Depuis près de trente ans et avec une accélération croissante, l’autonomie de la science et la reconnaissance de sa singularité ne cessent d’être remises en question. L’établissement progressif de la technoscience modifie en profondeur les missions des universités, l’ethos de la communauté scientifique, les relations entre recherche et industrie. Cette thèse analyse le long processus de mutation qui caractérise la recherche au sein des économies occidentales en se centrant sur la problématique suivante : comment les nouvelles exigences politico-économiques transforment-elles le système de recherche français ? Quelles pratiques collaboratives promeuvent-elles entre les secteurs public et privé ? Quelles mutations affectent les pratiques de recherche de la communauté scientifique et quelles en sont les conséquences envisageables sur les orientations de la recherche scientifique ? Pour y répondre, nous étudions la manière dont le pilotage de la recherche s’est accentué au cours de la dernière décennie, depuis le développement progressif du new public management jusqu’aux dernières réformes : mise en place de la LOLF, création de l’ANR, systématisation de l’évaluation à la suite de la création de l’Aeres. Pour mieux comprendre les logiques en cours, trois terrains ont été étudiés : le campus universitaire de l’Université d’Evry Val d’Essonne ; celui de San Diego, au sein de l’Université de Californie ; le biopôle de Laval, au Canada. Cette thèse décrit la modification progressive de la gouvernance des structures de recherche et de leur organisation, en défendant l’idée que de l’identité de chercheur, la communauté scientifique acquiert progressivement celle de technologue. / For nearly thirty years and with increasing acceleration, the autonomy of science and the recognition of its uniqueness have been constantly questioned. Its process of technicization and the development of new forms of funding have gradually undermined the balance that existed between science and society. The gradual development of technoscience deeply changed the goals of universities, the ethos of the scientific community, the relations between research and industry. This thesis aims to analyze and figure out the long mutation process that has been characterizing research in western countries over the three past decades, by focusing on the following key questions: how do new politico-economic demands transform the french research system ? What collaborative practices will they promote between the public and private sectors? What changes will affect the research practices of the scientific community and what are the possible consequences on the evolution of scientific research? To answer to these questions, we study how the steering of research has been increasing over the last decade, from the gradual development of new public management to the last reforms: establishment of LOLF, creation of ANR, systematic evaluations following the creation of Aeres. To better understand the current processes, three fields were studied: the campus of the University of Evry Val d'Essonne, the University of California, San Diego, and the biopole of Laval, Canada. This thesis describes the gradual and structural change of the governance of research organizations, and argues that, from the identity of researchers, the scientific community gradually acquires the identity of technologists.

La biologie synthétique est une biotechnologie émergente qui vise à produire des organismes qui n’existent pas dans la nature pour des finalités industrielles. Bien avant que ses applications ne soient développées, ce projet attise de vifs intérêts, mais aussi de précoces critiques. Cette technoscience a attiré très précocement l’attention des pouvoirs publics en France et aux Etats-Unis, cherchant à la gouverner « en amont » de ses applications – et à répondre aux contestations précoces qui s’y opposent. Cette temporalité de gouvernement est l’objet d’étude de la thèse, enquête menée avec les outils de la sociologie des sciences et des risques. Nous suivons la construction sociale des risques et des problèmes de la biologie synthétique, les dispositifs mis en place et les nombreux.ses acteur.rice.s qu’ils mobilisent : bio-ingénieur.e.s, chercheur.se.s en sciences sociales, agents du FBI, biologistes amateurs, contestataires. En France, le premier problème de la biologie synthétique est sa capacité à être contestée, comme le furent les organismes génétiquement modifiés avant elle. Ses promoteur.rice.s politiques et scientifiques cherchent à la développer et à satisfaire la société civile par des dispositifs participatifs qui n’ont toutefois aucune prise sur ce développement. Aux Etats-Unis, les critiques sont marginalisées, et il est surtout craint que la biologie synthétique soit employée par des terroristes, ce que le pouvoir cherche à prévenir tout en préservant la technoscience et ses marchandises de toute régulation. Ainsi, par delà la variété de ces dispositifs, la thèse rend compte de deux formes de gouvernement « en amont », qui ont pour point commun de ne jamais mettre en cause la biologie synthétique, mais de gouverner les problèmes qui pourraient la freiner : un gouvernement sciences-société en France, un gouvernement sécurité-marché aux Etats-Unis. / Synthetic biology is an emerging biotechnology which aims to produce micro-organisms as they do not exist in nature for industrial ends. As it is not yet industrially developed, this technoscience is mostly known for its economical promises but also for being precociously contested by social and environmental movements. Synthetic biology has also attracted public authorities’ attention in France and in the United States, which aim to govern and regulate it in an “upstream” manner (before its applications are developed). This political temporality is the object of study of our thesis, and we have analyzed it in the perspective of sociology of science and sociology of risk. We follow the social construction of the risks and problems of synthetic biology, the apparatus which are dedicated to govern such risks and the numerous actors they rally: bioengineers, social scientists, FBI agents, amateur biologists, activists... We argue that in France, synthetic biology’s main problem is its ability to be socially contested as genetically modified organisms were before it. Its political and scientific supporters thus aim to develop synthetic biology and to satisfy civil society with participatory devices, which have yet no way to intervene in the technological development. In the United States, critics are marginalized, and synthetic biology’s main problem is its ability to be used by terrorists. Public authorities try to prevent such terrorism, while preserving technoscience and its commodities outside the scope of regulation. Thus, beyond the variety of regulation apparatus, the thesis aims to present two ways of governing synthetic biology “upstream”, which have in common the specificity to never focus on synthetic biology, but to govern the problems which might slow its development. We propose to understand these two ways as a sciences-society regime of government in France, and a security-market regime of government in the United States.

