Julie Labatut

The active role of instruments in articulating knowing and knowledge: the case of animal qualification practices in breeding organisations

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of instruments defined as artefacts, rules, models or norms, in the articulation between knowing-in-practice an knowledge, in learning processes. The paper focuses on a particuar activity: qualification of ewes in the breeding sector. It is based on observation and practice-based studies. The study of instruments used in daily practices allows us to go beyond the dichotomy between opposite types of knowledge, i.e. scientific knowledge seen as a stock and sensible knowledge seen as purely tacit and equated to non-instrumental practices. The paper complements more classical practice-based approaches by proposing a new perspective of instruments in learning processes, which is to particular relevance where power is diffuse.

Analyzing indicators for combining natural resources management and production-oriented activities

It is recognized today that production systems can be used for natural resources management, whereas it is difficult to implement management that integrates production and natural resources conservation. This difficulty can be explained by the complexity of interactions between production systems and biodiversity dynamics and by the lack of predictability of the impacts of techniques on ecosystems. Designing tools to effectively guide such integration in this uncertain context is therefore a top priority. In this perspective, the aim of this paper is to analyze the indicators used by managers when trying to integrate ecological systems and production-oriented activities and, consequently, to assess their relevance when faced with these new challenges. Our analysis distinguishes indicators-in-theory and indicators-in-use. We studied the first ones with an original analytic grid to decipher their cognitive and management orientation through documents and interviews with indicator designers. We studied indicators-in-use through interviews and ethnographic observations of indicator users in four situations (forestry, pastoral, wildlife and breed management) in southwestern France. Our findings reveal the distance between managed objects and measured objects, thus explaining their effectiveness in terms of management. We also show how the indicators strongly shape practices and how they are adapted by users to their situation, emphasizing the role of experiential knowledge to create situated indicators. Finally, we discuss our results regarding tool design for environmental management.