Social Justice

1. Inequalities, vulnerabilities and public policies

The perennial questions of "what is a just society" and, more generally, how society should support the most vulnerable among us regularly make their way onto the social and political agenda. In a world where the term “crisis” evokes dwindling resources, these questions are strongly influenced by various forms of globalization that homogenize political thought and direct the actions of diverse actors (states, political parties, activist collectives, citizens, etc.). The same shared frames of reference now influence how these actors are redefining their positions, their relationships, and what they identify as "priorities." Research in the social sciences at interconnected local, national, and international scales is attempting to account for the complexity and diversity of the logics at work. These studies tend to highlight phenomena of interaction, even negotiation, between individuals, social groups, and states, postulating that public policies are less the fruit of a unidirectional relationship – that of the state imposing its will on civil society – than the result of compositional effects and complex transactions that cut across all social strata. They draw on the sociology of public action, political science, social and cultural geography, critical urban studies, gender or critical studies, and the political and social history of ideas, all ways of interpreting the world that build off of each other, even when they contest each other.

From this perspective, the team seeks to analyze the political and social logics of the (re)production of inequalities, vulnerabilities, and social and/or territorial exclusions. We give particular attention to the ways in which public policies participate in regulating social relationships, transforming or even participating in the (re)production of inequalities, and thus co-producing one interpretation of social justice. The team is also committed to questioning and integrating the place (positionality, reflexivity) of researchers, diverse publics (see the Research Chair for Publics des politiques sociales: https://cpublics.hypotheses.org/) and the socio-technical actors and devices that connect them into analyses of the production of social justice frameworks.

This involves describing and analyzing the conditions under which public policies emerge, specifically the power relations – both bottom-up and top-down – that lead to the development of social categories, the political production of ways to interpret the world, and, ultimately, the establishment of new ideological frameworks for public action. Finally, we give particular attention to the production of gender norms in public policy, in the structuring of spaces, and in the lived experience and imaginations of individuals. This work contributes to efforts to recognize the rights of women and minorities by revealing both the "voice" of new collectives and the resistance to this non-recognition of rights.

2. Borders, migration, and exile

Team members are interested in borders, migration, and exile, as well as in the intersections of these different fields of research.

The analyses we carry out draw on various fields of critical research (critical border studies, critical migration studies, critical geopolitics, radical geography, critical cartography, radical cartography, etc.) with an aim to reflect on the different forms, functions, places, politics, and actors of the border. The border is understood first and foremost as a geopolitical place where various processes are applied to filter the flows of globalization (of goods, people, and ideas). Far from the image of a simple line separating two state entities, the border is studied as a type of space and space-time in which interlocking processes of opening and closing take place, and through which phenomena linked to passage and its control are observed.

In particular, team members study issues of reception, hospitality, confinement, violence, and death at borders, linking them to questions of exclusion and social injustice based on criteria of nationality or belonging, in synergy with Axis 1 (Inequalities, vulnerabilities, and public policies). Indissociable from the observation of these "social frontiers," team members pay particular attention to the way in which the systemic violence of migration policies towards exiled people (especially those who are discriminated against and/or racialized) generates epistemic violence at the root of their invisibilization and/or silencing. The contrast between the spectacle of border closure discourse and the invisibility of a large number of bordering processes is addressed, notably through artistic representations.

Taking a reflexive stance on the roles and responsibilities of the social sciences, our methods focus on the co-production of knowledge and (pluri)situated representations of the border and reception – in particular through sensitive mapping, photography, and podcasting approaches – through action-research and/or research-creation methods with a variety of stakeholders, in particular people in precarious or irregular migration situations or forced into forms of constrained movement/immobility; exile support associations; and policy-makers at various levels.

3. Recreational practices and transitions in tourist areas

Numerous research studies point to the presence of socio-environmental inequalities and injustices in the context of recreational and sporting practices in nature. By examining the lives of inhabitants in rural and mountain areas, the living and working conditions of seasonal workers, the transformation of ecosystems, access to recreational activities and spaces for people from working-class urban backgrounds or for those with disabilities, or exposure to the risk of accidents, many situations of social and spatial injustice can be observed. The team's work, for example, studies inequalities in the use of digital and technological devices in recreational practices. It also observes the effects of these uses on natural recreational areas in terms of improving users’ place-based skills and creating impacts on the environments where activities occur.

