CNRS Junior Researcher
Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (CSO)
Research Interest(s): Sociology of agriculture, Environmental health, Knowledge, science, and expertise, Data infrastructure and geographic information systems
Discipline(s): History
Research Group(s): Public Policy and Transformations of the State, Governance and Economic Organisations, Knowledge, Science and Expertise Program
Sylvain Brunier’s research focuses on the history of modernisation projects that employ knowledge tools, advisory work, and public policies. He has recently published a book on the history of agricultural advisors, Le bonheur dans la modernité [Happiness in Modernity], in which he demonstrates this professional group’s central role in the development and implementation of agricultural policies in France after the World War Two.
His latest project is concerned with studying the current promises of “new agricultural modernisation,” which aims to reconcile intensive farming methods with the limitation of damage to health and the environment. He is particularly interested in spatial surveillance tools (satellites, sensors, geographic information systems) and in the new forms of prescriptions conveyed by firms and government administrations.
Collège Jean Moulin, Neuilly-Plaisance (2020) and Lycée horticole de Montreuil (2019)
January - September 2018
Postdoctoral fellow, Institut Francilien Recherche Innovation Société (IFRIS), (advisor: Pierre-Benoît Joly)
Research project title: “Governing agriculture from the sky: How remote sensing reshaped the Common Agricultural Policy since 1992”
July - December 2017
Postdoctoral fellow, Princeps / Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CSO – UMR 7116) / Sciences Po
Research project title: “Le rôle de la médecine hospitalière dans le signalement des maladies professionnelles liées aux pesticides” (with Jean-Noël Jouzel and Giovanni Prete)
2012
PhD in History, University of Grenoble
Thesis defended and carried out at the Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA – UMR 5190)
Dissertation title: “Conseillers et conseillères agricoles. L’amour du progrès aux temps de la « révolution silencieuse » (1945-1983)”