The conference series "Crises, mutations and anticipations: thinking about futures in the Humanities and Social Sciences" is open to doctoral students (registration on ADUM), researchers and teacher-researchers. This lecture series is part of the SoMuM Institute's Mediterranean Studies doctoral program.

Coordinators: Sylvie Mazzella - SoMuM, MESOPOLHIS and Antoine Dolez - MESOPOLHIS, SoMuM, Plan Bleu

Session 1. Putting possible horizons into a narrative

6 December 2021, 10:00-12:30
(Seurat Room, MMSH, Aix-en-Provence)

Political, ecological, health and economic crises generate uncertain and dark visions of the future and upset our conceptions of temporality (bifurcations and unpredictable changes). Many voices are therefore calling for the creation of "new narratives" to think about these uncertain futures and the sudden and brutal transformations we may be confronted with.

For this first session, the working group wishes to reflect on the use of narratives and scenarios in the Humanities and Social Sciences. In Aristotle's and Paul Ricoeur's writings, the "setting in narrative" has a configurative and heuristic power where the events arranged according to a precise order are producers of meaning. The working group thus wishes to explore and question this capacity of narratives to render intelligible the complexity of events and transformations. To this end, this session proposes four papers that explore the different functions of "storytelling (imagining, understanding, anticipating), both at the individual (biographical narratives) and collective (institutional narratives) levels.

Speakers

Claire Bidart (director of research at CNRS and LEST) will present her research on life stories and biographical bifurcations.

Nathalie Rubio (professor of public law at the CERIC) will discuss the concept of "judicial narrative", a notion that corresponds to a "narrative turn" undertaken in the Legal Sciences.

François Dumasy (lecturer in history at the MESOPOLHIS laboratory) will propose a critical reading of the current of counterfactual history, which explores the contingency of historical facts through the use of fictional narrative.

Antoine Dolez (post-doctoral fellow at the SoMuM Institute, the MESOPOLHIS laboratory and Plan Bleu) will explain how Future Studies analyses, dissects and criticizes the "Grand Narratives" of the futures of our contemporary era.

Registration required

In person or by videoconference:
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/penser-les-futurs-en-shs-seance-1-la-mise-en-recit-des-horizons-possibles-5sikhua8

Session 2. Projections, simulations, foresight: how to "know" the future?

27 January 2022, 10:00-12:30
(Paul Albert Février Room, MMSH, Aix-en-Provence)

This second session is devoted to the study of anticipation techniques and technologies (modelling, simulation, foresight). What tools and knowledge are available to anticipate possible futures? How do these tools and knowledge shape the object they seek to understand? What is the view on the technological promises of the avalanche of data (Big Data)? The four papers will look at the knowledge and technologies used to "know" the future.

Speakers

Isabelle Blöss-Widmer (lecturer in demography at the MESOPOLHIS laboratory and director of DemoMed) will discuss projections in demography.

Bruno Ventelou (Director of research in economics at the CNRS and AMSE) will present his work on the modelling and long-term forecasting of health expenditure.

Paolo Chevalier (demographer, doctor in urban planning and employee of the company Kisio) will present the use of GPS data and Big Data to model urban mobility.

Khadidja Amine (in charge of sustainable development and prospective at Plan Bleu) will present the prospective programme "MED 2050" supported by Plan Bleu and which aims at imagining the possible and desirable futures of the Mediterranean system by 2050.

Registration required

In person or by videoconference:
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/penser-les-futurs-en-shs-seance-2-projections-simulations-prospectives-comment-connaitre-le-futur-zukwbkcs

Session 3. Foresight and national and international public action: crisis management and recovery, security

24 March 2022, 10:00-12:30
(Paul Albert Février Room, MMSH, Aix-en-Provence)

For this third session, we propose four papers that aim to question the notion of "crisis" and to present the different ways in which the human and social sciences deal with this object. We will thus bring together these different approaches that deal with crises, their management, their anticipation and their resolution.