Der amerikanische Philosoph Don Ihde entwickelte in den letzten zwanzig Jahren im Anschluss an die Technikphilosophie Martin Heideggers ein Konzept von Technoscience, das die technische Dimension der Naturkunde und der Naturwissenschaft sowie ihre kulturelle Einbettung hervorhebt. Insbesondere Heidegger und Ihde beschränken Technoscience- Ansätze auf neuzeitliche experimentelle Naturwissenschaft. Technoscience sollte jedoch auch wesentliche Bereiche der Medizin umfassen, allerdings mit deutlich technischer Zielsetzung. Drei Paradigmen haben sich für die Diskussion in der Bioethik herausgeschält: (1) eine Ethik des konservativen Lebensschutzes; (2) eine Ethik des pragmatischen Heilens und Verbesserns einschließlich innovativer Verwendung moderner Biotechnologie im Rahmen einer Handlungsorientierung am menschlichen Leib; (3) die Position der liberalen Eugeniker. / Over the past 20 years, American philosopher Don Ihde has developed a concept of technoscience, based on Heidegger's philosophy of technology, to emphasise the technological dimension of natural history, natural science and their cultural context. Both Heidegger and Ihde limit the technoscience approach to modern experimental natural science. However, technoscience should also embrace essential areas of medicine, albeit with decidedly technical objectives. Three paradigms have evolved for the discussion in bioethics: (1) the ethics of conservative protection of life; (2) the ethics of pragmatic healing and betterment, including innovative applications of modern biotechnology within a framework of action centred on the human body; (3) the position and theses of liberal eugenics.

This dissertation is a performative exploration of experience within our technoscientific--that is, technologically and scientifically saturated--world. Drawing upon posthumanism and cyborg studies and working through specific, mutated versions of performative inquiry and phenomenology, I aim to encourage creative public participation in technoscientific discourse. That is, I apply an adapted method (cyborg phenomenology) to my own staged personae performances of nonhuman entities in order to investigate technoscientific experience from a less anthrocentric perspective. My goal is to interrogate my performance experience in order to better understand the dynamics of agency and relationship within our technologically infused world, and to employ performance and performative writing as pedagogical tools for educating others about these dynamics. This document might be best read as an example of performative inquiry as a useful approach to the study of technoscience and its consequences. As a whole, this dissertation is a call for, theorization with, and performative demonstration of artful participation in the multi-layered discourses of technology and science that impact the lives of all beings in our world. It is an experiential experiment, an exploration of possibility, and a beginning.

