Quand la science construit des problèmes exemplaires

• Main Authors: Philippe Deuffic, Jacqueline Candau
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Association Internationale des Sociologues de Langue Française 2017-05-01
• Series: Sociologies
• Subjects: dead wood; shaping a scientific problem; ecology; biodiversity; forestry
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/sociologies/6058

This paper scrutinizes the different roles played by scientists when they built and put on the agenda biodiversity conservation as a public problem, by taking dead wood preservation as an example. By playing six roles successively or simultaneously, they succeeded in transforming this neglected by-product of forest management in an essential indicator of forest biodiversity in less than a decade. This evolution was effective because of an intense work of categorisation, and unexpected climatic catastrophe, and the emergence of international environmental standards. This combination of factors led to a new reinterpretation of traditional forestry cognitive frames and their alignment on the ecologization of productive practices, more favourable to dead wood conservation.