PALOC

PALOC, “Local Heritage, Environment and Globalisation” is a multidisciplinary Joint Research Unit (UMR 208) in human and social sciences (anthropologists, archaeologists, ecologists, geographers, curators, botanists, historians, lawyers, surveyors), under the supervision of the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD) and the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN). Its main campus is located in the Jardin des Plantes (5th arrondissement of Paris).

Its main partners and field offices are located in the Mediterranean, in Eastern and Western Africa, in Asia (India and South-East Asia) and in America (mainly Brazil and Mexico).

HEADCOUNT

In January 2020, PALOC comprised 50 members:

• 34 IRD researchers
• 8 MNHN lecturers or professors
• 4 technical support staff
• 4 post-doctoral students
• An invited partner unit
• Around 50 researchers are associates

AIMS

In a challenging global context of ecological and climate crisis, PALOC researchers study the transformation of relationships between societies and their environments, by using a set of complementary concepts and approaches. Heritagisation – whether linked to biodiversity, associated knowledge, territories, etc. – is taken as a starting point to question governance, transmission, commons, regimes of rights to biodiversity and/or the environment), land tenures and knowledge processes from different perspectives.

Conceived as a notion and a mode of action, heritagisation constitutes an object of research to understand, evaluate, accompany and anticipate the transformations taking place in a globalised world. Studies start out from the local logics of actors and institutions, resonating with the national and international bodies, and focus on the interlinking scales in heritage processes; they are attentive to their social, cultural, environmental, legal and political repercussions. The whole contributes to a collective reflection on collaborative and participatory approaches and research.

The scientific aims in the medium term are to: (i) enable a better understanding of the effects of current environmental changes, especially by questioning the notions of transition, vulnerability and resilience in their own spatial and temporal areas, and analysing their socio-political processes and cultural transmission (especially knowledge of biodiversity through the confrontation and hybridisation of local and scientific knowledge); (ii) reinforcing awareness in research programmes of the increasingly intense global environmental crisis, and consolidating the participation of human and social sciences through international platforms (IPBES, UICN); (iii) continuing and developing an ethical reflection on the topic of rights to biodiversity and the related knowledge, especially surrounding the Nagoya Protocol and its integration into research practice; and (iv) making sure that research programme results are delivered and taken up by public institutions and local populations.

The methodological approaches developed by PALOC take account of local stakeholders, of the interweaving scales involved in heritage dynamics, as well as their social, cultural, environmental, legal and political repercussions. They feed into a collective reflection on approaches, and collaborative and participatory research. PALOC research is co-constructed and its modes of delivery are of interest to all the stakeholders involved in the process of heritagisation creation in the North and the South: local communities, regional and national administrative bodies, international bodies, NGOs, private stakeholders, etc.

PALOC is constructed around three scientific strands (Emergence, Appropriation and Uses of Heritage; Globalised Societies and the Environment; Knowledge, Collections and Movement) and transversal work including practical activities (workshops, seminars, reading workshops), teaching and supervision (summer school, Master’s 1 and 2 internships, support for doctoral student research).

REASEARCH AND TRAINING

The members of PALOC are fully committed to the training of students from undergraduate level L2 at Sorbonne Universities, minor pathway, module in “Local Heritage” and L3 at Sorbonne Universities, minor pathway, module in ‘GIS (Geographic information system)”; the Master’s degree in “Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution” (BEE) at MNHN with the steering and teaching of the pathway Museology of Natural and Human Sciences (MSNH); participation in modules of the Society and Biodiversity pathway (SeB); and teaching at the ED227 MNHN-UPMC Doctoral School in “Sciences of Nature and Man: evolution and ecology”. PALOC is a unit which hosts students on the BEE Master’s and doctoral students at the ED227 Doctoral School. The Unit is also committed to providing training during summer schools and seminars in France and in the Global South.

SeDyL

The SeDyL Joint Research Unit (Language Dynamics and Structure) is a research and training centre in language sciences under the supervision of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD) and the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO).

SeDyL was formed in 2010 by the merger of the CELIA (Centre d’Etude des Langues Indigènes d’Amérique, UMR 8133, founded in 1973) and the Linguistic Circle of INALCO, founded in 1994.

Headcount

The SeDyL comprises around 45 members, including:

• 8 researchers including 2 Emeritus researchers,
• 15 lecturers or professors including 2 Emeritus professors,
• 3 technical support staff,
• 2 members on fixed-term contracts,
• 4 post-doctoral students and 11 doctoral students.

Aims

The scientific aims of SeDyL are:

• to compile first-hand linguistic resources through field work and the collection of corpora,
• to deepen our knowledge of the functioning of the languages of the world and language practices as social practices,
• to discuss the challenges of multilingual societies: language policies (within the fields of education and health), endangered languages and language standardisation, languages and migration.

