Description du projet
Étudier l’impact sociopolitique des forêts intelligentes
Les technologies numériques telles que les forêts intelligentes deviennent des stratégies majeures pour faire face aux changements environnementaux. Les forêts intelligentes visent à accroître les avantages climatiques qu’offrent les forêts et le secteur forestier. Ces nouvelles technologies peuvent toutefois avoir des répercussions sociopolitiques imprévues, et les forêts intelligentes, contrairement aux villes intelligentes, restent des sujets peu étudiés. Le projet SmartForests, financé par l’UE, examinera comment les forêts intelligentes sont établies et comment les technologies numériques influencent la gestion de l’environnement. En tenant compte du fait que les forêts intelligentes risquent potentiellement de créer des inégalités sociopolitiques et une gouvernance non démocratique, le projet explorera et analysera comment les technologies numériques transforment les forêts et les communautés forestières en examinant les pratiques de surveillance, d’atténuation, de régulation et de transformation des changements environnementaux.
Objectif
Forests are crucial to acting on environmental change. They are key contributors to the carbon cycle and biodiversity, as well as air and water quality. At the same time, digital technologies are reshaping forests in order to manage and enhance their environmental contributions. However, these new technologies are generating social-political impacts that have yet to be extensively researched. For the first time, this groundbreaking project addresses the vital question of how forests are becoming “smart” through the increasing use of digital technologies to manage these environments. Smart forests span locations from Germany to New York City to Thailand, and from remote to urban areas. While there is now extensive research on smart cities, other “smart” environments have been less well studied. This is problematic, since it is necessary to assess how these technologies enable and constrain particular modes of governance and engagement. Without this research, smart environments such as smart forests run the risk of producing social-political inequities and undemocratic governance, as has been identified with smart cities. Using inventive digital practices, fieldwork, participatory workshops and mapping, the research will investigate the transformation of forests and forest communities through digital technologies. Through 5 case studies, the project will analyze the ways in which forest technologies are transforming practices of observing, mitigating, participating in, and regulating environmental change. SmartForests asks not just how digital technologies are remaking forests, but also investigates how forests become social-political technologies for addressing environmental change. Situated at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS) and digital media studies, the research will demonstrate how these technologies impact socio-ecological relations, and will propose more equitable approaches to digital and environmental practice and policy.
Champ scientifique
Not validated
Not validated
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitution d’accueil
CB2 1TN Cambridge
Royaume-Uni