« Ça tue parfois mais ce n’est pas dangereux »

Through the study of the trajectory of a bacterial pathogen (Bacillus cereus) as a scientific subject, this article shows how a food safety institutional injunction becomes a vehicle for mobilization around a scientific food borne risk described as potentially emergent. At first, B. cereus is a boun...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gilles Tétart, Didier Torny
Format: Article
Language:fra
Published: Société d'Anthropologie des Connaissances 2009-03-01
Series:Revue d'anthropologie des connaissances
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/rac/18342
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Summary:Through the study of the trajectory of a bacterial pathogen (Bacillus cereus) as a scientific subject, this article shows how a food safety institutional injunction becomes a vehicle for mobilization around a scientific food borne risk described as potentially emergent. At first, B. cereus is a boundary object for microbiologists with contradictory aims (fundamental vs. applied research), then for researchers belonging to distant disciplines (modeling, social sciences) and industry in a ANR project. These collaborations are based on ontological and practical flexibility of the bacteria and a relatively decoupled definition of projects that allow each team to maintain its own activities. However, this flexibility is itself a source of new knowledge through the confrontation of various concepts of risk, taxonomy and through the exchange of strains.
ISSN:1760-5393