Description du sujet de thèse

Title: Watching the watchers: Global platforms on fisheries and forests screened by local knowledge

Abstract: Environmental issues are regularly highlighted by spatial data, most often gathered on global geographic platforms. While these applications offer new perspectives and undoubtedly improve our ability to monitor human activities and their impact on the environment on a global or regional scale, a question remains concerning their potential to support the implementation and monitoring of local environmental policies. This point is particularly key if we consider that these global platforms mostly overlook “local” knowledge. Thus, this PhD questions the possibility of a dialogue between these global platforms and local knowledge through two emblematic topics (forests and marine fisheries) by examining [i] the potential of these global platforms to tackle local issues, [ii] their capacity to be enriched by local knowledge, and [iii] the reconfigurations bring by these platforms at local and national scales.

Description: The globalization of environmental issues has been a reality for several decades (Taylor and Buttel, 1992). These are regularly highlighted by geographic data, processing algorithms and geo-visualization technologies, most often brought together on global platforms for monitoring land use or human activities. In this respect, geographic information sciences play an essential role in the production of spatio-temporal indicators for monitoring and understanding human activities and their impact on the environment. The current boom in geotechnologies, linked in particular to a large-scale geodata factory (i.e., big data, ongoing development of new Earth observation sensors, widespread geolocation), new computing and processing capacities for big data (i.e., cloud computing, artificial intelligence) and unprecedented digital dissemination potential, is reflected in the regular publication of new global mapping platforms. These, and the data and indicators derived from them, are now commonly used by the scientific community, public authorities and NGOs alike. Their application in the fields of land use monitoring (land cover, land use, deforestation, etc.) or mobile activities (road traffic, air transport, maritime traffic, outdoor sports, fisheries, etc.) represent pioneering examples that have been widely disseminated. While these products and associated observatories offer new perspectives and undeniably improve our ability to monitor socio-environmental dynamics on a global or regional scale, the multiplication of the offer can nonetheless confuse users seeking to identify the products that best meet their needs. Moreover, the proliferation of heterogeneous observatories (in terms of their initial objectives, the data and processing methods used, or their degree of openness and transparency) raises new scalar and informational issues. In this respect, a major question concerns the real potential of such a diversity of global platforms to support the implementation and monitoring of environmental policies at local level. This point is particularly crucial if we consider that these global platforms often ignore “local”, “indigenous” or even “non-scientific” knowledge, although these labels are largely imperfect (Agrawal, 1995). As an example, the FAO recently developed an open-access digital platform to monitor the implementation of the European Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) on the basis of various global forest monitoring products. This application raises many questions, sometimes ambivalent, concerning for example [i] how to take into account the ecological diversity of forests and the different definitions of the concept of forest, which vary from country to country (Eba'a Atyi et al., 2021) and [ii] the need to harmonize definitions of forest and deforestation, to make them more compatible with the potential of satellite data (Zalles et al., 2024). Through a critical approach to the informational question both bottom-up (i.e., through the study of the platforms themselves, the uses made of them and the actors behind them) and top-down (i.e., by the holders of local knowledge), this PhD questions the possibility of a dialogue between global platforms and local knowledge by applying it to two emblematic topics: forests and marine fisheries (e.g., Global Forest Watch, Tropical Moist Forest product, Global Fishing Watch). More specifically, this PhD will examine : the potential of global initiatives to address local issues, their capacity to draw on local knowledge, and even to confront it the reconfigurations brought about by these platforms at local and national levels. This PhD is thus positioned in the field of Critical data studies applied to environmental issues, forming a 'digital political ecology'. The originality of this project lies in its mixed and resolutely multiscalar approach, combining technical inputs on big data, its processing and its presentation on a global scale, with informational issues concerning its use and its articulation with local knowledge and initiatives. Finally, this PhD, at the crossroads of disciplines and topics, will be supported by major projects and schemes run by the CNRS, in particular the IRC Transitions, the Bridges project (TP2 and TP5), the RT FORTRAN, the LabCom TELKANTE and the GdR MAGIS and GdR OMER. To carry out this work at the interface between environmental sciences and geographic information, the PhD student will deploy his/her work around three axes, responding in a transversal way to the above-mentioned points: The first focus will be to draw up an inventory of global platforms dealing with forests and marine fisheries. These two topics seem particularly interesting to study insofar as they relate to global issues (overexploitation of fishery resources and deforestation) while involving local actors whose knowledge seems essential to understanding the details of the complex logics at work (St. Martin et al., 2007). On the basis of this inventory, a content analysis will be carried out: profiling and intentions of the promoters of the applications inventoried, genealogy and qualification of the raw data injected, reflection on the metrics used, analysis of the functionalities and services offered, particularly with regard to a possible feed from participatory inputs, etc. At the same time, the identification of case studies will enable us to select at least two research sites. These sites will be chosen on the basis of a literature review, but also according to practical and functional criteria, so as to interface with ongoing programs (notably IRC Transitions and the Bridges project). The acquisition of raw data sets similar to those used by the applications inventoried (AIS data for marine fisheries and satellite images for forests) will enable an analysis to be carried out at the scale of these two study areas, in order to validate the quality of these global data for local applications, by questioning in particular the choices made in terms of processing, indicators and representation. A second axis will focus on identifying the uses of these platforms, assessing their suitability for local initiatives and participatory approaches, and their evaluation by local actors: what uses do they make of them, what contributions would they like to be able to make, what hybridizations are possible in their view, etc.? From a methodological point of view, this phase will be based essentially on the deployment of surveys among stakeholders, in order to compare the potential of these tools with their concrete uses, particularly in the context of local environmental policies. This work will also be combined with collaborative work, notably in the form of workshops, to co-produce a reflexive analysis of the use (or non-use) of these platforms from the point of view of local actors, as well as the technical, financial and institutional obstacles and bottlenecks they perceive. Following the same idea, a second series of surveys will be carried out with the owners of the targeted global platforms, with a view to understanding the conditions of emergence, the goals pursued, as well as all the technical, financial and institutional factors considered by the actors in these platforms as levers and obstacles. A third axis will be to examine the transformative nature of these platforms by identifying the limiting or, in the contrary, driving effects they can have on local or national initiatives (strict coexistence, hybridization, competition leading to the neglect or even abandonment of pre-existing or planned local approaches and tools, discourse deemed too globalizing leading to the emergence of new local mobilizations built in reaction in the line of counter-cartography, etc.). At the same time, we will be looking at the impact of these platforms and the role played by their bearers in the ongoing recomposition of data players. Particular attention will be paid to historical producers, most often structured in the form of national geographic institutes, the traditional guarantors of centralized reference data whose very notion of “repositories” may potentially be called into question by the advent of these global platforms. From a methodological point of view, this phase will be based on the above-mentioned surveys, as well as on the analysis of a corpus of press articles relating to a panel of local projects, and the examination of the institutional documentation of public agencies in charge of geographic information in order to detect and explain any strategic evolutions or repositioning vis-à-vis these global platforms. To carry out this work, the project plans to recruit a PhD student co-directed by a multidisciplinary team (environmental sciences, social geography, geographic information sciences) comprising Brice Trouillet (Full Professor, LETG lab), who will work on the case study of marine fisheries, Matthieu Noucher (Resarch Professor, PASSAGES lab) on the political and social dimensions of the uses of cartography and geotechnologies, Damien Arvor (Resarch Professor, LETG lab) in connection with his expertise in monitoring land-use dynamics by remote sensing, and Nicolas Rollo (Associate Professor, LETG lab) on the question of spatial data infrastructures and geographic information processing.

