Working Group 7 : Epistemology & heuristics

Temporality, spatiality, plurality, crisis, history, geography

Coordination : Isabelle LEFORT (Lyon 2), Thierry COANUS (ENTPE)

List of members

The EVS research laboratory is based on the plurality of scientific assumptions and fields, which leads to considerations about different ways of “doing science”. Each of the three entities “city”, “environment”, and “society” can be addressed both as the subject or the product of social processes. Five topics will form the basis of seminars:

1. Crisis and social sciences
2. History and geography: decentering and critical approach
3. Epistemology of the relationships between temporality and spatiality
4. Dialogue between Anthropology and Geography
5. The practice and problems of scientific plurality

These five seminars should offer guidelines for crossed considerations about:

• elements of a general epistemology
• the notions of space, time, spatiality, and temporality
• the cultural dimension of scientific activity