Merging Scenes and Circulation of Knowledge

Panel Chairs:

Bernard Delvaux, University of Louvain, Bernard.delvaux@uclouvain.be

Abstract:

In the French-language literature, the "public action" approach marks the entry of sociology into the field of political science and breaks with a classical conception of political science that by and large continued to refer to the idea of a centralized State acting through formal norms. This approach apprehends the public policy process as a complex process taking place in different locations (scenes). Public action does not follow a linear path; the State is not necessarily at its centre; and it involves a variety of actors, including civil society. Public action is also complex in the various ways it incorporates different types of knowledge, transforming their format and meaning and generating hybrid forms of knowledge.

Processes of knowledge circulation, transformation and hybridization don't be the same in coordinating scenes (Parliament,...), advocating scenes (trade union,...), front line scenes (school,...), or merging scenes. Those merging scenes can be defined as scenes where there is a meeting between actors coming from various scenes and worlds, and bringing different types of knowledge. Those scenes without official function of coordination nevertheless play an important role in the course of public action.

In addition to traditional merging scenes such as media, there are now new and more interactive merging scenes, and especially consultation devices. The dissemination of this kind of scene is partly linked to the transformation of the government model. Various kinds of actors are contributing to the creation of such scenes, which affect not only processes of knowledge circulation, transformation and hybridization, but also processes of consensus building, decision making and regulation.

The panel will be focused on those "new" merging scenes and on their role in the public action process. How do they participate in the transformation and hybridization of knowledge? How do they affect representations of actors and coalitions? How do they contribute to the emergence of consensus? How do they affect actions and interactions in other scenes, and in particular in scenes where actors taking part in the merging scene are coming from?