Description du projet
Redécouvrir les changements de saison
Les changements climatiques, naturels et sociaux rapides actuels provoquent la désynchronisation de nos représentations saisonnières par rapport à la réalité météorologique. Par exemple, un «Noël blanc» est désormais un souvenir lointain dans de nombreuses régions du monde. Ce n’est là qu’un exemple des représentations saisonnières, qui peuvent prendre différentes formes comme des histoires, des images, des expériences, des prévisions scientifiques, des signes naturels, des proverbes ou des pratiques. Le projet CALENDARS, financé par l’UE, analysera comment le changement climatique est susceptible de saper nos concepts ou nos représentations des saisons telles que nous les connaissons. L’hypothèse est que les individus ne peuvent pas s’adapter au changement de saisons s’ils vivent selon des idées dépassées et inexactes de ce qu’elles sont. Ceci est important si l’on considère que toutes nos institutions – des écoles aux hôpitaux et du gouvernement aux clubs sportifs – programment leurs activités sur la base de nos différentes représentations des saisons.
Objectif
Climate change may be undermining the stock of seasonal representations that society draws on to understand and live according to the weather. The CALENDARS project studies how modern society represents seasons, and how these representations shape institutions and help people live with seasonal change. The project opens an important emerging field in climate adaptation research by examining the representations of ‘normal’ seasons underlying key institutions, assesses their quality for successful adaptation to rapid climate change, and analyses facilitators and barriers to adopting representations more flexibly to new climates. It contributes a novel perspective on how to transform our institutions – from schools to farmer cooperatives – from the foundational culture and representations up, to better fit the changing seasonal cycles we are experiencing.
CALENDARS empirically explores the relationship between different institutions’ ideas of seasons and their successful adaptation through an in-depth comparative study of a set of institutions in two local communities, in Norway and New Zealand. It is steered by an overall objective to: ‘Advance knowledge and understanding of how seasonal representations shape and are shaped by institutions, and critically appraise the quality of these representations for contributing to successful adaptation to seasonal change’.
Conceptually, CALENDARS looks at representations as continuously ‘co-produced’ at the boundary of nature and society, and society and institutions. It tests a novel reconceptualisation of co-production as a prism; with each of the project’s three phases looking at the complex processes by which representations emerge through different ‘lenses’ of co-production. Methodologically, the project tests the feasibility of a novel basket of bespoke methods spanning narrative interviews, calendar boundary objects and collaborative sustainability science.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
5020 Bergen
Norvège