Considérée comme l’avenir de la pratique médicale, la nanomédecine est l’application des nanotechnologies aux soins de santé. Plus qu’un nouveau domaine d’application technologique, la nanomédecine est porteuse d’un nouveau paradigme biomédical qui promeut une conception technoscientifique de la santé. Ce nouveau paradigme regroupe sous le préfixe nano l’ensemble des grandes tendances actuelles de la recherche en santé : la médecine prédictive, la médecine personnalisée et la médecine régénératrice. Centré sur le développement d’innovations visant au contrôle technique des éléments et des processus biologiques fondamentaux, ce nouveau paradigme se développe largement grâce au soutien des gouvernements et aux promesses économiques qu’il soulève. Il se construit à la croisée du scientifique, du politique et de l’économique. Interroger la nanomédecine revient alors à examiner plus largement la forme et les conditions du sens des innovations biomédicales et à soulever de la sorte les implications de la « technoscientifisation » des soins de santé.L’objectif de cette thèse est ainsi de rendre compte de la spécificité et des enjeux sociaux, culturels et politico-économiques caractéristiques du modèle biomédical technoscientifique porté par la nanomédecine à partir de sa conceptualisation sous la forme d’un idéaltype : la nanosanté. Si la nanomédecine renvoie de manière générale aux applications techniques de la nanotechnologie au domaine biomédical, la nanosanté renvoie aux diverses dimensions sociologiques constitutives de ces technologies et à leurs effets sur la santé et la société. Notre modèle de la nanosanté s’organise autour de trois dimensions : la transversalité, l’amélioration et la globalisation. Compte tenu de sa nature synthétique, ce modèle tridimensionnel permet d’aborder de front plusieurs questionnements cruciaux soulevés par le développement de la nanomédecine. Il permet d’éclairer le rapport contemporain à la santé et ses implications sur l’identité ; de mettre en lumière la centralité des technosciences dans la conception du progrès médical et social ; de mieux saisir les nouvelles formes globales de pouvoir sur la vie et les nouvelles formes d’inégalité et d’exploitation caractéristiques d’une société qui accorde une valeur grandissante à l’adaptabilité technique de l’humain et à l’économisation de la santé et du corps ; mais aussi de mieux comprendre le sens et les répercussions de l’engagement scientifique, politique et économique dans les innovations moléculaires et cellulaires. / Nanomedicine – the application of nanotechnology to medicine – is seen as the medicine of the future. Thus, nanomedicine is not just a new biomedical field. It carries a new biomedical paradigm promoting a technoscientific conception of healthcare. This new paradigm grows from and brings together the three current tendencies of healthcare research: predictive medicine, personalized medicine and regenerative medicine. Its focus is on the technical control of the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological development of the body. The growing of this new biomedical paradigm is largely the result of government supports and economic potentials. It is both a scientific and a politico-economic construction. In that sense, analysing nanomedicine means analysing the form and the conditions of the current biomedical progress. In other words, nanomedicine helps us to grasp and understand the issues and implications of the ‘‘technoscientifization’’ of healthcare. This thesis aims to highlight the socio-cultural nature of the technoscientific model of healthcare promoted by the nanomedicine. To do so, I propose the construction of an ideal-type of this technoscientific model, which I call nanohealth. If nanomedicine refers to the different technological applications of nanotechnology to medicine, nanohealth refers to the different sociological dimensions and impacts of these applications on health and society. The nanohealth ideal-type is constructed around three dimensions: transversality, enhancement and globalization. The synthetic nature of this tridimensional ideal-type helps us to tackle the crucial issues surrounding the development of the nanomedicine. It helps us to understand the meaning and impacts of the scientific, political and economic engagement in nanomedicine; to highlight the centrality of technoscience in the cultural conception of medical and social progress; to grasp the new forms of power upon life and identity, and the new forms of inequality and exploitation, which are characteristics of a society focusing on the technical adaptability of human being and the economization of health and body.

L’état et le devenir de la diversité biologique préoccupent la science et la politique depuis près d’un demi-siècle. Dans ce travail, nous questionnons le modèle linéaire en vigueur qui suppose que la recherche scientifique décrit une réalité objective sur laquelle la politique peut s’appuyer pour formuler des décisions éclairées sur la « crise de la biodiversité ». En adaptant l’hypothèse foucaldienne de biopouvoir, nous montrons qu’un régime de savoir-pouvoir de type technoscientifique se déploie sous la forme de prises en charge du vivant. Nous étudions les multiples traductions dont la diversité biologique fait l’objet lors de sa quantification, sa mise en relation avec le fonctionnement des écosystèmes, et le calcul d’équivalences écologiques. Dans chacune de ces étapes, nous décrivons les transformations ontologiques de la biodiversité impliquées et la manière dont science et politique coproduisent un dispositif de maîtrise de la nature. Ces prises en charge partagent la propriété de reconfigurer l’espace-temps endogène aux entités écologiques pour qu’il devienne compatible avec des préoccupations anthropocentrées. Ces reconfigurations produisent des résistances multiples et ignorent l’oikos de la biodiversité dont nous soulignons les caractéristiques à partir de l’héritage de Ernst Haeckel et de Jacob von Uexküll. Nous concluons que les recherches des conditions et des modes d’existence de la biodiversité peuvent servir de base à une « écologie de la biodiversité » conçue comme contre-dispositif non anthropocentré. Ce travail propose d’ouvrir une réflexion sur la manière dont la crise écologique bouscule les catégories d’espace, de temps et d’environnement. / The state and fate of biological diversity is a matter of scientific and political concern for half acentury. In this thesis, we explain how the articulation between knowledge and power contributes to the understanding and policy dedicated to handle this ecological crisis. By adapting the foucaldian hypothesis of biopower, we show how a technoscientific regime is built upon a “dispositif” meant to control the heterogeneity and unpredictability of nature. We study the successions of multiple traductions of biodiversity during its quantification, functionalization and the construction of ecological equivalence. In each of these steps, we describe the ontological transformations of biodiversity involved and how science and policy co-produce a strategical device for controlling biodiversity. The consequence of these transformations is the replacement of endogenous spatial and temporal frames of ecological entities by an exogenous temporality and spatiality, compatible with anthropocentric concerns. We show that these reconfigurations produce multiple resistances but ignore the specificities of what we call the oikos of biodiversity.We conclude that studying the conditions and modes of existence of biodiversity can serve as abasis for the construction of a non-anthropocentric counter-biopower.

