Manon Deguet is a PhD candidate at Sciences Po (CERI). She is carrying out a thesis on the political construction of the rights of nature (supervision: S.Revet and F. Poupeau). Her analysis is based on the project to recognize Lake Titicaca as a subject of law, bringing together a country historically linked to international advances on the rights of nature (Bolivia) and another that resists their consecration (Peru). Through an ethnographic survey, she studies the interests and forms of relationship involved in this project, in order to understand the political, economic and social arbitrations that the rights of nature reveal.
A social anthropologist, Pia has contributed to the RULNAT research project as postdoctoral fellow (2022-2023) at CESAH (Centre d’Etudes sud-asiatiques et himalayennes). She currently holds a postdoctoral position at Sciences-Po, Paris.
Her work focuses on the legal, political and technical settings that frame the development of the mining industry in Greenland. She studies connections between mining laws and the independence issue regarding economic separation from Denmark, and the phenomenon of state construction linked to the development of land exploitation. She also examines the effects of mining projects on local communities and, for this purpose, follows social mobilizations against mining projects that have taken place since 2009. From this perspective, she pays particular attention to the issues surrounding uranium and rare earth elements, two types of resources that raise geopolitical and ecological questions that divide Greenlandic society.
Since 2016, she has been conducting a whole series of fieldwork within the political institutions of Nuuk and in southern Greenland, a region particularly affected by mining projects.
2022 Terres communes et gisements nationaux : étude des reconfigurations juridiques, géologiques et politiques autour du traitement des sols et des sous-sols groenlandais à partir de l’ethnographie du projet minier de Kuannersuit. (National deposits and common lands : study of the legal, geological and political reconfigurations of the treatment of Greenlandic soils and subsoils from the ethnography of the Kuannersuit mining project) Thèse de doctorat d’anthropologie, Université Paris Nanterre.
2019 Bailleul, P. « La société groenlandaise en mutation : itinéraire d’un État en devenir » in Escudé-Joffres Camille (dir.) Les régions de l’Arctique, Neuilly, Atlande : 79-95
2019 Bailleul, P. « Habiter l’Arctique, une entrée par la pratique des acteurs : le cas de Qassiarsuk, au Groenland » in Escudé-Joffres Camille (dir.) Les régions de l’Arctique, Neuilly, Atlande : 185-192
✜Communications
2022 « De l’engagement contre l’exploitation de l’uranium à l’ethnographie des « discordances » : se rendre sensible aux effets d’un projet minier » Journée d’étude « Terrains minés : enjeux scientifiques et éthiques du travail ethnographique en contexte extractif », IRIS, Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers.
2022 « Le gouvernement des ressources minières au Groenland : droits fonciers, projets miniers et changements globaux », séminaire du Centre Emile Durkheim, Institut de Sciences politiques, UMR Passages, Bordeaux.
2022 « Des droits sur les communs aux lois d’exploitation minière, les projets miniers au coeur de conflits pour le gouvernement des terres au Groenland », séminaire Outre-mer et recherche en sciences sociales : jeux d’échelles et de souverainetés, Institut de recherche pour le développement, Paris.
2022 « Radioactive minerals in Greenland : geological, legal and political fluctuations of nuclearity (1950-2022) », Colloque de l’ANR « Ruling on nature : animals and the environment before the Court », Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers.
2021 « L’exploitation des terres rares au Groenland : ethnographie de la construction politique et technique d’une ressource minière », séminaire de recherche du musée du quai Branly, Musée du quai Branly, Paris.
2021 « Le territoire périssable. Les effets du projet Kvanefjeld sur la péninsule de Narsaq, sud-Groenland », séminaire de recherche du musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Paris.
2021 « Nationale, radioactive puis nucléaire : constructions législatives et physiques de la production uranifère de la montagne Kuannersuit (sud-Groenland) », séminaire « Anthropologie à Nanterre », Université Paris Nanterre.
2020 « Mise en scène patrimoniale et développement économique autour des sites groenlandais classés à l’Unesco « Kujataa : a subarctic farming landscape » », séminaire Monde arctique, Séminaire, Université Paris 1.
2020 « Constituer l’histoire politique des mines et des minerais groenlandais : photographies, lois, industries », séminaire de recherche, musée du quai Branly, Paris.
2019 « Le projet industriel Kvanefjeld : reconfigurations politiques et symboliques autour de l’uranium groenlandais à l’heure de l’indépendance », séminaire du GDR Arctique (AREES), Angers.
2019 « Patrimonialization in South Greenland : farms, ruins and mine », 49th International Artic Workshop, Uniersité de Stockholm, Suède.
