Mobility and the Lyon-Turin rail project controversy

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 areas, 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 and flora conservation in 2021, this year’s focus is on the controversies and issues surrounding transnational mobility. The base camp will be set up in Aussois in the Maurienne region of Savoie.

Adopting a distanced, reflexive and symmetrical stance with regard to the interplay of actors and arguments, this immersion offers a territorial approach to the controversy. The aim is to grasp the complexity and hybrid nature of situations surrounding the new Lyon-Turin transalpine rail link project and the public issues at stake over the long term. The challenge is to understand that this eminently political public problem cannot be reduced – as is often the case in socio-scientific controversies – to strictly technical, scientific or deterritorialized responses.

The project articulates different pedagogical formats (field survey workshop, research seminar and creative workshop) to imagine new forms of scientific communication and mediation.