Tag Archives: Norms & Transgressions

CEFRES Team

Martin Ďurďovič – Research & CV

Contested energy transitions.
Conflicts and Social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France

CEFRES Research Area 2 : Norms and transgressions

Contact : martin.durdovic[@]soc.cas.cz

Martin Durdovic is a research scholar at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, specializing in energy social research. His current research interests center around social aspects of nuclear energy and nuclear waste management on the one hand and sustainable energy transitions on the other. His research relies on both qualitative and quantitative approaches, such as narrative analysis, stakeholder interaction analysis, public opinion surveys, and other, and also involves engagement with sociological theory and meta-theory. Martin Durdovic is a laureate of the 2020 Czech Sociological Association biennial award for the best sociological book (Narrative and Dialogue. The Theory of Social Intersubjectivity) and a member of various expert bodies and associations. In the 2021-2022 academic year, he was a visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in California. Since February 2024, he coordinates with Gilles Lepesant, the senior research fellow at CNRS – National Center for Scientific Research, Géographie-Cités, a two-year incubation project supported within the Tandem program and entitled: “Contested energy transitions. Conflicts and social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France”. More information about Martin Durdovic is available here: https://www.soc.cas.cz/en/lide/martin-durdovic

Recent publications
  • Durdovic, Martin. 2023. „Counter-strategizing after a dialogue failure: Stakeholder involvement and nuclear waste disposal in the Czech Republic.“ Energy Research & Social Science 103: 103198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2023.103198
  • Durdovic, Martin. 2022. „Emergent Consequences of Narrating Futures in Energy Transitions.“ Futures 138: 102930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2022.102930
  • Durdovic, Martin. 2022. „ A Morphogenetic Approach to Social Aspects of Energy: The Case of Coal.“ Pp. 37-55 in Iwińska, Katarzyna & Bukowska, Xymena (eds.). Gender and Energy Transition. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78416-4
  • Durdovic, Martin. 2022. „The Transformation of Order in Narrative as Discordant Concord: Using Paul Ricoeur to Explore Narrative Realism as Part of Social Morphogenesis.“ Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 52 (2): 260-278.  https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12319
CEFRES Team

Gilles Lepesant – Research & CV

Contested energy transitions.
Conflicts and social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France

CEFRES Research Area 2: Norms and Transgressions

Contact : gilles.lepesant[@]cnrs.fr

His research focuses on the transformations in the geography of energy induced by the increasing role played by renewables. The research covers the strategies deployed at the European Union level as well as at the national level (particularly in Germany and in Central Europe) and at the local and regional level. The main research areas are the EU energy-climate policy, the spatial implications of its implementation and the challenges linked to the deployment of renewable energies (permitting, social acceptance, consistency with ESG principles). Taking into account the strong inertia in energy systems, the objective is to investigate the historical, political and technical factors that accelerate or inhibit the deployment of renewable energies and to contribute to the empirical and theoretical literature related to this field.

At CEFRES, he is coordinating with Martin Ďurďovič (Senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences) the Tandem project “Contested energy transitions. Conflicts and social innovations in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, and France”.

This project takes place in the context of an energy transition enshrined into the “Green Deal” whose aim is to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The research carried out aims at identifying tensions and conflicts linked to the energy transition, to highlight the perceptions of the different stakeholders and to investigate the innovations deployed to overcome constraints and challenges. The project covers four countries: Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and France as well as a set of cities and regions within these countries.

Publications (selection)

  • Gilles Lepesant (2024), « Entre défis de sécurité et ambitions climatiques, l’affirmation d’une Union européenne de l’énergie », L’Information géographique, Janvier.
  • Gilles Lepesant (2024), « Adapting coastal areas to sea-level rise in Netherlands and in France. Between hard protections, nature-based solutions and managed retreat », Special issue : « Grassroot innovations in climate action : unpacking cooperations and conflicts in multilevel governance ». Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, Février.
  • Gilles Lepesant, (2023), “Higher Renewable Energy Targets in Germany. How Will the Industry Benefit?”, Briefings de l’Ifri, Ifri, January 6.
  • Gilles Lepesant (2022), Géographies des énergies, l’Europe dans le nouvel équilibre mondial, Éditions Hermann, Paris.
  • Gilles Lepesant (2022), « Vers une transition énergétique allemande adossée aux énergies renouvelables et au gaz ? », Allemagne d’aujourd’hui, n°239.
Calls for Applications, Join us