Speakers

Thomas Pierret (Research fellow at CNRS and IREMAM) will present his work on the Syrian crisis.

Romain Le Bœuf (professor of international public law and researcher at CERIC) will present his work on peace treaties (crisis exit).

Bruno Tiberghien (lecturer in Management Sciences at the IMPGT) and Markolf Jossou (doctoral student in Management Sciences at the IMPGT) will present their analyses on crisis management and territorial resilience.

Paul-Henri Richard (research engineer at UTT and administrator of the Chair of Crisis Management) will present the research and teaching platform of crisis cell simulation: PRESAGES.

Registration required

In person or by videoconference:
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/penser-les-futurs-en-shs-seance-3-prospective-et-action-publique-nationale-et-internationale-gestions-et-sorties-de-crises-securite-3srnesjy

Session 4. The actors of foresight: "from above" and "from below

April 2022 [date and time to be confirmed]
(Room to be confirmed, MMSH, Aix-en-Provence)

For this fourth session, we wish to present the "actors of foresight" by showing their diversity, whether these actors are institutional, academic or simple citizens. To this end, two papers will focus on institutional actors, "those at the top", such as the IPCC or foresight "think tanks" (Futuribles). The other two papers will present the "bottom" actors: citizens who mobilize against infrastructure projects, such as wind turbines, and farmers who anticipate current and future ecological crises.

Speakers

Wolfgang Cramer (research director at the CNRS and at the Mediterranean Institute of Biodiversity and Marine and Continental Ecology (IMBE) and professor of global ecology) is lead author for the sixth assessment report of the IPCC and coordinates the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC). He will present the functioning of these institutions and his professional experience within them.

Jacques Theys (vice-president of the French Foresight Society and a privileged witness of the evolution of foresight in France) will talk about his career at the interface between science, teaching and politics.

Stéphanie Dechézelles (lecturer in political science at the MESOPOLHIS laboratory) will present her work on citizen groups that oppose the installation of wind turbines in France and Italy.

Serge Rohmer (teacher-researcher at the InSyTE research unit) will discuss his research project AgroBioCovid19 where he went to meet farmers to understand how they have adapted to the health crisis and various environmental crises.

Registration required

In person or by videoconference:
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/penser-les-futurs-en-shs-seance-4-les-acteurs-de-la-prospective-par-le-haut-et-par-le-bas-xflfdlxk

Session 5. Exploring possible imaginaries: futures, arts and fictions

June 2022 [date and time to be confirmed]
(Room to be confirmed, MMSH, Aix-en-Provence)

In this last session, we will focus on the ways in which the Humanities and Social Sciences mobilize hybrid approaches, between arts, fictions and sciences to debate social problems and imagine possible futures. The four papers question, in their own ways, our imaginations by proposing sensory, fictional and playful experiences to their audiences.

Speakers

Sylvie Paradis-Lelli : (Scientific collaborator University of Geneva (Switzerland), SDS faculty, GEDT Institute; Associate researcher in the UMR Territoires (Clermont-Ferrand, France) and Associate researcher in the Institute of Environmental Sciences of the University of Geneva, Switzerland), will present her project of "sensitive foresight" carried out with schoolchildren and inhabitants during her art-science residency within the framework of the Arriskua program (culture of the natural risk on the Basque coastline)

Nathalie DelpratIn addition to the presentation of the work of the artist and the artist's own work, the author, a lecturer at Sorbonne University Paris, attached to the Laboratoire interdisciplinaire des Sciences du Numérique (LISN), and an associate member of the Centre Gilles Gaston Granger (CGGG), will present her work between art and science of "augmented daydreams" which offer a tool for philosophical experimentation, inspired by the work of the philosopher Gaston Bachelard.

[Two other speakers are to be confirmed].

Registration required

In person or by videoconference:
https://evento.renater.fr/survey/penser-les-futurs-en-shs-seance-5-explorer-les-imaginaires-possibles-futurs-arts-et-fictions-8oeuv68g