2019 « Ce qui a été, ce qui n’est plus et ce qui est : quand le passé éclaire l’avenir ? Réflexion autour de l’aménagement dans la région Kujalleq, Sud Groenland », journées scientifiques des doctorants du Lesc, Nanterre, France.
2019 « Industrialisation au Groenland : enjeux politiques et modalités de production autour du complexe minier Ilimaussaq », 15e journées scientifiques du Centre national français des recherches antarctique et arctique, Maison des Océans, Paris.
2019 « Inégalités sociales et hiérarchies linguistiques au Groenland : vers une approche politique de la langue ? », 21th Inuit Studies Conference, UQAM, Montréal, Canada.
Chiara Letizia
A social anthropologist and historian of religions, Chiara Letizia is
Professor of South Asian Religions at the University of Québec in
Montréal (UQAM) and researcher in Cultural Anthropology at the
University of Milano-Bicocca. She is associate member of the CNRS’s
Centre for Himalayan Studies and Research Associate at the School of
Anthropology & Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford.
Chiara has been conducting fieldwork on religion and society in
contemporary Nepal since 1997, focusing on ritual, religion and
politics, ethnoreligious activism, the understandings of secularism, and
the role of the courts in defining religion and reforming religious
practices. With David Gellner and Sondra Hausner, she coedited the
book Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal. (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2016).
2019 Orofino, G., A. Drocco, L. Galli, C. Letizia, & C. Simioli (eds) Wind Horses. Tibetan, Himalayan And Mongolian Studies. ISMEO / Università degli Studi di Napoli « L’Orientale ».
2021 Gellner, D. & Letizia, C.« Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Nepal » in Knut Jacobsen (ed.) Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions. Abingdon and New York, Routledge ; 335-354.
2021 Gellner, D. & Letizia, C.« Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Nepal » in Knut Jacobsen (ed.) Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions. Abingdon and New York, Routledge ; 335-354.
2019 Letizia, C. “Superstizione, tradizione e nuovi diritti. Riflessioni sul verdetto della Corte Suprema del Nepal sui sacrifici cruenti alla festa di Gadhimai”, in G. Orofino, A. Drocco, L. Galli, C. Letizia, and C. Simioli (eds), Wind Horses. Tibetan, Himalayan And Mongolian Studies. Napoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli « L’Orientale »: 193-217
2019 Letizia, C. “Superstizione, tradizione e nuovi diritti. Riflessioni sul verdetto della Corte Suprema del Nepal sui sacrifici cruenti alla festa di Gadhimai”, in G. Orofino, A. Drocco, L. Galli, C. Letizia, and C. Simioli (eds), Wind Horses. Tibetan, Himalayan And Mongolian Studies. Napoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli « L’Orientale »: 193-217
2019 Letizia, C. & D. N. Gellner, ‘Hinduism in the secular republic of Nepal’, in T. Brekke (ed.), Modern Hinduism. Oxford University Press: 275-304.
2017 Letizia, C. ‘Secularism’, in D. Thapa and A. Ramsbotham (eds), ‘Building inclusive peace in Nepal. Accord : An International Review of Peace Initiatives 26.
2016 Letizia, C. & D.N. Gellner. ‘Introduction: Religion and Identities in Post-Panchayat Nepal’, in D. N. Gellner et al. (eds), Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal. New Delhi, OUP: 1-32.
2016 Letizia, C. ‘Ideas of Secularism in Contemporary Nepal’, in D. N. Gellner et al. (eds) Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal. New Delhi, OUP: 35-75.
2016 Letizia, C. ‘National Gods at the Court. Secularism and the judiciary in Nepal’, in D. Berti, G. Tarabout and R. Voix (eds), Filing Religion : State, Hinduism, and Courts of Law. Delhi, OUP: 34-68.
2015 Letizia, C. ‘The “secularism case” : prosecution of a Hindu activist before a quasi-judicial authority in the Nepal Tarai’, in D. Berti and D. Bordia (eds), Regimes of Legality. Ethnography of Criminal Cases in South Asia. New Delhi, OUP: 129-170.
2015 Letizia, C. ‘Shaping secularism through the judiciary in Nepal : two case studies from the Kathmandu Supreme Court’, in P. Losonczi and W. Van Herck (eds), Secularism, Religion, and Politics : India and Europe. New Delhi and Abingdon, Routledge: 190-210.
2013 Letizia, C. ‘The goddess Kumari at the Supreme Court : Divine kinship and secularism in Nepal’, in L. Michelutti and A. Forbess (eds), Divine Kinship and Politics, FOCAAL, Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 67: 32- 46.