References cited
Agrawal, A. (1995). Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge. Development and Change, 26(3): 413-439. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1995.tb00560.x
Eba'a Atyi, R., Gourlet-Fleury, S., Sufo, R., Amiel, F., Guizol, P., Couteron, P. (2021). Définir la forêt pour mieux lutter contre la déforestation importée : vers une approche intégrant la diversité des contextes écologiques ? https://www.cst-foret.org/wp-content/uploads/CSTF-Policy-Brief-1_FR_WEB.pdf
St. Martin, K., McCay, B.J., Murray, G.D., Johnson, T.R., Oles, B. (2007). Communities, knowledge and fisheries of the future. International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 7(2-3): 221-239. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJGENVI.2007.013575
Taylor, P.J., Buttel, F.H. (1992). How do we know we have global environmental problems? Science and the globalization of environmental discourse. Geoforum, 23(3): 405-416. https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7185(92)90051-5
Zalles, V., Harris, N., Stolle, F., Hansen, M.C. (2024). Forest definitions require a re-think. Communications Earth & Environment, 5:620. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01779-9

Skills :
• Master's degree in geography and/or geomatics
• Interest in critical approaches and Science & Technology studies
• First research experience in fisheries and/or forestry as an asset
• Geographic information skills (data qualification and processing)
• Interest in local knowledge and participatory sciences
• Fluency in English as an asset
• Open to interdisciplinarity (with other HSS and/or data science)

Additional informations:
• The contract is funded by the CNRS interdisciplinary mission (i.e., MITI) , which also covers fees (travel, accommodation, equipment, data, etc.)
• Interviewes are scheduled on Tuesday 15th July pm (CET)

Contexte de travail

UMR 6554 Littoral Environnement Télédétection Géomatique (LETG; http://letg.cnrs.fr/) is a joint research unit of CNRS and three Universities, located in Brest, Nantes and Rennes. It gathers about 140 members, including 64 faculty members (12 Research Professor, 15 Full professor, 25 Associate professor and 12 engineers and technicians), and just over 70 contract staff (almost 50 PhD students, 2 post-docs and 20 contract engineers). Its scientific field is that of environmental geography in all its dimensions and subdomains (physical, human, etc.), attentive to informational issues distributed over the entire life cycle of geographic data (manufacturing, structuring, processing, circulation, uses, etc.). The scientific activity is structured around three core axis: coastal and maritime zones, continental environments and remote sensing-geomatics.

The current position will be based at the UMR LETG site in Nantes. This brings together 53 members, including 23 faculty members (4 Research professor, 5 Full professor, 10 Associate professor, 2 engineers and 1 manager), 2 emeritus professors and 29 contract staff (19 PhD students and 10 contract engineers).