The Sensitive Transitions workshop at Iméra (Institute of Advanced Studies at Aix-Marseille University) is a research-creation collective that explores the sensitive dimensions within transitioning work environments.
This hybrid collective, positioned between science and art, is composed of researchers in the humanities and social sciences, work specialists, as well as dancers, choreographers, somatic practitioners, musicians, and live arts experts, with two key ambitions:
- To explore conceptual, methodological, scientific, and artistic tools for reflecting on the issues of the sensitivity crisis affecting our societies, particularly in the world of work;
- To experiment with new study and intervention formats in transitioning work and social environments.
Coordinated by Carole Baudin (Ethnologist, Researcher affiliated with UMR 5600 EVS-Environment, City, Society, Univ. Lyon 2, and photographer), assisted by Christelle Casse (Associate Professor in Ergonomics and dancer, EVS, Univ. Lyon 2), Anyssa Kapelusz (Associate Professor in Theatre Studies, LESA EA 3274, AMU), and Margot Leclair (Associate Professor in Organization and Creativity at LEST CNRS AMU), the Sensitive Transitions collective currently consists of Thierry Berthet (Associate Professor in Economic and Labor Sciences, LEST CNRS, AMU, and musician); Marine Colard (Actress, dancer, and choreographer); Pascaline Denimal (Choreographic artist, Master in Improvisation – Dance Studies, Univ. Paris 8); Éloïse Deschemin (Dancer and choreographer, founder of EALP-Entreprise Artistique de Libres Performers in Angoulême); Enrico Donaggio (Associate Professor in Philosophy, Scientific Director at Iméra, AMU); Christine Fricker (Choreographer of Cie Itinérrances, educator and artistic director of Pôle 164, Marseille); Marie-Pierre Gibert (Associate Professor in Anthropology, EVS, Univ. Lyon 2); Laure Kloetzer (Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and writer); Yasmina Lammler (Graduate in Political Science, dancer, choreographer, and performer); Adeline Masson (Linguist and ergonomist, Qi Qong expert practitioner, Bordeaux); Constance Moréteau (Art Historian, Head of the “Arts and Sciences: Indisciplined Knowledge” axis and Research Coordinator at Iméra, AMU); Patricio Nusshold (Associate Professor in Work Psychology, Univ. Paul-Valéry Montpellier); Jeanne-Martine Robert (PhD in Anthropology and ergonomist in Lyon); Claude Paraponaris (Associate Professor of Economic and Political Sciences, LEST CNRS, AMU); José Rose (Labor Sociologist, LEST CNRS, AMU, and writer).
The Sensitive Transitions collective maintains various connections with several institutions, including LEST CNRS and the LESA laboratory at AMU, which support its activities. Moreover, it is a dynamic and organic group that expands with the residencies at Iméra, welcoming resident researchers who resonate with the collective’s goals. Through this, research-creation is enriched by their contributions, questions, and sensitivities.
Foundations and aims of Sensitive Transitions Research-Creation
Over the past decade, numerous transformations (new governance and business management practices, digitalization, environmental transition, and territorialization) have profoundly disrupted the world of work.
Meaning and Sensibilities at work are now central concerns, revealing a deeper “crisis of sensitivity” in our societies. This crisis challenges our epistemological and ontological frameworks. It demands a rethinking of the ways we interpret and document the societies in the making. Over the past few years, an emerging line of thought has invited new forms of attention and relations; a thought embodied in physical gestures, proving fertile for the humanities and social sciences, especially in understanding and acting upon the transitioning world of work.
Dance, otherwise we are lost.
Pina Baush
The Sensitive Transitions collective emerged to experiment with this embodied thought, a thought situated between scientific perspectives and aesthetic views on professional practices. The aim is to grasp, understand, and act on work from its sensitive dimensions through an approach based on “thinking in action.” Thinking through the senses to reflect on meaning and purpose at work.
Initially drawing on the contributions of body-in-movement thinking from dance studies, this approach, which may seem utopian, has become essential. Faced with the crises and transitions affecting our societies, it proposes a shift, an alternative way of thinking.
To this end, the Sensitive Transitions collective meets in workshops where reflections on the evolution and interventions in the world of work are structured around methods inspired by stage arts research laboratories. Thinking unfolds in an oscillation between body practices, sensory explorations, and the sharing of intersubjective experiences. The goal is both to reflect and document these research experiments based on a “thinking in action” approach, but also to co-produce original modes of thinking and acting from our sensitive knowledge, which are necessary in these troubled times.
Each year, the collective shares the progress of its explorations through the dissemination of scientific and media objects, opening up the reflections initiated to a wider audience.