Research
The long-term ethnographic investigation that I am conducting among the Amerindian populations of Oaxaca (Mexico) on traditional practices (rituality, agriculture, crafts, medicine, system of politico-religious offices) aims to highlight the theories of life that prevail in this region of the world. The results of this work were presented in the monographs Le chemin et le champ. Ritual journey and sacrifice among the Mixe of Oaxaca (Mexico), published by the Ethnological Society, and The Many Live of a Mexican Village. Toward an anthropology of life (submitted) and in the collective works La noción de vida en Mesoamérica and Montrer/Occulter. Ritual visibility and context that I co-directed. A book titled Anthropology of Life II: Mesoamerican Investigations is in the works.
From 2013 to 2014, I led the research program "Living beings and artefacts", supported by the Fyssen Foundation, before becoming deputy director of the CNRS-PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres) interdisciplinary incubator "Domestication and production of life”. Within PSL, I lead the Life at Work project. Explore the potential of bioart and biodesign (Labex TransferS) and I am a member of the IRIS steering committee “Origins and conditions for the appearance of life”. These interdisciplinary collaborations, which bring together researchers in the natural sciences and social sciences, constitute the empirical basis of a comparative project which links traditional biotechnologies and contemporary biotechnologies (biomedicine, bioart, biodesign, synthetic biology, robotics ), drawing attention to possible points of convergence, for example in the fields of biomimicry or do-it-yourself biology.
From 2013 to 2014, I led the research program "Living beings and artefacts", supported by the Fyssen Foundation, before becoming deputy director of the CNRS-PSL (Paris Sciences et Lettres) interdisciplinary incubator "Domestication and production of life”. Within PSL, I lead the Life at Work project. Explore the potential of bioart and biodesign (Labex TransferS) and I am a member of the IRIS steering committee “Origins and conditions for the appearance of life”. These interdisciplinary collaborations, which bring together researchers in the natural sciences and social sciences, constitute the empirical basis of a comparative project which links traditional biotechnologies and contemporary biotechnologies (biomedicine, bioart, biodesign, synthetic biology, robotics ), drawing attention to possible points of convergence, for example in the fields of biomimicry or do-it-yourself biology.
As part of the anthropology of life project, initiated in 2007, the challenge is to study the variations, in time and space, of conceptions of life. The results of these investigations have been presented in articles and special issues published in journals such as Current Anthropology, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Journal of Anthropological Research, L'Homme, Mana, NatureCulture, Oceania or the Revista de antropologia . The book Domestication et fabrication du vivant is in preparation.
