Feedback on the working seminar on Mapping Controversies (La Novela, October 10, 11 2013)

The festival of shared knowledge La Novela has once again settled down in Toulouse city. Bruno Latour and the festival wished to extend the discussion started in 2012 on Mapping Controversies, through the working seminar. The project initiated by Bruno Latour, Dominique Boullier (Sciences Po) and Liam Heaphy (SciencesPo) brought together more than twenty guest members of the FORCCAST consortium, the Demoscience consortium and external institutions, interested in the Mapping Controversies approach.

A TIME FOR CONTROVERSIES

Anders Blok (university of Copenhagen) first presented his teaching Mapping Controversies experiences, in which students have to take a stance in an on-going debate – and especially on scientific and technical issues. It is not about presenting the different positions in the debate anymore, but to interpret one and defend it. Anders Blok intends to study the emergence of a quasi-democratic process within the course.

Tommaso Venturini and Mathieu Jacomy (Médialab, Sciences Po) led the second presentation on the ANT (Actor Network Analysis) issue within the teaching of Mapping Controversies, torn between the “actor network” notion and the “network analysis” practice. Nowadays, these terms seem compatible only because they share the homonym “network”. The aim was to accurately define the analogies and differences between these two notions and then give suggestions on the assimilation of the ANT as a tool for graphical manipulation.

Diego Landivar (CERDI – Centre Européen de Recherche dans le Développement International), shared his conclusions drown from the application of methods and philosophy of Mapping Controversies to actors or development issues. The development faces consistent changes related to the modification and the global

integration of information systems. These changes imply for the strategies and programs – and therefore the complex concept of “ontological resistance”- to be redefined. The aim was to propose new perspectives to increase the relevance of the Mapping Controversies methods to solve large-scale international issues.

The fourth and last intervention (Urbain trop Urbain) with Mathieu Duperrex, François Dutrait (researcher) and Gwen Catala (developer) was dedicated to digital creation illustrated by a controversy on electromagnetic waves. The mapping of this controversy is based on three matters: a story that build up the theatre of the controversy, the involvement of the researcher in the controversy and the balance of the three factors (the story told, the graphic modelling and the cultural reference).

The seminar concluded with a presentation by Cyril Delhay (Sciences Po) and Nicolas Benvegnu (Sciences Po) on the FORCCAST third axis: Debate. A simulation workshop on the Iranian nuclear dossier was set up in 2012/2013 as part of the experiences conducted by FORCCAST.