Maestro – Mountain, communication and astronomy

Maestro focuses on two projects to promote scientific tourism in Dévoluy and Queyras (Hautes-Alpes): the creation of a museographic space on the one hand, and on the other, a space for scientific mediation, a proposed hotel complex and a 3000-meter-high cable car. These projects tend to be seen by their promoters as eco-compatible territorial development opportunities that could revitalize small family ski resorts in the Alps in the face of growing economic and climatic vulnerability.

Maestro is part of an interdisciplinary approach to social sciences in the wake of Science studies. Through the analysis of a socio-scientific controversy and the public issues it raises in a context of ecological transition called for by climate disruption, Maestro lies at the intersection of two themes supported by Labex ITTEM’s scientific project: “tourism and recreational transitions” and “territorialities of transition: mobility, energy and communications”.

This project has a triple objective. Firstly, to analyze the public issues surrounding the dissemination of scientific culture and the promotion of scientific heritage in mountain areas. Secondly, to document the mechanism by which a subject is invited into public debate, and the specific nature of this process in a mountain region. Lastly, to grasp the role of communication in these “science-society” relations and through its various territorial variations.