MéthéoGéo

The MéthéoGéo seminar is traditionally organized by Grenoble's Pacte social science laboratory, bringing together doctoral students and a guest from the academic world for one or two days. Thematic, methodological and epistemological questions are addressed, based on the intersection of the guest's work and that of the participants. While the Cité des Territoires teams' organization of the seminar generally anchors it in the fields of geography and urban planning, it is nonetheless cross-disciplinary in the issues it tackles, and open to all. As such, each edition is inspired by and cross-referenced with current issues in the academic world and the fields of interest of the participants involved.

The seminar is usually held at Cermosem, a branch of the Pacte laboratory in the Ardèche region of France, which offers a privileged setting for exchange, isolated from the laboratory's usual activities in Grenoble, but also from urban activity. This location offers a field of experimentation, on which participants and guests can take a fresh look. This year, a common desire emerged during the preparation of the seminar: to question the researcher's position in the light of his or her investigative methods, but also of his or her "commitments", whether personal or expressed in public debate. The place of commitment in scientific research has been widely questioned in recent years, even outside the academic world and mainly through controversy, sometimes provoking shortcuts and misunderstandings. With this in mind, we turned to Frédéric Barbe, who accepted our invitation.

Frédéric Barbe is a geography and planning researcher associated with the AAU laboratory - Centre de Recherche Nantais Architectures Urbanités (CRENAU). His work addresses issues such as inhabitation, political ecology, metropolization and citizen movements. His research addresses, for example, the experimentation of the Notre-Dame-des-Landes ZAD, the tourism policy of Nantes Métropole, the inhabitant experience in neighborhoods undergoing urban renewal, and more. He claims an "ontological tact" that leads him to consider lived experience and the words of residents as essential material for his research approach. With the "A la criée" collective, in which he plays an active part, he publishes works of various kinds (anti-tourist guides, radical maps, etc.), synthesizing part of his work in objects aimed at a wider audience than just academics.