Laurent LESPEZ, Univ. Paris-Est Créteil et LGP-CNRS UMR 8591, France
In the Anthropocene era, the transformation of nature by societies is increasingly well understood. Even if the agenda still often remains that of the study of interactions between nature and societies, many researches propose to consider today's nature as the result of the hybridization between nature and culture. Geography has long demonstrated that these hybrids correspond to systems and has more recently added that they also correspond to the elementary objects that constitute them (sediment, tree, etc.) which are ontologically socionatural. We are not studying hybrids of nature and culture but hybrids between different processes, and the differentiation is more methodological than ontological. Nevertheless, a review of geographical research shows that hybridization, either implicit or obvious, remains more a general frame of reference than a programmatic issue.
Using the example of small rivers, we will show that a detailed examination of the objects and processes at work reveals an extraordinary entanglement of temporalities and the crucial importance of places and localizations in the functioning of contemporary socio-ecosystems. In the Anthropocene era, where the diffusion of knowledge on a global scale leads to a standardization of diagnoses, evaluations and market-driven restoration procedures, we argue that it is crucial to take into consideration the knowledge of trajectories and temporalities at work as well as places where the hybrids interact. We therefore propose (1) to strengthen an intradisciplinary space to better understand the interactions between ourselves, the hybrids that populate our world, and the spontaneity that remains; (2) to ground interdisciplinary dialogue in terrain and materiality in moving beyond principled agreements and renewing the geographical study of the environment.
Mots clés : Nature|Society|Hybrids|Anthropocene|River
A103828LL