Quelle place pour les experts d’hier et d’aujourd’hui face aux risques de catastrophes ? Dialogue entre générations

Where do yesterday’s and today’s experts in disaster risk reduction stand? An intergenerational dialogue

¹ Sciences de la Terre et psychologie, Université de Paris, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Institut Humanités Sciences Sociétés, Paris, France
² Gestion de la recherche en ingénierie de l’agriculture et de l’environnement, Antony, France

^* Auteur correspondant : Ylb.conseils@orange.fr

Résumé

Dans cet article, construit sous la forme d’une conversation, deux spécialistes des risques issus de deux générations d’experts croisent leurs regards et leurs expériences afin d’éclairer les transformations ayant eu lieu à l’interface entre expertise, décisions et opinions publiques depuis la fin des années 1990.

Abstract

In 1989, the researchers and practitioners gathered at the Arc-et-Senans colloquium (“Experts are categorical” 11, 12 and 13 September 1989) concluded that “faced with the impossible choice between absolute rationality and widespread scepticism, only one path [seemed] acceptable: to modify the traditional relationships between knowledge and ignorance, profane knowledge and expert knowledge, and finally between political power, expertise and democracy”. Yet, more than 30 years later, “experts” are still looking for their place in the making of public decisions and in the relationship with what is confusingly referred to as the “public opinion”. Have not the last few decades brought about profound changes? In this article, organized as a conversation, two risk specialists from different generations cross their views and experiences to shed light on the changes that have taken place at the interface between expertise, decisions and public opinion since the end of the 1990s. Their dialogue is inspired by a collective work conducted by a multidisciplinary group of experts within the framework of the Scientific Council of the French Association for Natural Disaster Prevention between 2013 and 2018.