Papers by Philippe BRUNET
Techniques & culture, 2016
Journal of Innovation Economics
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour De Boeck Supérieur. © De Boeck Supérieur. Tous droits r... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour De Boeck Supérieur. © De Boeck Supérieur. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
Radioactive Waste, 2012
The analysis of environmental issues inevitably requires the contribution of an array of scientif... more The analysis of environmental issues inevitably requires the contribution of an array of scientific disciplines. The experimental sciences, whose goal is the knowledge of natural phenomena, cannot aspire, alone, to resolve the problems raised by interactions between human societies and nature. Nor can the social sciences claim any monopoly thereto. This is particularly true of our industrial societies, which ceaselessly produce what Ulrich Beck calls "latent induced effects" (1986) which engender long term environmental and health hazards. Their understanding is always belated. It is very often achieved by expertise in experimental sciences, intersecting with the wisdom of common sense, social mobilisations, and the weight of prevailing social norms (Wynne, 1997). Their extent and lastingness accordingly result from the combination of two factors, one being determined by the other. One factor include the limits, at any time, to the knowledge and predictions that they make possible, in terms of the future trend of a given industrial process ; other factor, the social relationships of production and reproduction whereby this industrial process is implemented by relying on the prior art, but also on prevalent beliefs and ideologies. These social relationships also produce social values and norms. Under the impact of the rapport between capital and labour, they sustain the subdivisions inherent in any process of industrial production and in its organisation between experts and laymen, producers and consumers, particularly via legitimating arguments (Braverman, 1975). The sociological analysis of environmental issues requires an understanding of the dynamic of these social relationships through the examination of their tensions and conflicts which, very often, are crystallised in these dialectical forms. It must be considered as complementary to the analysis of the nature sciences, without one ever substituting for the other. It is in this perspective that we propose to analyse the production process of the uranium industry, a vital link in the production of nuclear energy. We shall focus particularly on its remnants. We shall show that the qualification of radioactive waste which henceforth attaches to them results from practices of the players within changing configurations, to varying degrees conflictual. The challenge concerns the hegemony of legitimacy to say and to do with regard www.intechopen.com Radioactive Waste 20 to their management. This perspective accordingly implies carrying out a long range analysis to grasp their evolution. This chapter is divided into two parts. The first describes the emergence of the problematics, in which science, technology, politics and standards are combined in a scheme of specific production relationships. It dwells on the early decades of the atomic complex, to grasp its various structural components and, ultimately, to understand the function of the radioactive waste qualification process. The second part expands the analysis of this mechanism over the long term, based on the case of France. The focus is then directed at the least known productive segment of the nuclear complex, the uranium mining industry, and on its repercussions in terms of waste. 2. Science, politics and standards concerned with radioactive waste: A new horizon By virtue of its history, and its underlying scientific knowledge and techniques, the atomic industry, later called the nuclear industry, is linked with the state of war. This is why no doubt more than any other, this industry has been ambivalent since its inception. It is oriented towards destruction as well as production (Naville, 1977). This attribute is especially pronounced as the structure becomes recursive. Indeed, the earliest large atomic facilities that went on stream in the USA, the USSR, Great Britain and France, were plants simultaneously generating plutonium and electricity for military and civilian uses (Barillot and Davis, 1994). Similarly, the environmental and health hazards associated with the concept of energy generation were precisely the "arguments", amply demonstrated in practice, of its capacity to destroy at a hitherto unsuspected scale. This finding became the background for the many descriptions, popularisations and justifications of the new industry (Ducrocq, 1948; Martin, 1956; Goldschmidt, 1962), giving rise to many consequences that we shall examine in turn, and globally. First, the control of this industry was directly assumed by the States and associations thereof, in peacetime and wartime alike. Second, its technological and strategic sophistication generated an intensive and tight interpenetration of different professional worlds: scientific, military, industrial and political. This tense closed world reflected the elitist, in other words, non-democratic, relationship that became established for decisions pertaining to this industry. And finally, its ambivalence marked an associated process: the qualification of "radioactive waste". The narrow perimeter in which it was long contained caused the slowness of its development, and also, in exchange, the deep democratic penetration that it received. 2.1 The atomic and nuclear industry: A matter for States at the planetary scale After the Second World War, the atomic industry developed essentially in obedience to geostrategic and military objectives. A differentiation set in between States according to whether or not they possessed the atomic weapon and its uranium fuel. This cleavage was not exclusively of a technical or economic nature. It was also political, and had two outcomes. States owning atomic weapons sought to hamper the access of other candidate states to the possession of the industrial process. It hence ordered and crystallised the global ranking of the military powers. This situation still prevails today. For example, the sanctions imposed against Iran since 2006 by the UN Security Council, claimed justification in the fact www.intechopen.com
Revue Interventions économiques. …, 2011
Les partenariats induits des relations entre la recherche académique et d'autres sphères intéress... more Les partenariats induits des relations entre la recherche académique et d'autres sphères intéressées par ses produits relèvent du processus de contextualisation de la science. Ils provoquent des transformations plus ou moins fortes du procès de production scientifique. On examine ce problème à partir de l'analyse d'un cas : l'Institut des cellules Souches pour le Traitement et l'Etude des maladies Monogéniques (ISTEM). Il s'agit d'un laboratoire de recherches biomédicales dans le domaine controversé des cellules souches embryonnaires humaines (CSEh) dont il constitue un point dense en France (Brunet, 2007). Son existence résulte d'un partenariat entre l'Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) et l'Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM), qui pose certaines questions du point de vue des relations entre la science et l'industrie biomédicale, plus généralement entre la science et la société. Ainsi, quels sont les effets de ces relations, s'agissant de leur institutionnalisation, sur la production scientifique et son organisation du travail ? Comment saisir ce processus partenarial à la fois dans son unité et dans ses tensions internes ? Qu'en est-il de la mobilisation des acteurs qui y participent quand ils sont aussi divers que les scientifiques, les malades et les entrepreneurs ? Qu'ont-ils à faire ensemble et comment le font-ils ? L'article se propose de répondre à ces questions en trois temps. Procès de production d'une recherche orientée entre chercheurs, malades et en... Revue Interventions économiques, 43 | 2011 Procès de production d'une recherche orientée entre chercheurs, malades et en...
Revue d’économie industrielle, 2007
Revue d'économie industrielle 120 | 4e trimestre 2007 Recherche et innovation dans les sciences d... more Revue d'économie industrielle 120 | 4e trimestre 2007 Recherche et innovation dans les sciences du vivant Mise en place d'une organisation du travail technoscientifique autour du potentiel des cellules souches embryonnaires humaines
Natures Sciences Sociétés, 2008
Les questions environnementales, et notamment celle du nucléaire (cf. NSS, 9, 1 ; NSS, 11, 3), fo... more Les questions environnementales, et notamment celle du nucléaire (cf. NSS, 9, 1 ; NSS, 11, 3), font souvent l'objet de publication dans NSS. Cet article vient enrichir les débats en proposant une réflexion sur ce qui est à l'origine de la mobilisation d'un individu, d'un citoyen, et donc sur ce qui fait qu'on devient un militant antinucléaire. Cette même question des ressorts de l'engagement a été appronfondie, à propos des chercheurs cette fois, lors de la publication du dossier dirigé par C. Bonneuil (NSS, 14, 3) dont un des articles portait sur l'évolution des figures de l'engagement antinucléaire chez les scientifiques des années 1950 à nos jours. L'article de P. Brunet prolonge donc ce questionnement comme le fait sur un autre thème le Regard de Béatrice Mésini dans ce même numéro.
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Papers by Philippe BRUNET