Public controversies and the Pragmatics of Protest: Toward a Ballistics of collective action

By using long run case studies and comparative analysis, I will address different processes by which alerts and criticisms are taken seriously by different actors and lead them to transform or to defend devices, norms and institutions. To deal with this kind of process, I will present an analytical model which runs on the recent controversies about radioactivity, GMOs and nanotechnologies. For many years, these fields have been marked by struggles in which scientific arguments are seldom dominant but are nevertheless relevant. I will underline the way by which actors produce different knowledges and alternative visions of future of science and technologies in society. How do controversies, public debates, court trials and political mobilizations affect the course of scientific development and innovation? This research takes place in a larger program on disputing processes. In this program, a key issue is at stake: in what conditions new arguments could appear, could be transformed in common features and could inform the design of standard devices? I will show how sociology may organize its laboratory to follow actors who have the competences to mobilize networks and tools, and who are able to produce discourses, testimonies and expertises. What kind of device must we use to ground our descriptions when Internet provides massive discussions and informations, so difficult to evaluate? Empirical and theoretical aspects can communicate by using a set of sociological tools built around Prospero software. The main goal is to provide instruments for analyzing the operations that persons and groups perform when they resort to alarm, criticism, claim or political action. The result could be a sociological ballistics, enabling us to really follow actors and arguments through a wide series of arenas by which public controversies and social conflicts arise and are transformed.