Energy transition and tensions around a gypsum quarry

The project, run by the Master’s degree in Scientific and Technical Communication and Culture (CCST) at Grenoble Alpes University, aims to analyze the contemporary issues surrounding the cultural mediation of science and nature in society. Using the case of mountain regions, the aim is to understand the growing complexity of these relationships, and to define what we call “science”, “scientific culture” and “audiences”. Scientific and ecological issues have gone beyond the confines of research institutions to become public problems, addressed by experts, professionalized communication, associations and public action.

Each year, the Croscus project focuses on a different theme in an Alpine region. After the wolf issue in 2019, flora conservation in 2021 and transnational mobility in 2022, this year’s focus is on the controversies and issues surrounding the energy transition. The base camp will be set up in Bramans, Maurienne (Savoie).

Adopting a distanced, reflexive and symmetrical stance with regard to the interplay of actors and arguments, this immersion should enable us to grasp the complexity and hybrid nature of situations surrounding the project to create a special gypsum quarry zone and the public issues raised by the energy transition. It will also show that this eminently political public issue cannot be reduced – as is often the case in socio-scientific controversies – to strictly technical, scientific or deterritorialized responses.

The project articulates several pedagogical formats (field survey, research seminar and creative workshop) that can give rise to various forms of scientific communication and mediation: a popular science video, a stream on Twitch and scientific animations with a public of 5th graders from Modane middle school.