SeDyL focuses on four fields of expertise:

1) the description, documentation and grammaticalisation of world languages;

2) the study of language contacts, linguistic variations and change;

3) linguistic and regional typologies;

4) the study of multilingualism in different contexts (school, health, migration) leading to the critical analysis of linguistic policies.

SeDyL stands out for two major specialisations:

-the joint treatment of less widespread – or even undescribed – languages and languages with an academic tradition, which has led to an abundance of work. This joint approach is adopted as a positioning in order to reach beyond certain purely typological approaches and is central to the editorial line of the unit’s Faits de Langues journal.

– the inclusion at the heart of our scientific projects of a close involvement with the field and the “Global South” countries, where the unit is an important scientific actor cooperating with other scientific bodies in knowledge transfer and dissemination. This specific epistemological positioning is central to our experience of the Global South as the IRD’s only unit in language sciences.

SeDyL has its place in the national and international landscape in two complementary fields:

– the field of the linguistics of language diversity: the unit is a member of the TUL Federation made up of eleven research units nationally, and the EFL LABEX which is formed of eleven Parisian units within the SPC. It also partners regularly with research centres in Germany and the Netherlands (Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Universities of Leiden and Amsterdam), or in the United Kingdom (Manchester, SOAS and King’s College London).

– in the field of research in social sciences of the Global South: the unit is a member of the F3S Federation and is the leader of Package 2 of the LMI MESO. It regularly forms partnerships with universities of the Global South (CIESAS in Mexico, URBA in Cambodia, UNB in Brazil), and is part of a network of research centres specialised in the field of multilingualism in the Global South (MultiLing in Oslo, Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Stockholm), through the Southern Multilingualism and Diversities consortium.

Research and training

Alongside its central role of knowledge production, as demonstrated by the many publications and the two journals it produces (Amerindia and Faits de Langue), as well as the research outputs (such as the production of corpora, methods or platforms), SeDyL makes sure that society benefits from its work through cooperation (bi-national projects or implication of the communities on which the research is based) or promotion (science and society debates, scientific outreach, translations), as well as training.

SeDyL is also highly committed to training language sciences students in Paris, from bachelor’s to doctoral levels. Our Master’s degrees – especially the INALCO-Paris 3 dual-degree – are an introduction to research practices within our four areas of expertise, each demanding specific methodological and theoretical skills which we teach with a comparative approach to different areas. The unit continues to structure linguistic activities at INALCO, thanks to interdisciplinary linguistics courses for undergraduates, the management of a Master’s in linguistics which is co-accredited with INALCO-Paris 3, and the coordination of 5 doctoral seminars that are open to all.

URMIS

The Migrations and Society Research Unit (URMIS) is a Joint Research Unit under the supervision of Paris Diderot University and Nice Sophia Antipolis University, the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD, UMR 205) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS, UMR 8245).

URMIS is multidisciplinary (sociology, anthropology, history, geography, political science, demography), located in Paris and Nice and works in France and internationally

Headcount

In January 2018, URMIS comprised 60 members:

• 27 CNRS and IRD researchers
• 25 lecturers or professors from Paris Diderot University and Nice Sophia Antipolis University
• 2 post-doctoral students and 6 technical and support staff
• The unit hosts 52 international doctoral students and researchers

Aims

URMIS is a research unit specialised in questions of migration and movement within the context of the creation of social barriers, whether defined in terms of race, ethnicity, territory, culture, gender, etc. The unit studies the processes of identification, categorisation and redefinition of relations of power driven by the migration of people, ideas and beliefs. It implements a constructivist perspective which considers the ethical and racial dimensions of communities and personal identifications as entirely relational social productions, and looks into their relevance as categories of practice used in situations of conflict, in control measures and social or health policies, or in identity affirmation strategies. The research pays particularly close attention to the effects of globalisation on the opening-up of local spaces, the multiplication of supranational and international decision-making bodies, the growth in transnational networks in economic, cultural or religious exchanges. From January 2019, URMIS will be structured around 3 core themes: Migration and Movement; The Making of Otherness: Racial Questions and Discrimination; Belonging, Mobilisations and the Political Sphere.

Research and training

The unit hosts two Master’s degrees at Paris Diderot (a vocational M2 and a research M2R in “Migration and Interethnic Relations” which became “Migration, Racism and Otherness” in 2019) and at Nice Sophia Antipolis University (research M2R “Migration and the Otherness”, now “Migration Studies” in 2019 and a vocational M2 in “Sociological Studies and Diagnoses”). The Unit’s aim is to supervise doctoral and post-doctoral students specialised in the fields of migration, the making of “otherness”, of racism and discriminations, as well as the different forms of belonging and political mobilisation.