2012 Letizia, C. ‘A state goddess in the new secular Nepal. Reflections on the Kumari case at the Supreme Court’, in M. Rosati and K. Stoeckl (eds), Multiple Modernities and Global Post-Secular Society. Farnham, Ashgate: 115-141.
2011 Letizia, C. ‘Shaping secularism in Nepal’ European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, 39: 66-104. (Open Access)
2010 Letizia, C. ‘The Sacred Confluence, Between Nature and Culture’, in M. Lecomte-Tilouine (ed.), Nature, Religion at the Crossroads of Asia. New Delhi, Social Science Press: 344-369.
Mara Benadusi
Associate professor in anthropology at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Catania. Her research interests focus on vulnerability, resilience and risks related to disasters and environmental crises, as well as on humanitarian interventions, and the social and political consequences of the liberalization of nature and of green grabbing. She has carried out long periods of fieldwork in Sri Lanka on many occasions, first studying the emergency phase following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and later dealing with the long-term effects of the disaster in a frontier zone bordering Yala National Park. From 2015 to 2019, she carried out research on the ecological frictions affecting a large petrochemical corridor on the south-eastern coast of Siracusa, in Sicily, studying humans/animals relations, environmental struggles and the uneven topographies of energy transition. For her commitment to the study of disasters, she was awarded the Mary Fran Myers Scholarship by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2013 . She is co-founder of DICAN, Disaster and Crisis Anthropological Network within the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).
2016 Benadusi M., A. Lutri & C. Sturm (eds). Onto-Politics. Rethinking the relations between humans and non-humans, special issue, Anuac, vol. 5, no. 2. (Open Access)
2011 Benadusi M., C. Brambilla & B. Riccio (eds). Disasters, Development and Humanitarian Aid. New Challenges for Anthropology. RIMINI: Guaraldi.
2019 Benadusi M. « Sicilian Futures in the Making. Living Species and the Latency of Biological and Environmental Threats », Nature and Culture, vol. 4, no. 3: 79-109.
2018 Benadusi M. « Oil in Sicily: Petrocapitalist imaginaries in the shadow of old smokestacks », Economic Anthropology, vol. 5, no. 1: 45-58.
2016 Benadusi M., & S. Revet. « Disaster Trials: A Step Forward« , Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo, Anno XIX, Vol. 18, no. 2: 7-15. (Open Access)
2015 Benadusi M. « Cultivating Communities after Disaster: A Whirlwind of Generosity on the Coasts of Sri Lanka », in S. Revet & J. Langumier (eds), Governing Disasters: Beyond Risk Culture, PARIS: Palgrave MacMillan / Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy: 87-126.
2015 Benadusi M. « Learning to Survive in Sri Lanka: Education and Training in Times of Catastrophe », in P. Smeyers, D. Bridges, N. C. Burbules, & M. Griffiths (eds), International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research, Springer: 551-578.
2014 Benadusi M. « Elephants Never Forget: Capturing Nature at the Border of Ruhuna National Park (Yala), Sri Lanka », Capitalism Nature Socialism, vol. 26, no. 1: 77-96.
2014 Benadusi M. Pedagogies of the Unknown: Unpacking “Culture” in Disaster Risk Reduction Education, “Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management”, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 174-183.
2013 Benadusi M. « The Two-faced Janus of Disaster Management: Still Vulnerable Yet Already Resilient », South East Asia Research, special issue “Life After Collective Death: Part 2”, vol. 21, no. 3: 419-438.
2012 Benadusi M. « The Politics of Catastrophe. Coping with “Humanitarianism” in Post-tsunami Sri Lanka », in F. Attinà (ed.). The Politics and Policies of Relief, Aid and Reconstruction. Contrasting Approaches to Disasters and Emergencies, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan 151-172. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137026736_9
2011 Benadusi M. « On the Crest of the Tidal Wave: Adrift in Post-tsunami Sri Lanka », in M. Benadusi, C. Brambilla, & B. Riccio (eds), Disasters, Development and Humanitarian Aid. New Challenges for Anthropology, RIMINI: Guaraldi: 67-86.
Isacco Turina
Isacco Turina is a researcher in sociology at the University of Bologna. His fieldwork has focused on ethical living in the animal rights movement and on religious life in contemporary Catholicism.
