of all, is the lay persons' claim for being treated as experts, which deeply influence the changes of expertise procedures. As the legitimity of this claim increases, the experts tend to adapt themselves to a new situation, where they demonstrate their expertise by being able to coordinate distributed competences, and by transfering their own competences on new fields.

This paper develops a conceptual and theoretical analysis of risk communication in cases where experts and the public have widely divergent views about the size of a risk: experts find it very small but some members of the public have an opposite view. Other members of the public agree with the experts. Applications are chosen from the risk management problems inhere in the handling of spent nuclear fuel. It is pointed out that the conflicting views have very different bases.The role of trust is analyzed and while it is a crucial issue, it is much broader than what has usually been assumed.Trust refers not only to social trust (i.e. trust in experts or authorities/corporation) but also to basic notions regarding knowledge and science. In a communication situation, the communicated position with regard to risk seems may not be perceived correctly by any of the parties, and positions tend to be entrenched.

The important political decisions are regularly accompanied and prepared by the diffusion and the discussion of “authorized” texts: study reports, expertises and other written supports... The issue of the “formative” text questions these “authorized” texts and contribute to the creation of new social forms where the roles and the functions linked to the contradictory elements of the action can move.

Mastering more and more complex products and industrial systems implies the mobilization of a more diversified and accurate knowledge. Therefore, today's expertise has become a major challenge for organizations. How is it acquired and how is it capitalized? Based on the results of a survey carried among firms in the field of aerospace, this contribution aims at answering this question by underlining the importance of communication in technical expertise management.

An analysis of the tools set up by the French Association of Professionals in Information and Documentation (ADBS) since 1963, of the special issues and of the articles published by the journal Documentaliste-sciences de l'information is used to understand how this professional organization contributes to acknowledge the qualifications of the practitioners. Links existing with the scientists and teachers through editorial devices – journals, publishing companies – seem to aim at showing the high level of qualification of the practitioners.This representation of the level of the function is reinforced by actions – mainly in the public sector – and also by a staff certification procedure more particularly aimed at firms.These actions and procedures build up a representation of the expertise among the professionals of documentation and the ADBS represents its various gradations.

Because it is linked to each step of the cultural legitimization, transmission is at the core of a quantitative bibliographic study concerning the production of information in the field of contemporary plastic arts. Through an analysis of the press and various other forms of literature, we can shed the light on a “median” aspect of expertise. What kinds of publications help in its transmission? What types are then integrated in the “core literature” of an artistic movement? These questions were the basis to enumerate the various types, the origin and the chronology of the publications of the group Support-Surfaces (1966-1974). In the case considered, they lead to conclude that catalogue of exhibition plays a major role in terms of mediation in the qualification of the production of the artists.

Calling on expertise seems to be more and more frequent, especially when it comes to reinforce decision-making. The study we undertook -based on two historical cases- aims at tracking comments on the complementarity between life sciences and another discipline. Starting from the stakes and strategies of the partners, we study here the role played by expertise in terms of guarantee. The notions of “scientific evidence” and “absolute truth” are therefore tackled. It allows to relativize the possible exploitation and interpretation of the results. The expert draws up a report and does not interfere in a field which is not his. These new elements sustain scientific debates and controversies.

This paper focuses on the transformation in the identity of two heritage commissioners as they were working on a period – 17th century – different from the one they were initially working on. They eventually became experts and were considered as such by the historians of the Middle Age period. This expertise is due to a mixture of hybrid, scientific and technical knowledge transposed to a field which has, so far, not been invested. Through a case study – an innovation in the field of historical research due to professionals of cultural heritage –, this research allowed to tackle the notion of historical document, and to analyze the links between expertise, history and methodological innovation.

This article proposes a comparison between two ideas of the engagement of the researchers working in the field of social sciences: the first one is based on the distinction between the status of researcher, expert or intellectual, and the claiming of a “committed neutrality”; the other is associated with the idea that these positions are to be mixed. Rooted in a long range theorization, the debate is mainly led on the basis of works about the production of testimonies, and the history of our time. It highlights the social and scientific stakes, the tensions within and between the models, and shows that the field of investigation determines the nature of the researchers' engagement in a less efficient way than the angle from which they are studying it.