CESSMA

The Centre for Social Sciences Studies on African, American and Asian Worlds (CESSMA) is a Joint Research Unit under the supervision of Paris Diderot University, the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD) and the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO).

CESSMA’s work is multidisciplinary (history, geography, anthropology, economics, sociology, urban studies and demography) and it is located on the Paris Rive Gauche campus (13th arrondissement of Paris).

Headcount

In January 2018, CESSMA comprised 55 members:

• 18 IRD researchers
• 33 lecturers or professors of Paris Diderot University and INALCO.
• 1 post-doctoral student
• 3 technical and support personnel
• The unit hosts 80 international doctoral students and researchers.

Aims

The Unit’s scientific focus is on the analysis of the historical and spatial configurations of the development and globalisation processes, at a time when globalisation is accelerating and reshaping all our societies. This question is set within the framework of Africa, America and Asia, and addresses the specific features of these contemporary processes in the Global South, examined within their economic, social, political and cultural dimensions, shaped by history in their different locations. The project emphasises the interaction between globalisation processes in history or today, and the differentiation, convergence and reshaping of identities. The project is particularly interested in the analysis of interdependences arising from globalisation and reshaping the relationship between Global North and Global South, and also exchanges and circulation within the Global South. In order to do this, the centre bases itself resolutely on a multi-scale approach to these processes, from local to national.

The Unit’s research is structured around four strands: Norms, Movement and Stakeholders; Production, Policies and Practices of the City; Work, Finance and Globalisation; Construction and Use of Knowledge. From January 2019, CESSMA will be organised around four core themes: Spatiality, Domination and Violence; Cities of the Global South: Power, Citizenship and Making the Metropolis; Changes in Work, Solidarity, Gender and Finance; Knowledge: Stakeholders, Power, Territory.

Research and training

The Unit can host several Master’s degrees: History of the Worlds with Paris Diderot, Geography of Emerging and Developing Countries with Paris Diderot and Paris 1, Chinese Studies with Paris Diderot and Languages, Literatures, Regional and International Civilisations with INALCO. It also supervises doctoral students enrolled at the Doctoral School for Economics, Space, Societies and Civilisations of Paris Diderot and at the Doctoral School of INALCO.

CEPED

The CEPED (Population and Development Centre) Joint Research Unit was created in 1998 and is a research and training centre specialised in social sciences, under the aegis of the French Institute for Research on Development (IRD) and Paris Descartes University.

CEPED is multidisciplinary and brings together anthropologists (8), demographers (12), sociologists (6), political scientists (4), a lawyer (1), an economist (1), historians (2), researchers in language sciences (3), geographers (2), and public health experts (3).

Headcount

In January 2018, CEPED comprised:

• 42 researchers and 11 lecturers or professors (23 men and 20 women),
• 1 research engineer,
• 49 doctoral students,
• 3 post-doctoral students,
• 4 support staff,
• 38 associate researchers.

Aims

The Unit is specific in that all its research focuses on the populations of the “Global South”, whether in their own societies or in those of the “Global North” when they have travelled or migrated there. The aim is to study the transformations triggered by the globalisation process and their effect on the structures, systems and norms of these societies of the Global South, as well as on the social practices and knowledge of their population and social groups, in particular in the fields of education, migration and health.

The international division of spaces (of settlement), systems (of standards) and markets – in particular those in education and health, which are of particular interest to the Research Unit – is currently being transformed by globalisation, meaning the shift to generalised exchanges that are no longer only between nation-states, but also from sub-national spaces stemming from a productive and spatial break-up of these nation-states. It is the impacts of these divisions and transformations that the Unit seeks to study in depth.

The different dynamics currently underway offer excellent opportunities to study the flexibility of social systems, their different levels of adaptation to change – especially within the fields of education, health and migration – and also the breaks and transformations in the relationships between populations, nation-states and actors (such as international organisations) that are getting to grips with globalisation. Local, national and international policies provide a prism for the study of these processes and transformations, of the fit (or not) between the different scales mentioned previously and, finally, of the interlinked processes that are characteristic of globalisation.

Furthermore, the process of globalisation has generated a sharp widening of inequalities, especially in terms of access to resources and knowledge. These inequalities have also gone hand-in-hand with a process of fragmentation of social groups and the emergence of new social categories, especially elites. To what extent do the processes of worsening inequalities in the conditions of access to different types of resources increase the vulnerability of populations and, going even further, do they bring social cohesion and the conditions for development into question? These questions form a second research perspective in the three fields of the Unit.

Research and training

Training activities take place alongside our research. CEPED organises notably the multidisciplinary Masters in Population and Development Expertise.