Thematic areas

Thematic 1- New technologies and digitized worlds

Societies give rise to new technologies and new objects in an increasingly digitized world. Our daily lives are inhabited both by older tools (radio, TV) and by new technological devices (AI, biotechnologies, learning tools, teleconsultations, digital platforms, social networks) that are changing our present and may shape our future. In this shifting and uncertain context, there are many issues that reach communication, education, health, work, the environment, gender and so on. In the field of social representations, they may concern, for instance, the mobilization of scientific knowledges and common senses, or new practices facing the new boundaries of life in society.

Thematic 2 - Conflicts and negotiations

This axis focuses on the expressive purpose of social representations and their confrontation in the elaboration of social reality, where everyone can take a stand in a debate. Indeed, social representations aim to negotiate on knowledges and judgments that clash for the definition of references and the justification of conduct. Individuals' attitudes are constrained by their position in social relations and the hierarchy of groups in the current social field. The aim is to study the social objects of our present in order to grasp our future: conspiracy, working conditions, cyber-communication, discrimination, ecology, memory, nationalism and so on.

Thematic 3- New ethical and methodological issues

Research into social representations is confronted with numerous questions and challenges that are important to debate in the scientific community in order to improve our research practices. Technological advances impact the types of data we can use, opening up the possibility of using data from forums and web pages, for example, and raising new ethical and methodological issues. At the same time, there is a renewed interest in the humanities and social sciences, and in the field of social representations, for qualitative approaches and/or approaches that call on the creativity of researchers and participants. These approaches are part of participatory processes that call into question our usual methods. This axes invites researchers to describe their experiences and their methodological and ethical questions relating to the use of new tools and methods.

Thematic 4- Local and global changes, transitions and challenges

For several decades now, global issues have been front and center (the globalization of economic, social and digital exchanges, the over-exploitation or endangerment of common goods, climate change, etc.). These global interrelationships are a reality we have to come to terms with. But the health crisis of 2020, for example, clearly demonstrates the limits of these exchanges and, above all, the inequalities between countries. Changing our practices, or more broadly our lifestyles, is a matter of course - radical changes for some groups, gradual changes for others. Whatever the scale, this necessarily implies a change in representations. Research falling in this axis will address these questions in relation to global (macrosystem) and local (microsystem) issues, the diversity of forms of transition, modes of adaptation or education, and so on.

Thematic 5- New forms of everyday life

In our changing 21st-century societies, new ways of living are emerging that challenge our social representations and affect all spheres of daily life, from the most intimate to the most far-reaching. The evolution of laws concerning same-sex unions and access to various techniques of medically assisted procreation, for example, call into question our representations of the family, the conception and education of children, love and sexualities. Similarly, LGBTI social movements and changes in legal provisions have opened up a space for reconsidering gender identity and questioning the naturalness of gender difference. In the context of climate change, individuals are led to rethink and create new relationships to food production and their food, as well as to forms of living (collective, intergenerational, solidarity-based housing). Finally, the international health crisis of Covid-19 has had an impact on citizens' general living conditions, their physical and mental health, as well as work and education forms, inviting us to explore how the representations concerned have evolved.

Thematic 6- Art and creativity

This theme explores the links between art, creativity and social representations. Art and representations share important similarities. Both a process and a product, art communicates a particular understanding of the environment, expressed through specific practices or technical modes. It belongs to both the individual and social spheres. Feeding off the environment, it also contributes to modify it. This comparison can be made, for example and in a non-exhaustive way, by studying, beyond the social representations of art, how art feeds on social representations or how these can be influenced, or even produced, by art. It can also be an opportunity to delve deeper into what art reveals about our societies or, by questioning the notions of creation and market, to decipher the tensions and balances between innovation and conformism, but also between tradition and change.