Firstly, I propose to distinguish the different position of what we call the “intellect”: the researcher's one, who understands and explains the social world through specific methods; the expert's one who uses his knowledge to answer practical demands; the thinker's one, who tries to justify or criticize a situation in the name of certain values. Then I make a distinction between the different speech acts registers (facts and values judgments), the different speech acts referential levels – at the common experience level and at the epistemical level – and finally between the different meanings attributed to the notion of value. These distinctions permits a better understanding of the resistances met by the question of the researcher's neutrality today, and of the reasons for the ambivalence, which is peculiar to our milieu, towards the question of engagement. Through the concrete application of contemporary art, the sociologist neutrality, far from being an escape from the protagonists' concerns, seems like a different way to plunge in the fray.

The distinction between the registers of statements, as proposed by Nathalie Heinich, is of course legitimate; but the principle of distinction is not applicable in the same way in all fields. The aiming to neglect “judgment by values” in descriptive analytics may be applied in some fields, like in those treated by Nathalie Heinich. On the other hand, in fields such as historical controversies, the distinction between “judgment by values” and “judgment by facts” is impossible, not only due to the factor of subjectiveness, but to methodological impossibilities as well. The three postures Nathalie Heinich describes here enhance each other. As they are to be regarded as constative statements, descriptive-analytic judgments lead exclusively to the comprehension of the phenomena that are studied in a way that considers normative judgments. Consequently I consider the study of the memory of the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps as a work both on memory and with memory.

In a discussion with Béatrice Fleury-Vilatte and Jacques Walter, the historian Annette Wieviorka argues about engagement starting from her own itinerary related to her work on the shoah. She comes back to the books, controversies and reasons related to her onward and the importance of the presence of the researcher in the media. This way, she does not dissociate scientific inquiry and popularization, personal and public engagement.

This article challenges the sociological and interactionnary positions that are generally considered to be authoritative in analyzing word-based television programs. It suggests, alternatively, the recourse of ideas tied to social identity, to media identity, and to discursive identity. Presenting a taxonomy of identifying characteristics that are observable in contemporary programs as well as a repertory of the roles and of the status affecting the participants, it underscores examples with the support of fluid and reversible relationships that connect the three types of identities mentioned above. It finally characterizes a theoretical and methodological position that allows one to think about them within the complexity and variability of situations of exchange in live television.

This article is considered in light of a study which has been carried out subsequently to the implementation of an “innovating” process which was tested in an experimental city, in terms of new technologies. It involved an operator, different communities, banks and a press company. The experimentation was in fact prompted by a number of marketing objectives, namely: grafting a process on a non-applicant “social component”. It has been tested by sixty individuals. The objective was to examine the uses and the difficulties encountered by the experimenters in the adaptation of the Internet integrated to a television set. Our research highlights the conditions of the taking back of the topoï (commonplaces) on the technical constraints as well as the various aspects linked to the spreading of an innovation. The reasons appealing for a relative bad opinion about the process are examined. Moreover, our analysis shows how the subjects under study tend to take up their position on the question so as to promote their experimenter's status. If the results can be examined in light of the anthropological aspect of the technique, the acceptance by the silent partners rises a number of questions about the strategies of the manufacturers which are desirous of coming to terms with the observances among the users. Our study, at least in terms of its additional information relative to another one which focused more especially on quantitative aspects, has risen the question of the structuring of the approaches that are often considered in the field of the analysis of the uses (macro versus micro). We have chosen the method of the scenarios they have in common. Volunteers are given accounts about which they must debate. This generates social relations and reveals a new insight into the representations of the agents who try to become familiar with the handling of a new technical object. Moreover, this allows for a better understanding of the different controversial arguments and opinions, as well as the various ways the agents call for so that their action makes sense.