Selection of exploration and research fieldworks – on earthly surface, underwater, and beyond. Featured by chronological order.
[Arctic] Study about space rocket debris, ecological resilience practices, and Indigenous knowledge.
Location: North Water Polynya, Canadian and Greenlandic Arctic coasts.
Dates: in preparation for fieldwork and filmmaking in 2024-2025.
Objectives, sponsoring institutions, and results: to be further updated.
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[France] Underwater testing, equipment design and research for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Location: Marseille.
Dates: Since 10 August 2022, ongoing.
Objectives: As part of a contract with the start-up Spartan Space, participate in the conception of spaceflight equipment and realize the underwater testing of the latter in a restricted area of Marseille harbor to assess its operational efficiency and compliance to diversity, equity, and inclusion standards.
Sponsoring institutions: Spartan Space (among others).
Role: Field researcher, head of the mission; Diving Officer.
Results:
– Testing of partially self-designed equipment for high altitude and space flights programs as part of projects with Thales Alenia Space and the European Space Agency (suits, life support systems, etc.);
– Collect of data serving to further design of related equipment with Spartan Space’s engineering team;
– Collect and treatment of data related to the design and operational conditions of the tested equipment for further diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy;
– Based on empirical research, highlighting how engineering and design can further contribute to fostering gender diversity and disability inclusion in future space exploration through space suit development.
Utilisation & distribution:
– Treatment of collected data from the underwater testing and R&D for the development of design guidelines for Spartan Space and the European Space Agency, as part of ESA’s General Study Program;
– Realization of an analysis report about the design biases of current space suit and related equipment regarding gender, ethnicity, and disability, for further use by Spartan Space and the European Space Agency as part of ESA’s forthcoming Extravehicular Activity Suit conception program;
– Inclusion of some of these results in the forthcoming monograph, The Thread of Water (Immaterial Books, 2023);
– Preparation of a scientific article to be submitted in a peer-reviewed journal in the course of 2023;
– New results will be used and distributed in the future, as this fieldwork is an ongoing study.
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[France] Ethnography of commercial diving training and activity.
Location: Fréjus.
Dates: 11 April 2022 – 05 August 2022 (4 months).
Objectives: Conduct the first ever immersive and fully participant ethnographic survey of the commercial divers’ training and activity, via the integration of a commercial diving class and the completion of the curricula.
Sponsoring institutions: mostly self-funded.
Role: Field researcher, head of the mission.
Results:
– Production of the first ever participant ethnography of the commercial diving training and profession, based on participant observation, completion of the professional commercial diving training and certification, archival research, and ethnographic interviews;
– Analysis of the social dynamics of the commercial diving training regarding the use of the equipment and underwater technologies, the relationship to hierarchy and gender, and the embodiment of collective values;
– Production of the first ecofeminist and Indigenous knowledge-based study of professional diving and diving activities, furthermore based on empirical research.
Utilisation & distribution: Data treatment (fieldwork notes, interviews, archives, photography) for the publication of:
– A photography-based monograph: The Thread of Water, Immaterial Books (forthcoming in Fall 2023);
– A forthcoming series of articles to be submitted in peer-reviewed anthropology, ethnography, photography and underwater studies journals.
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[Russia, Germany, Japan] Ethnography of the astronaut training.
Location:
– Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Star City (Russia);
– European Astronaut Centre, Cologne (Germany);
– JAXA astronaut training center, Tsukuba (Japan).
Dates: 01 December 2015 – 15 December 2018 (3 years).
Objectives:
– Realize the first thoroughly immersive, fieldwork-based study of the training of international astronauts in non-US training centers as part of the International Space Station program, especially the training of European astronauts in Russia;
– Realize the first thoroughly immersive, fieldwork-based study of the training of international astronauts in non-US training centers as part of the International Space Station program, especially the training of European astronauts in Russia.
Sponsoring institutions:
– French Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research;
– Centre d’Etudes Franco-Russe (CNRS);
– Centre Emile Durkheim (CNRS/University of Bordeaux);
– Institute for Comparative Research in human and social sciences, Tsukuba University.
Role: Field researcher, head of the mission.
Results: Based on interviews, long-term immersion and participant observation, and documentation, the study highlighted several seminal research leads for further investigations on the topic:
– The influence of the Soviet heritage in the current astronaut training and consequent embedding processes, especially for non-Russian astronauts;
– The nature of “carnal and moral” education (as detailed in the resulting publications) of the astronaut training, including regarding to social norms, gender construction, human-machine interface, and political narrative shaping the collective identity-building within the profession;
– Original data regarding the training of astronauts in Russia that had never been published in a language other than Russian.
Utilisation & distribution: Treatment and use of collected data (interviews, observations, ethnographic field notes) for:
– Publication in academic articles in peer-reviewed journals (cf. bibliography attached to the application), the PhD dissertation thesis (510 pages, 2018), and the subsequent monograph Manufacturing the Astronaut (2021);
– Scientific lectures, seminars (cf.the attached list of lectures, seminars, conferences and workshops);
– Design of university lectureship in Master’s degree curricula (University of Bordeaux, State University of Saint-Petersburg);
– Development of an interview-based photography method (the “ethnographic portrait”), awarded by the International Visual Sociology Association’s 2022 Rieger Award;
– Production of a photography series published in the Journal of Narrative Politics (see the bibliography attached), and awarded by the International Visual Sociology Association’s 2022 Rieger Award.
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[France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Canada, Russia] Ethnography of International Space Station ground support centers.
Location:
– CADMOS/CNES, Toulouse (France);
– B.USOC, Uccle (Belgium);
– Col-CC, Oberpfaffenhofen (Germany);
– JSC, Tsukuba (Japan);
– CSA, St. Hubert (Canada);
– TsUP, Moscow (Russia).
Dates: 12 September 2015 – 10 January 2017 (1,5 years).
Objectives:
– Realize the first sociological and empirical study of a human spaceflight program in the French academic literature;
– Understand the daily manufacture of the International Space Station from the ground support facilities (control rooms).
Sponsoring institutions:
– French Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research;
– Centre d’Etudes Franco-Russe (CNRS);
– Centre Emile Durkheim (CNRS/University of Bordeaux).
Role: Field researcher, head of the mission.
Results: Based on interviews, long-term immersion and participant observation, and documentation, the study highlighted several seminal research leads for further investigations on the topic:
– The daily organization of the International Space Station (ISS) inter-agencies partnership and its bureaucratic structure;
– The politics of scientific activities conducted aboard the ISS;
– The social history of the ISS program as related to the regulation of nuclear power source mitigation by the West after the dismantlement of the Soviet Union;
– The first detailed and sociological account of the organization and realization of scientific experiments aboard the ISS, regarding the field of science and technology studies;
– The first “laboratory ethnography” conducted on a research infrastructure located in outer space, including the development of a dedicated methodology.
Utilisation & distribution: Treatment and use of collected data (interviews, observations, ethnographic field notes) for:
– Publication in academic articles in peer-reviewed journals (cf. bibliography attached to the application), the PhD dissertation thesis (510 pages, 2018), and the subsequent monograph Manufacturing the Astronaut (2021);
– Scientific lectures, seminars (cf.the attached list of lectures, seminars, conferences and workshops);
– Design of university lectureship in Master’s degree curricula (University of Bordeaux, State University of Saint-Petersburg);
– Production of a photography series published in the Journal of Narrative Politics (see the bibliography attached), and awarded by the International Visual Sociology Association’s 2022 Rieger Award.
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