SRA-E Lisbon 2017

Our Franco-Brazilian research cooperation brings together the PACTE and CRESSON laboratories of CNRS, CETESB - the environmental agency of the State of São Paulo - and the Faculty of Public Health of the University of Sao Paulo. The problematic is based on the hypothesis of the risk society which considers that risk has become the unsurpassable horizon of our modernity to the point of constituting henceforth our own living environment. Our research is based on this hypothesis in order to develop a new risk culture that is to experiment with participatory methods that allow the awareness of the population exposed. The choice of a pragmatist posture enabled us to articulate academic reflection, methodological experimentation and transformation of public action. Two pilot sites have been selected in the State of São Paulo: the Condomínio Barão de Mauá, where residents have been living for 16 years in a contaminated area (methane, benzene, etc.) and the oil terminal in the port of São Sebastião which encircles its center and residential neighborhoods. Launched in September 2014, our research will be completed by March 2019. During the first phase of diagnosis we experimented with two complementary methods. The study of risk ambiances allowed us to access the sensitive daily experience of the inhabitants of a risk area while the analysis of controversies allowed us to trace its social, environmental and political history. The second phase is experimenting with other methods to prepare the inhabitants of the pilot zones for the setting up of a risk forum, a dispositive designed to implement participatory and partnership-based risk management. In Mauá, the risk scene, a public meeting devoted to the controlled expression of the emotions of the inhabitants of the contaminated area, made it possible to appease their painful experience by pooling emotions and a form of acknowledgment by others. In São Sebastião, artistic simulation has produced a risk scenario to involve the public and generate debate with the institutions on the scenario and risk management systems. Then, the risk forum was set up in each of the sites to experiment with shared management. The results of this research will allow the drafting of communication and participation protocol which will be available as of March 2017 but will have to be adapted to the practices of the administrations and the companies before its implementation by the CETESB throughout the State of São Paulo as of March 2019.