This licentiate thesis is concerned with the development of appropriate tools and implementation of hybrid e-learning to support science and mathematics education of female students in typical rural advanced-level secondary schools. In Uganda few rural female students participate in technology and engineering education in tertiary institutions because they perform poorly in science and mathematics subjects at advanced secondary school level of education. Rural secondary schools in Uganda are usually very poor and financially constrained schools. Generally, such schools have non-functional science laboratories and libraries. They also have difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified science and mathematics teachers, especially at advanced level of secondary education. The financial situations of the schools make capital investments in science infrastructures like laboratories and libraries impossible. Fortunately, such schools can afford to acquire computers preferably with multimedia capabilities. Hybrid e-learning can be introduced in such disadvantaged schools to support science and mathematics education. The main delivery tools under hybrid e-learning are the CD-ROMs due to their superior advantages over other portable storage devices: big memory capacity, high data transfer rate, multimedia capability and widespread standardization. Used computers with inferior capabilities that are being sold to rural schools cheaply are not useful for educational purposes. The cost of acquisition is low but the total cost of ownership is extremely high. The costs of Internet installation, bandwidth, commercial platforms and web-hosting make introduction of pure e-learning in Ugandan schools not viable, even in educationally elite secondary schools. Hybrid elearnin is the only realistic option in the complex financial situation of Ugandan secondary schools. Experience has shown that where there is Internet presence for use in education, open source web-hosting providers and open source platforms must be used. They are cheap and affordable even by poor rural secondary schools. Hybrid e-learning tools were developed to support such Ugandan schools using participatory methodology. The thesis is organized in three parts. Part I consists of six chapters including background information, concept discussions, problem statement, research questions, objectives of the study and research location. A justification of the use of participatory methodology in the research is also made in part I. Part II includes the four papers upon which the thesis is based. Part III contains a brief summary of the papers, conclusions and future research.

This dissertation explores the emergence of the complexity paradigm in our technoscience culture and proposes "scientific fiction" as a genre of cultural studies based on that paradigm. Throughout this dissertation, I use the terms and concepts of complexity theory developed by new science, which revises the reductionism and linearity of classic science. The complexity paradigm signifies a system of all knowledge that conceives the productivity and creativity of the complexity created by interconnective and interactive dynamics among and within systems. As a literary response to the complexity paradigm, scientific fiction emphasizes the productivity and creativity of the complexity, offering the possibility of the human‘s co-evolution with technoscience. These characteristics of scientific fiction help articulate new ontological, ethical, and aesthetic visions for the posthuman. This dissertation ultimately highlights the strong feedback loops of technoscience, literature, and culture, which promote the complexity paradigm. By comparing Pat Cadigan‘s Synners as a scientific fiction novel and William Gibson‘s Neuromancer as a representative postmodern science fiction novel, Chapter II presents the defining characteristics of scientific fiction, reconfiguring humanity in relation to the technoscience environment. Furthermore, analyzing Greg Bear‘s Blood Music, the chapter claims that the human subject is an adaptive, self-organizing, interconnective system. Grounded in such understandings of humanity and subjectivity, the next chapter examines Marge Piercy‘s He, She and It to offer a new ethical perspective, or the complexity ethics, which establishes the interconnective and interactive relationship between the human and the technological as an evolutionary partner. The complexity ethics describes human behaviors and thoughts in our technoscience culture rather than prescribing a moral guideline. Next, in investigating Shelley Jackson‘s Patchwork Girl, a hypertext novel that rewrites Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein, Chapter IV explores a new aesthetics appreciating the creativity of the complexity produced by interconnective and interactive dynamics. Finally, through the analyses of the scientific fiction novels, this dissertation suggests that scientific fiction is a transdisciplinary field that can offer new cultural visions.