Social anthropologist at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), member of PALOC (Patrimoines locaux, environnement et globalisation) and associate member of CESAH (Centre d’Études Sud Asiatiques et Himalayennes). Over the last ten years, Daniela’s research has focused on the ethnographic study of judicial settings in India. She has conducted research on various district courts in Himachal Pradesh (Kullu, Mandi, Shimla) on criminal cases – cannabis cultivation, drug trafficking, caste-based and dowry-related issues – and, more recently, on cases related to environment and animal rights. She carries out fieldwork at the National Green Tribunal in Delhi on cases dealing with conservation and species survival, and at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun (Uttarakhand) where she studies how wildlife biologists monitor animal populations, and how scientific expertise is used in court litigation.
2017 Berti, D. & G. Tarabout. « Questioning the Truth. Ideals of justice and trial techniques in India » in Yazid Ben Hounet and Deborah Puccio-Den (eds.), Truth, Intentionality and Evidence: Anthropological Approaches to Crime. Abingdon, Routledge: 10–27. (Preprint: hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01612781/document)
2016 Berti, D. « Plaintiff Deities. Ritual Honours as Fundamental Rights in India » in D. Berti, G. Tarabout and R. Voix (eds), Filing Religion. State, Hinduism and Courts of Law. Delhi, OUP: 71–100. (Preprint: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02181508/document)
2015 Berti, D. “Gods’ Rights vs Hydroelectric Projects. Environmental Conflicts and the Judicialization of Nature in India », Rivista di Studi Orientali. Supplement 2: 111–129. (Preprint: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02334472/document)
2015 Berti, D. « The Technicalities of Doubting: Temple Consultations and District Courts in India » in D. Berti, A. Good, G. Tarabout (eds), Of Doubt and Proof. Ritual and Legal Practices of Judgment. Farnham, Ashgate : 19–38. (Preprint: https://hal.science/hal-02321024/document)
2015 Berti, D. “Binding Fictions. Contradictory Facts and Judicial Constraints in a Narcotics Case in Himachal Pradesh”, in Daniela Berti and Devika Bordia (eds), Regimes of Legality. Ethnography of Criminal Cases in South Asia. Delhi, OUP: 91–128. (Preprint: https://hal.science/hal-02321020/document)
Vincent Chapaux holds a Master in Political Science/International relations (magna cum laude, ULB, 2002), a DES (LL.M. equivalent) in international law (Magna cum Laude, ULB, 2004) a DEA in Political Sciences (magna cum laude, ULB, 2007) and a PhD in Political Sciences/international relations (ULB, 2011). In international law, Vincent’s main areas of expertise are the Theory of International Law, the Decolonization of the Western Sahara and International Animal Law.
Vincent is the Research Manager of the Maison des Sciences Humaines at ULB. He also runs a blog on international animal law called InternationAnimals.
2010 Chapaux, Vincent (ed.), Sahara occidental. Existe-t-il des recours judiciaires pour les peuples sous domination étrangère ?/Western Sahara ; Which Legal Remedies for peoples under foreign domination ?, Bruxelles, Bruylant.
2008 Chapaux, Vincent, Julien Pieret & Annemie Schaus (eds), Entre ombres et lumières – Cinquante ans d’application de la convention européenne des droits de l’Homme en Belgique, Bruxelles, Bruylant.
✜Articles & Chapters
2023 Chapaux, Vincent. « Non-Human Animals as Epistemic Subjects of International Law, » in V. Chapaux, F. Mégret and U. Natarajan (eds), The Routledge Handbook of International Law and Anthropocentrism, pp.295-306. Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
2021 Chapaux, Vincent. « Interspecies relations in science fiction movies and human international law » in Olivier Corten, Francois Dubuisson and Martyna Falkowska-Clary, Cinematic perspectives on international law, Manchester, Manchester University Press.
2014 Chapaux, Vincent. « International Legal Theory: Haven’t We Overestimated The Divide Between France And The United States? », Michigan Journal of International Law Emerging Scholarship, 2014, Vol. 2: 101-113.
Vanessa Manceron is an anthropologist, Director of Research at the CNRS. Her research focuses on the relationship with environment in France, England and currently in Italy. Her main areas of work concern environmental controversies and threats, the animal cause, and relationships with the living. She has published a book entitled Une terre en partage. Liens et rivalités dans une société rurale (2005, MSH), numerous articles, and co-edited several journal issues, including Les animaux de la discorde (2009), L’imaginaire écologique (2013) and La mesure du danger (2015). In 2016, Vanessa Manceron helped relaunch the journal Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines of which she was editor-in-chief for several years. Her latest book Les Veilleurs du vivant (La Découverte, 2022) deals with the involvement of English naturalists in the knowledge of biodiversity. She is currently conducting an ethnographic fielwork in the Naples region on the protection of birds and the judicialization of nature.
