Cultures, Environment, Arctic, Representations, Climate

Governing Structure: Observatory of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (OVSQ)
Reference: UR 4455

Composition of the team

Director:
Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, jean-paul.vanderlinden@uvsq.fr

Deputy Directors:
Mateo Cordier, mateo.cordier@uvsq.fr
Alexandra Lavrillier, alexandra.lavrillier@uvsq.fr

Financial Officer:
Jessica Alcher jessica.alcher@uvsq.fr

Research topics
Since March 2013, [1] CEARC is comprised of a core team of academics whose objective is to conduct transdisciplinary practice around two central themes:

1. transition and adaptation as two intertwined concepts
2. the Circumpolar Arctic.

The Arctic theme examines the problems of Arctic circumpolar societies and cultures and their representations of past and present changes. This involves several disciplines and research subjects such as the challenges of climate change and sustainable development; economic, political, social and cultural adaptations of contemporary Arctic populations; ethnohistory and anthropology of Arctic societies; cultural and educational outputs of Arctic societies; the history of the discovery and exploration of the Arctic.

Adaptation focuses on the study of the interactions between human societies and their changing environment to study the various possible ways of reaching sustainability. It is in this context that the study of transition is an important research topic. Research on this theme is based above all on one premise: Recurring invasive global crises and the accumulation of pernicious problems are not attributable to practices that can be gradually and marginally reformed, but to a lack of focus on sustainability in policies and even in the socio-political system itself.
In this sense, the transition to sustainability involves a radical transformation, which takes place over a long period, along paths that are far from straightforward and which often involve accelerations, decelerations and even reversals - where observation plays an important by contributing to the progress.