PhD Candidate on Viticultural Transitions M/F

Job Description

Thesis Subject

From Uprooting to Territorial Recomposition. Viticultural Transitions, Landscapes in Mutation, and Territorial Renewal in the Entre-deux-Mers.

CONTEXT: This thesis is part of a collective research project carried out by the Passages (UMR 5319), BSE (UMR 6060) and Œnologie (UMR 1366) laboratories. French viticulture is undergoing profound structural change. Wine consumption fell from 100 litres per capita per year in 1975 to 34 litres in 2024 (Nourisson, 2019; OIV, 2025), triggering a systemic crisis that goes beyond mere economic conditions and calls into question the productive, social and symbolic foundations of wine-growing territories. In the Gironde, this transformation has taken shape in an unprecedented vine-grubbing scheme: 7,166 hectares approved for uprooting by end-2024, out of more than 13,000 hectares committed (DRAAF Nouvelle-Aquitaine, 2024). The Entre-deux-Mers is among the most affected areas, with over 10% viticultural decline, directly impacting employment, supply chain dynamics, and the fiscal resources of rural municipalities. The E2M Forums will provide the doctoral candidate with an initial fieldwork grounding from the very start of the thesis. Three territorial co-construction forums will be held between November 2026 and February 2027 in three distinct areas of the Entre-deux-Mers. Bringing together researchers, professional stakeholders, local authorities, and citizens, these forums will enable the doctoral candidate to test preliminary working hypotheses against local realities, identify key territorial actors, and begin building a shared territorial diagnosis. For the thesis, they represent a structured exploratory phase: a guided entry into the field within an already established collective framework, ahead of more in-depth fieldwork. These forums are co-funded by the SOLU-BIOD (PEPR CNRS–INRAE) and RESYSTER (Université de Bordeaux) programmes, and by the Institut des Transitions of the Université de Bordeaux. The ARTEM thesis is embedded in this collective dynamic while reaching beyond it: grounded in the three study zones selected, it will document and analyse over time the territorial recompositions under way, with a view to contributing to the collective elaboration of new trajectories for the Entre-deux-Mers.
This doctoral project aims to understand how viticultural territories can collectively reinvent themselves by redefining the place of vineyards within a broader territorial project, at the intersection of agricultural production, cultural heritage, touristic attractiveness, and quality of life.
It addresses a major scientific and societal challenge: understanding and accompanying the recompositions of viticultural territories facing profound transformation. By combining scientific rigour, territorial anchorage, and a participatory approach, the project seeks to produce actionable knowledge to sustainably support viticultural transitions in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and beyond. Through a fine-grained analysis of the Entre-deux-Mers (Gironde) as a laboratory territory representative of the tensions and resources of intermediate vineyards, the project aims to contribute collectively to the development of new territorial models articulating economic viability, environmental sustainability, heritage valorisation, and quality of life.

Central research question and thesis objectives:
This thesis aims to analyse, from the case of the Entre-deux-Mers, how winegrowers, elected officials, residents, cultural actors, and territorial stakeholders are collectively reconfiguring their territory in response to the crisis of the wine sector and its systemic repercussions. Far beyond a simple viticultural transition, what is at work is a multiform territorial recomposition: landscape transformations, diversification of land uses, redefinition of agricultural, residential, and touristic practices, and mutations in social and political as well as economic and productive dimensions. The challenge is twofold: to understand the territorial dynamics of this transition, and to contribute collectively to the elaboration of new narratives of the future for fragile viticultural territories. Through these transitions, it is also the value of wine – economic, cultural, symbolic – that is being redefined, in connection with the resources of the territory. The latter thus becomes a vector of distinction, a lever for revalorisation, but also a support for meaning, in a context of monoculture crisis, recomposition of societal expectations, and a quest for new balances between production, landscape, and dwelling.
The scientific originality of the doctoral project rests on several dimensions. First, a fine-grained documentation of a little-studied territory, with an integrated approach to territorial recompositions drawing on multiple dimensions (heritage and cultural, landscape and environmental, touristic and residential, social and political, economic and productive). Second, the exploration of multiple levers of territorial revalorisation (agricultural diversification, heritage and cultural valorisation, development of wine tourism, innovation in wine production, new forms of dwelling, etc.). Third, an innovative and participatory methodological approach.