Over and above sector-specific intervention practices to reduce injustice, we explore the question of how to transition recreational activities in response to the multiple contemporary vulnerabilities that threaten today's territorial systems and lifestyles more globally. The challenge of this research collective is to reveal the impasses of existing development models and to propose viable, liveable, desirable, and sustainable alternatives for transformation. In particular, we seek to document the path dependency that is observable on the part of all those who wish to maintain the current vision of the world of tourism and leisure activities. Just as we wish to study and accompany ongoing transformations, some of our research focuses, for example, on local experimentation and professional reorganization in order to imagine new forms of solidarity, cooperation and adaptation to climate change. Others aim to facilitate the collective and transnational development of new ways forward to ensure a viable and shared future for mountain territories, which are particularly impacted by the effects of global changes, including climate change. New social uses of recreational spaces are emerging to rethink relationships with non-humans and recreational spaces. Beyond the reification of recreational practices (which some people would like to see), other uses of peoples’ free time are emerging alongside sports and leisure. We observe traditional activities such as trail maintenance, participatory site management, huts, etc.) being incorporated into the free time of people choosing to live alternative lifestyles.

More generally, the study and development of transitional recreational commons offer a stimulating avenue for research into the political approach to developing territories for sport. Our theoretical perspective aims to engage a new way of doing science that activates an epistemic transition with the intention of changing the relationship between science and society through a focus on Transition Studies, participatory approaches, and action research.

4. The urban as political space

This axis focuses on inhabited space as a framework for interaction between the political and institutional production of the urban, the ordinary production of space through uses and forms of collective action, and social movements within territories. The history and evolution of critical urban theories and practices continue to inform the political construction and value of urban space as a terrain of struggle, domination, inequality, and vulnerability, but also of cooperation, solidarity, commitment, and alternatives.

The team's work highlights transformative effects in the field of urban planning and urban and territorial studies, resulting from the encounter of institutional mechanisms, public policies, and administrative actors on the one hand, and citizen and community practices on the other. These convergences take many forms, from experimentation with new ways of transforming the city, to institutional or citizen initiatives, to forms of collective appropriation of spaces, to challenges to or the formation of alternative projects.

Urban transformations and shared management of the city are approached from the perspective of specific categories of the public (children, young people, the elderly, women, etc.) and from consideration of public policies in which social and urban issues intersect (such as affordable housing, access to housing, or the production of urban commons). The intersection of several social science disciplines and research methods, and sometimes action research and co-research initiatives, enable team members to analyze situated spatial knowledge and lived space, narratives and imaginaries recalled and/or produced, and systems of governance and varied forms of engagement.

5. Pedagogies

Team members are also interested in teaching, student supervision, and pedagogical issues within higher education. From 2019-2020, this axis is gradually structured on the basis of best practices shared within the team. The questions raised concern both the content taught in the classroom (what is shared, for what reasons, for whom?) and the teaching methods used. In this context, the research carried out under this axis focuses more specifically on the transmission of geographical knowledge within the framework of the MEEF (Métiers de l'Éducation, de l'Enseignement et de la Formation) master’s courses, on fieldwork and internship practices, and on the pedagogical challenges of supervision at the master's and doctoral levels. As with the other areas, this axis activates international bibliographies, both from English-speaking circles and from Southern Theory. It also draws on active and critical pedagogies, inspired by bell hooks and Paulo Freire among others. Beyond their theoretical contributions, the scientific research carried out in this axis has a transformative aim, insofar as it seeks, for example, to introduce greater horizontality into teaching practices and to identify and reduce relationships of domination that can be exerted in teaching practice.

Seminar series

• Writing workshop - Contact : Laura Péaud
• Research keywords : involving the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Alpes and the Regulations and Social Justice teams at Pacte, this seminar contributes to building the following research object: why members of the public do or do not use services, and more broadly the relation of citizens to public policy. Contact: philippe.warinsciencespo-grenoble.fr (philippe[dot]warin[at]sciencespo-grenoble[dot]fr)