News

Politicization and Requalification of the subsurface: first study day and field visit of a working group of the VERTIQUAL project

On 10 and 11 July 2025, members of Working Group 3 of the VERTIQUAL project met on the field site of one of their team members, Julianna Colonna (ETTIS – INRAE), a postdoctoral researcher. This first meeting was followed by a study day and the group’s annual visit to a location central to the research of one of its members.

11 August 2025

VERTIQUAL

Working Group 3 (WP3) of VERTIQUAL brings together scientists in the humanities, at the intersection of environmental studies and political ecology. Their research focuses on the forms of politicization involved in different uses of the subsurface, the way material qualities of the subsurface are classified and redefined by different groups involved, and the controversies accompanying the revival of mining in France.

The team met on 10 and 11 July 2025 at the INRAE Grenoble Auvergne–Rhône-Alpes center to share progress made over the past year and to begin constructing a common analytical framework.

Sociologist of science and VERTIQUAL postdoctoral researcher Julianna Colonna (ETTIS – INRAE) opened to her colleagues the doors of her field site: the construction of the Lyon–Turin tunnel. Sociologist Céline Granjou (LESSEM – INRAE), political scientist Sylvain Le Berre (ETTIS – INRAE), environmental anthropologist Germain Meulemans (CAK – CNRS), and VERTIQUAL PhD student Anne-Sophie Milon (CAK, LESC – CNRS) were able to visit the so-called “C08” site, the French access point to the tunnel. The visit gave them insight into:

the diversity of knowledge and practices active in and around the construction site;
the multiple infrastructures and scales of work required by such a civil and mining engineering project.

After the visit, two half-days were devoted to presentations on each member’s research progress, as well as the first steps toward a shared analytical framework. This will support a future collective synthesis, intended for the broader VERTIQUAL project team and eventually the wider scientific community involved in the program.

Another meeting will be organized next year, during the first semester of 2026. It will also include a field visit to one member’s study site and collective work on the shared analysis of research progress, particularly regarding the material dimensions of the political redefinition of France’s subsurface.