Description du sujet de thèse

Experiences of residents and workers with pollution in the new industrial fronts of West Africa.
The most disadvantaged residents accumulate risk factors, particularly in situations of urban exposure combining pollution, noise, heat and poverty. In the North as in the South, the question of environmental justice is also a question of social justice: they are inseparable and together raise vital issues, particularly in African cities affected by particularly unequal development.
Despite the fact that these phenomena are so concentrated in time and space that they are directly perceptible, little attention is paid to emissions from industry, vehicles and chemical products in Africa. In Senegal, however, researchers at the Laboratoire International de Recherche Environnement, Santé, Sociétés (ESS, IRL3189), have just begun research into environmental health issues. By analysing the complex relationships between specific environments, states of health and social dynamics in a systematic and coordinated way, doctors, toxicologists, ecologists, sociologists, geographers and anthropologists are now participating in the interdisciplinary construction of a subject of study on industrial pollution in West Africa.
In Senegal, the doctoral research requested here is part of this new research programme on pollution in Sébikotane within the 'POLlution de l'AiR et de l'eau en zone soudano-sahélienne, et Impacts sur la Santé' (POLARIS) team.
The study will focus specifically on the exposure and relationship to risk of residents or people whose occupation or economic activity exposes them to pollution from factories. The way in which risk is experienced and prioritised by foundry workers and local residents, as well as roadside traders, will be documented using semi-structured interviews. The aim of this qualitative research will be to analyse the way in which the health risk is perceived, how the tangible effects of pollution structure the relationship to work, to the living space, to the territory lived in, and whether or not this has an impact on everyday activities. This will enable us to describe the socio-exposome of populations with a combination of residential and occupational exposure, and also to develop knowledge about exposure situations that can feed into collective thinking on precaution. How can we limit risk situations - both by targeting efforts to reduce them where possible, and by guarding against them individually and collectively where less so? The aim will be to encourage the hybridisation of scientific and local knowledge, so as to redistribute the expertise that is needed to tackle these issues.The thesis is also part of the development in Senegal by the CNRS SHS of an Open Monitoring of Societies and their Interactions - environmental health and occupational health, seen in their continuities. This eco-citizen observatory, dedicated to understanding pollution in the Sebikotane - Diamniadio - Bargny area, was initiated by an alliance of researchers, artists, activists, elected representatives and citizens. It is an interdisciplinary, participatory art-science-society project supported by the CNRS and UCAD, and run by the IRL ESS. It has two objectives: to record and analyse the transformations that are taking place, and to contribute to public debate in an area where residents are concerned about environmental health. As part of this research, focus groups will be organised, to which both interviewees and Observatory members will be invited, based on the popular epidemiology model developed by Phil Brown. In mainland France, a number of areas have been the subject of lengthy surveys, such as the Fos-Etang de Berre area (Gramaglia, 2023) or the Dunkirk area (Flanquart, 2016), but little research has focused on documenting both occupational and residential exposure and the ways in which people working and living in contaminated areas cope with it. Over the past few years, the SOSI - Observatoire des maladies professionnelles et environnementales dans la vallée de la chimie lyonnaise (Observatory of Occupational and Environmental Illnesses in Lyon's Chemical Valley) group in the south of Lyon has been analysing occupational and trade union mobilisations in conjunction with environmental mobilisations in relation to PFAS and, more generally, chronic pollution. The thesis will also draw on the research being carried out by the Lyon-based SOSI and the Triangle laboratory.

Contexte de travail

The person recruited will be part of the following teams 1. SOSI - UMR Triangle 5206 and 2. missions in IRL 3189 Environnement, Santé, Sociétés (ESS) ) Dakar, Sénégal
1. SOSI - Triangle :
This project follows in the footsteps of participatory environment-work health surveys. Its aim is to set up an observatory of environmental and occupational diseases in the Rhône-Alpes region, and more specifically in the industrial basin of Lyon, known as the Lyon Chemical Valley. This area stretches along the Rhône river, covering some fifteen municipalities from Lyon to the Isère border. Although this is one of the largest industrial areas in France, the impact of this industrial activity on the health of local residents and production site employees remains largely under-researched. In fact, there is only one departmental cancer register (for Isère) for the entire Rhône-Alpes region, and the studies listed by Santé Publique France on health risks in French industrial areas identify only rare data on air pollution levels for the southern Lyon area. Yet the 'chemical valley' is home to hundreds of former polluted sites and dangerous, polluting facilities that are still in operation, several of which are classified as Seveso. The area has been marked by a number of industrial disasters and pollution, including the Feyzin disaster in January 1966 (when the refinery exploded, killing 18 people), pollution of the Rhône (with acrolein in 1976, hydroquinone in the early 1980s and PCBs on a recurring basis from the 1970s to the 2010s), and even a number of industrial accidents.
The Observatory has 3 functions:

To take stock of existing scientific knowledge, health standards and collective action relating to this knowledge. Although this area was the scene of a number of health and environment-related mobilisations in the 1970s, these became much rarer from the 1980s onwards.
To analyse the reasons for the relative failure to produce knowledge, to publicise it and to take public responsibility for many of the health problems associated with industrial pollution.
To co-produce participatory health data by building a multidisciplinary research team (sociology, political science, toxicology, epidemiology, geography, history).

2. IRL 3189 Environnement, Santé, Sociétés (ESS) ) Dakar, Sénégal
The IRL3189 ESS, located at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, is the first international laboratory created on the initiative of the CNRS in sub-Saharan Africa (since 1 March 2009). This multi-tutorial research unit is designed to promote scientific relations between countries in the North and South (CNRS / UCAD e UGB in Senegal). The research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the environment-health-society triptych, and therefore brings together researchers from the health sciences (medicine, pharmacy, anthropobiology), the environment (plant biology and ecology, ethnobotany, hydrology, geomorphology), the humanities and social sciences (sociology, anthropology, geography, economics) and the basic sciences (biochemistry, applied mathematics). Interdisciplinarity is achieved through ongoing interaction between researchers. The IRL ESS is responsible for the Observatoire écocitoyen des pollutions et de l'urbanisation (SOSI CNRS SHS).

Contraintes et risques

Missions to be planned and organised in Senegal
Integration into a team and interdisciplinary issues