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Paper short abstract

The paper presents a participatory research protocol that repurposes online data to foster collective problematization with diverse coastal workers, arguing for more plural, situated, and inclusive forms of environmental observation and governance.

Paper long abstract

Researchers and protected areas’ managers are tasked with quantifying the activities that exert pressure on the ecosystem and their impact, mobilizing increasingly technology-intensive data collection systems that carry a social cost. In parallel, the development of coastal production projects, such as the installation of offshore wind farms or new polluting industries, seek the input of diverse concerned actors. However, the decision-making processes tend to overlook consultation results, marginalizing situated knowledges, particularly when there are conflicting interpretations. Both environmental monitoring and plans for territorial transformation question the authority over what counts as ecological knowledge and how legitimate knowledge is built, calling for inventive forms of hybrid forums.

To address this, we designed a research protocol at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies, design research, and environmental sociology. We engage inventively with online data, developing it into sensitive formats to collectively examine problematic situations and the contexts in which they are defined and transformed. How do coastal workers and inhabitants describe their practices and their concerns? We discuss the methodology and results of a series of workshops (2024–2025) in Rochefort, Marseille, and Dunkirk, conducted within FUTURE-OBS, a transdisciplinary project on coastal observatories in France. We argue that such methods contribute to redistributing epistemic authority, opening pathways toward more situated and plural forms of environmental observation, and prefiguring modes of inclusive governance grounded in care, conflict, and collective inquiry.