Your Work Environment

The doctoral candidate will be integrated within the Laboratoire Passages (UMR 5319), a joint research unit of the CNRS, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Université de Bordeaux, and the École nationale supérieure d'architecture et de paysage de Bordeaux. A human and social sciences laboratory whose scientific project centres on spatial reconfigurations and global change, Passages offers an intellectual environment particularly well suited to the issues of this thesis. A dedicated workspace is available to doctoral candidates. The candidate will benefit from regular scientific activities throughout the year (research seminars, study days, conferences), methodological support provided by the Analysis and Data Representations unit (ARD), and access to first-rate university libraries: the ISVV library, GéoDock, and the entire Bordeaux documentary network.

From the first year of the thesis, the doctoral candidate will be embedded in an operational collective dynamic: three territorial forums – the E2M Forums – will be organised between November 2026 and February 2027 in three areas of the Entre-deux-Mers. Co-funded by the Institut des Transitions, the SOLU-BIOD programme, and the RESYSTER programme, these forums constitute a first participatory phase and will provide the candidate with immediate field anchorage, in direct contact with professional and institutional actors of the territory.
This project is aimed at a candidate driven by a genuine interest in rural territories in transition and the questions they raise for geography: how do spaces long structured by a monoculture reorganise themselves when that monoculture enters into crisis? How do the actors of a territory collectively construct new trajectories?
The position requires a genuine appetite for fieldwork, in all its demanding and unpredictable dimensions: meeting winegrowers in the midst of questioning their futures, elected officials seeking answers, residents watching their landscape transform before their eyes. The participatory approach at the heart of the project requires an ability to build the research both with the actors and from them, within a reflexive posture fully assumed.
The candidate will be curious about landscape as a scientific object – as much as a lived and represented reality – sensitive to its visual and symbolic dimensions, and open to the use of photography and video as tools of investigation and restitution, at the crossroads of visual studies and cultural geography. They will know how to combine cartographic rigour, quantitative analyses, and qualitative depth, disciplinary anchorage in geography, and openness to contributions from rural sociology, territorial economics, and landscape science.
This project calls for a candidate convinced of the value of engaged research within its territory: a thesis with a vocation to nourish a collective project, to animate dynamics, to illuminate decisions, and to contribute – with the rigour that science demands – to the reflection on what the Entre-deux-Mers can become.

In their cover letter, applicants will set out the reasons for their interest in this doctoral project, their understanding of participatory approaches in geography, and how their academic background – and, where applicable, professional or personal experience – has led them to engage with questions of territorial transitions and viticultural landscapes.

EDMH : The PhD student will be enrolled at the Montaigne-Humanités Doctoral School (480). Like all funded PhD students at the Montaigne-Humanités Doctoral School, the successful candidate will be required to complete a minimum of 60 hours of training provided by the Doctoral School (over the three years of their PhD), including training on scientific integrity on the one hand, and on recognising and preventing sexist and sexual violence on the other hand. They must also have at least 60 hours of activities recognised as training (scientific presentations, publications, fieldwork weeks, etc.) validated by their research unit. To enrol at the EDMH, a Master's degree with a minimum grade of "Bien" is required (or an equivalent level-5 qualification, i.e. Bac+5), obtained in 2025-2026 or earlier, in the humanities or social sciences.
Research Conditions and Resources: The ARTEM project was submitted in response to the 2026 research project call issued by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region. It includes specific funding to support the thesis: in addition to a three-year doctoral contract funded by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, 16,000€ co-funded by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region and the PASSAGES laboratory are set aside for field expenses (field travel and accommodation, conference participation, organisation of a final symposium, dissemination activities, minor equipment and scientific documentation).

Constraints and risks

Regular travel within the Entre-deux-Mers is to be expected, along with more occasional travel to other territories in France or abroad.
Interviews for this position will be held in early September.

Compensation and benefits

Compensation

2300 € gross monthly

Annual leave and RTT

44 jours

Remote Working practice and compensation

Pratique et indemnisation du TT

Transport

Prise en charge à 75% du coût et forfait mobilité durable jusqu’à 300€

About the offer

About the CNRS

The CNRS is a major player in fundamental research on a global scale. The CNRS is the only French organization active in all scientific fields. Its unique position as a multi-specialist allows it to bring together different disciplines to address the most important challenges of the contemporary world, in connection with the actors of change.

CNRS

The research professions