The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

Nassima Abdelghafour

The Mushroom at the End of the World. On the possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, published by Princeton University Press in 2015, is the latest book by anthropologist Anna Tsing. It is about a wild mushroom called matsutake, which has been appreciated as a delicacy and a fine gift for centuries in Japan because of its aromatic qualities. After World War II, as Japan industrialized, forests were felled and peasants stopped tending to the communal woodlands (called satoyama) in the traditional way. The landscapes where matsutake once thrived disappeared, and by the 1970s matsutake had become very hard to come by in Japan. The book follows the global supply chains that procure matsutake to the Japanese market…

Innovation et participation. Approches critiques

Book edited by Brice Laurent, Michael Baker, Valérie Beaudouin and Nathalie Raulet-Croset

“Co-creation”, “open innovation” or “responsible innovation” are some of the new expectations of innovation. This new innovation repertoire is used in companies, public authorities and civil society organisations. It translates into instruments (digital platforms, collaborative spaces, etc.) dedicated to renewing the relationship between innovation and its audiences, and allowing to consider innovation as a participatory process. How does participation manifest itself in innovation processes? What are the economic and political…

« Avec » Antoine Hennion : de la Passion Musicale aux êtres fragiles

A l’initiative de son directeur scientifique Alexandre Monnin, Origens Medialab, dont est membre Antoine Hennion, organise du 24 au 26 septembre 2018 un colloque intitulé « Avec » Antoine Hennion : de la Passion Musicale aux êtres fragiles.

Argument du colloque :

Il y a vingt-cinq paraissait La Passion musicale, illustration par le geste de la sociologie de la médiation d’Antoine Hennion, qui, parallèlement aux travaux développés dans le champ des sciences et des techniques par Bruno Latour et Michel Callon, puis Madeleine Akrich, ouvrit l’ANT (théorie de l’acteur-réseau) à de nouveaux terrains, dans les champs jusqu’alors inexplorés par cette dernière de l’art et de la culture. Cet anniversaire…

For a software policy to calculate gender inequality

Vincent-Arnaud Chappe

The government has just decided to generalize the use of software to calculate the wage gap between women and men in companies, in order to force them to reduce wage inequality by 2022. This software is part of a history of statistical equipment of companies in favor of professional equality. Initially, in 1983, with the great Roudy law on professional equality, companies with more than 300 employees are required to produce an annual “Comparative Status on the Situation between Women […]

The Chibanis of the SNCF: an exemplary mobilization

Vincent-Arnaud Chappe et Narguesse Keyhani

Wednesday, January 31, 12:30 pm: we queue in front of the Palais de Justice (Law Courts) on the Ile de la Cité, in Paris, hoping to hear the deliberation of the hearing held, eight months ago on appeal, in the lawsuit opposing 848 railway workers, most of them of Moroccan origin, to the SNCF (French National Railway Company). They are waiting for the confirmation of the verdict of the labor courts which, two years before, recognized, the discrimination exercised by the railway company on the grounds of their nationality and origin. Like dozens of railway workers, we have not managed to enter the Palais de […]

L’emprise des marchés, a book by Michel Callon

The grip of markets. Understanding how they function in order to change them

While partisans and despisers of the market economy confront each other with a rare violence, a prior question arises: what is a market?
Michel Callon shows that the organization of market activities is not limited to the mere confrontation between offers and demands. How is a “thing” transformed, after immense […]

Rethinking political with STS lens

Colloquium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the CSI
30 November – 1st December, 2017

The Center for the Sociology of Innovation is 50 years old!

In celebration of its 50th anniversary, the CSI organized a two-day colloquium on November 30th and December 1st. Since its foundation in 1967, the CSI has played a major role in the development of the field of Science and Technology Studies. The CSI has contributed to the analysis of innovation processes, the place of science and technology in society, the dynamics of the economy. This celebration of the CSI’s 50th anniversary was an opportunity to […]

2017 Forccast Prize for the Controversy Mapping Awards Ceremony

The 2017 Forccast Controversy Mapping Awards Ceremony took place on June 30 at Sciences Po. This was a special occasion as the event capped off an all-day symposium organized for the hand-over of Bruno Latour to Dominique Cardon at the head of Sciences Po’s Médialab. A prize was awarded to the best work realized in 2017 within the framework of three different courses that, as Nicolas Benvegnu, executive director of the Forccast program, recalled, were successively created and taught by Bruno Latour. The earliest course […]