On the Plurality of Environmental Regimes of Anticipation

Antoine Dolez,Louvel Séverine,Granjou Céline

doi:10.23987/sts.64919

Abstract

In recent years, the social sciences have increasingly investigated ways in which futures are anticipated, fostered, and pre-empted. However, less attention has been given to how various predictive approaches inform different ways of acting in the present. Our article presents the results of an investigation into the current practices and agendas of forest scientists and managers in France. We first suggest how an anticipation of environmental futures is coming to the fore as an emerging field of expertise and practices in forest sciences, including predicting but also monitoring, preparing and adapting to projected futures. We then account for the co-existence of three “micro-regimes” of anticipation combining a certain approach to the forest, a certain vision of the future, and a certain type of scientific predictive approach, including different anticipatory objectives, different modelling practices, and different interactions between research and management: i/ Adapting forestry to future climates; ii/ Predicting Future Tree Biology; iii/ Monitoring forests as indicators of climate change.

Highlights

In recent years, the social sciences have increasingly investigated the ways in which futures are anticipated, fostered, and pre–empted (Adams et al, 2009; Tavory and Eliasoph, 2013; Andersson and Duhautois, 2016; Coleman and Tutton, 2017; Granjou et al, 2017)
We shall describe how climate change topics and concerns are transforming forest science organisations, collaborations and material infrastructures of knowledge, including practices of data production, and how this process of ‘climatisation’ (Aykut et al.., 2017) involves increasing exchanges and collaborations between forest science, ecology and climate science and the models that were previously developed in isolation from each of those fields
The forest scientists we interviewed are members of the main disciplines involved in forest science and various research institutions, including France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA) and the National Institute for Agriculture Research (INRA)

Summary

Introduction

The social sciences have increasingly investigated the ways in which futures are anticipated, fostered, and pre–empted (Adams et al, 2009; Tavory and Eliasoph, 2013; Andersson and Duhautois, 2016; Coleman and Tutton, 2017; Granjou et al, 2017). We shall document the co–existence of three micro– regimes of anticipation in the case of French forest science and management and eventually account for their tensions and relations Each of these micro–regimes combines a vision of the future with an approach to the forest, including a certain type of scientific predictive approach associated with modelling practices. Following the analytical distinction introduced by Mike Michael (2017), each ‘micro–regime’ of anticipation shapes and performs both “Big” and “Little” futures including ecological futures (climate change), economic futures (forestry evolution), and academic and scientific futures (research agenda setting, maintenance or creation of collaborations, publication writing, etc.) These are ways of negotiating their coexistence and potential tensions at various levels. Close relations and collaborations between forests scientists, managers and decision–makers are an

Type of scientific predictive practices

Findings

Conclusion