2005 Manceron, V. Une terre en partage. Liens et rivalités dans une société rurale, Paris, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Collection Ethnologie de la France. (0nline version: https://books.openedition.org/editionsmsh/12703)
✜ Edited Books & special issues
2015 Houdart, S., V. Manceron & S. Revet (eds). La mesure du danger. Ethnologie Française, XLV.
2016 Roué, M., V. Manceron, D. Denayer, C. Mougenot & A. Doré. « Les animaux comme révélateurs et passeurs de frontières », in B. Hubert (ed.) Interdisciplinarités entre Natures et Sociétés, Colloque de Cerisy, Ed. Peter Lang, Collection « Ecopolis »: 323-334.
2016 Manceron, V. « Peut-on devenir oiseau ? », in E. Grimaud, A-C. Taylor & D. Vidal (eds) Persona, étrangement humain. Arles, Editions Actes Sud.
2015 Manceron, V. « What is it like to be a bird ? Imagination zoologique et proximité à distance chez les amateurs d’oiseau en Angleterre », in M. Cros, J. Bondaz & F. Laugrand (eds), Bêtes à pensées. Visions des mondes animaux. Paris, Editions des Archives Contemporaines: 117-140.
2014 Manceron, V. « Les constructions sociales du danger : quelques usages de la notion de risque et d’infortune en sciences sociales », in S. Lagrée (ed.), Perception et gestion des risques. Approches méthodologiques appliquées au développement. Hà Nôi, Editions Tri Thuc, Collection « Conférences et séminaires » n° 10: 37-54.
2012 Manceron, V. « Les vivants outragés : usages militants des corps et perceptions des animaux d’élevage chez les défenseurs de la cause animale en France », in F. Keck & N. Vialles (eds), Les hommes malades des animaux. Paris, Ed. de l’Herne, Cahiers d’Anthropologie Sociale: 57-78.
2011 Keck, F. & V. Manceron. « En suivant le virus de la grippe aviaire de Hong Kong à la Dombes », in S. Houdart & O. Thiery (eds) Humains, non humains. Comment repeupler les sciences sociales. Paris, La Découverte: 65-74.
Sandrine Revet, scientific partner
Sandrine Revet is an anthropologist. Her first work focused on the anthropology of disasters, with a PhD on the 1999 mudflows in Venezuela (Anthropologie d’une catastrophe, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2007). From 2008 to 2015, she conducted a multisite survey on the international world of disasters, which led her from the UN offices in Geneva to several Latin American countries where programmes to prevent or manage « natural » disasters are implemented (Les coulisses du monde des catastrophes « naturelles », Ed. FMSH, 2018 (Disasterland, An Ethnography of the International Disaster Community, Palgrave 2020). Since 2018, she has been conducting research on the regulation of human-environmental relations in a context of crisis, based on the case of the Atrato River in Colombia, which was declared a legal entity in 2016 by Colombian Constitutional Court.
2007 Revet, S. Anthropologie d’une catastrophe. Les coulées de boue de 1999 sur le Littoral central vénézuélien. Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle..
2018 Revet, S. « Contar e narrar os desastres”, Lumina, v. 12, n. 2: 5-18 [Transl. of « « Le sens du désastre. Les multiples interprétations d’une catastrophe « naturelle » au Venezuela », Terrain n°54, 2010: 10-27].
2017 Gatti, G., M. Martinez & S. Revet. « Ce que la loi fait aux victimes. Construction de la figure de la « femme-victime » par la loi contre la violence de genre en Espagne », Pensée Plurielle, 2017/2 n° 45: 123-138. (Online version: https://www.cairn.info/revue-pensee-plurielle-2017-2-page-123.htm)
2016 Benadusi, M., & S. Revet. “Disaster trials: a step forward”, Introduction, special issue Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo, anno XIX (2016), n. 18 (2): 7-16. (Open Access)
2015 Houdart, S., V. Manceron & S. Revet. « Connaître et se prémunir : la logique métrique au défi des sciences sociales », Introduction to S. Houdart, V. Manceron & S. Revet (eds), La mesure du danger, Ethnologie française, vol. 45, n° 1: 11-17. (Online version: https://www.cairn.info/revue-ethnologie-francaise-2015-1-page-11.htm)
2013 Revet, S. ‘“A Small World”: Ethnography of a Natural Disaster Simulation in Lima, Peru‘, Social Anthropology/ Anthropologie Sociale, n°21 – 1: 38-53.