Qu’est-ce que l’invention ? Ce travail repose la question dans l’horizon du développement de la technoscience contemporaine, lorsque la frontière entre les notions de production, de découverte et d’innovation se brouille. Il s’installe au carrefour des sciences cognitives (l’énaction), de la philosophie (le post-kantisme de Fichte) et de la technologie (thèse de la technique anthropologiquement constituante). C’est le paradigme de l’énaction qui fournit l’impulsion initiale : il permet d’une part de reposer le rapport entre un organisme et son environnement, d’autre part de repenser les oppositions conceptuelles reçues à partir de la « relation Étoile » qui montre qu’il n’y a pas d’extériorité entre les termes. L’énaction permet donc d’étayer la définition de l’invention comme rapport à ce qui n’est pas donné. Il faut alors dégager l’invention des « manèges » dans lesquels elle a souvent été pensée : découverte ou création, exhumation ou production, etc. La philosophie de Fichte confirme la nouveauté épistémologique d’une telle approche : la doctrine de la science est cette démarche qui fait émerger le Moi et le non-Moi dans l’énonciation de ce qui ne se trouve pas là comme préexistant sans pour autant le créer ex nihilo. Enfin, la dernière partie de ce travail propose une approche organologique de l’invention, comme rapport entre organes, organismes et organisations : il s’agit toujours d’épistémologie, dès lors que celle-ci est bien la pensée de la mise en situation du connaissant dans l’institution pragmatique de ce qu’il décrit, c’est-à-dire de ce qu’il fait-venir – ce que dit l’invention dans son étymologie. / What is invention? This work raises the question in the midth of the contemporaneous developments of technoscience, where the frontiers between production, discovery, and innovation are blurring. It is at the crossroads of cognitive science (namely enaction), philosophy (Fichte’s philosophy), and technology (thesis of technology as anthropologically constitutive). The paradigm of enaction triggers the first steps of demonstration; it allows on the one hand to reset the relationship between organism and environment ; on the other hand, to cast new thoughts on traditional conceptual oppositions, where the « Star relationship » shows that there are no exteriority between such terms. Therefore, enaction strengthens the definition of invention as relation to what is not given. Hence the task to free inventions from alternatives: discovery or creation, exhumation or production, etc. Fichte’s philosophy brings confirmation to the epistemological novelty of such an approach: the Theory of science is precisely this conceptual move to have Ego and non-Ego emerge jointly in the enunciation of what is not there, not preexisting, without being inexistent and created ex nihilo. The fourth and last part proposes an organological approach of invention, as being a relation between organs, organisms, and organisations: it is still a matter of epistemology, when it is thought as a reflection on the situatedness of the knower caught in the pragmatic institution of what she describes, that is to say what she makes to come – what is invention according to etymology.

The point of departure for my research is a perceived breach and resulting dissonance between how digital games and other parts of society that are similar in form, enact certain aspects of life. This shift was made especially clear in massive multiplayer games in 2004 with the release of World of Warcraft, the design of which panders to cultural weak points, rather than attempting to mimic them. Digital games are far-reaching. In February 2019, ‘Apex Legends’ reached over 10 million players in less than 72 hours. Nonetheless, the idea of games as separate from the ‘real’ is persisting. Digital games have become a cyclopean gathering of liminality, and there are still no form-based ethics emerging, from either industry or society. Even though society is now undergoing the same abstracting digitisation, that has been a base for game design for a long time, there is a continuing separation in the knowledge applying to games or ‘reality’. The purpose of this thesis is to explore different ontological, epistemological, and ethical understandings of digital games as media, technology, modes of experience, and form. This is undertaken by using the situated and reality producing grating1 of technoscience, together with an eclectic range of concepts such as media as a message, agential reality, liminal phases, anticipation, and ergon. The research delineates a primer for applied studies within the rhizomatic structure of digital games, digitisation, technoscience, and media-technology. In accordance with this aim, the thesis has a fragmented, non-linear, and mosaic approach. This licentiate thesis is a compilation of three papers with a complementary introduction and an epilogue.