CFA – Postdoctoral Positions at CEFRES. 2025 Call

Call opens June 16, 2025
Deadline for submission: September 15, 2025
Publication of the results: beginning of October 2025
Period: January 1, 2026-December 31, 2027
Application Language: English
Address for submission:  mateusz.chmurski@cefres.cz (send a copy to: claire.madl@cefres.cz)

Two postdoctoral researchers will be recruited from January 1, 2026 for two years at CEFRES. They will be both affiliated to CEFRES and to a relevant department for their research at Charles University (UK). The selection of both postdoctoral researchers will be based on the quality of their research project and its adequation to the research area or the research project it intends to contribute to. Continue reading CFA – Postdoctoral Positions at CEFRES. 2025 Call →

Research Projects

NANO: Nature(s) & norms

A project carried out within the framework of the research program SAMSON: Sciences, Arts, Medicine and Social Norms, developed by Sorbonne University (Paris), the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Prague), Warsaw University and CEFRES.

The project “Nature(s) and Norms” implemented in cooperation between the Institute of Polish Culture and the UMR 8224 EUR’ORBEM, in partnership with the French Centre for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences in Prague intends to conduct a series of seminars and workshops, the guiding principle of which is to analyse the process of formation of social norms. The aim is to examine the normative order of modernity, the representations and concepts of which will be explored at the intersection of art, literature, social and natural sciences, and medical discourse. The focus is on Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia and its normative processes in a period of intensive modernisation. The studied period is a crucial one for the development of European modernity, from the second half of the 18th century to the second half of the 20th century.

Continue reading NANO: Nature(s) & norms →

Research Projects

Bewildering Boar: Changing Cosmopolitics of the Hunt in Europe and Beyond

Project within the TANDEM program of The Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), Charles University and CEFRES/CNRS based on the CEFRES Platform’s cooperation and endeavour to excellency in social and human sciences.

Eurasian wild pigs (Sus scrofa) feature regularly in European public discourse, for their numbers have been rising spectacularly across the continent. While in some parts of Europe this by now synanthropic species generates sympathy, in other contexts humans have declared war on wild boars for causing extensive damage to landscapes, agriculture, transportation networks and so on. In this context, we are asking how the Eurasian wild pig has featured in human lives, and vice versa, in dynamically changing socio-environmental contexts. Our search for answers will take two routes.

First, we will focus on the wild pig in its own right and its multiple relations with humans. Especially the relation of predation will be an important case study for our research. Studies of hunting in non-European contexts (e.g., Africa, Amazonia, Siberia) have led to numerous theoretical and methodological innovations in the field of social anthropology, from the exploration of hunter-gatherer societies nested in the paradigm of the natural sciences to the recent phenomenological return to animism as an analytical category. However, topics such as European hunting and game management have been largely excluded from the corresponding bodies of literature, something that we would like to redress.

Continue reading Bewildering Boar: Changing Cosmopolitics of the Hunt in Europe and Beyond →

CEFRES Team

Ioana Cîrstocea: Research & CV

Gender As a Transnational Platform. Toward a Sociology of the Diffusion of Feminist Knowledges in Central Europe in the 1990s

Research Area 1: Displacements, “Dépaysements” and Discrepancies.

Contact: ioana.cirstocea@cefres.cz

Ioana CirstoceaMy work focuses on the diffusion and the institutionalization of the knowledges on gender in the post-communist context. Under the democratization and, more generally, the integration of Central Europea societies in globalized dynamics during the 1990s, such knowledges, supported by the technocratic promotion of the rights of women through international programs (may they be philanthropical or derived from EU or UN policies) have been understood and applied in various ways on the local level. Such diversity reflects the social processes leading to the building of transnational communities of thoughts and concern.

My hunch is that gender appears as and becomes a legitimate intellectual issue all through Central Europe through a transnational “platform”, which abides by academic, militant and technochratic logics. Such social space is defined by the trajectories of a diversity of actors (feminist groundbreakers, who founded new teaching programs and research centers, and specialized in equality) anchored in different national frames. Without turning into formalized collectives, this transnational space is articulated around institutional places (militant networks, academic initiatives, programs of international organizations) and events (mobilization, scientific events, collective projects or publications).

My study of its perimeter and structuring dynamics is based on a prosopographic approach, with special attention to the variety of places and observation scales, using theoretical tools from the history of social and human sciences and from the sociology of international circulations.

CV

Current Situation

  • Researcher (chargée de recherche) at CNRS, within the research unity CESSP Paris (CNRS, EHESS, Paris 1 University, team CSE – UMR 8209).
  • Coordinator of the ANR program “GLOBALGENDER. Regards croisés sur la globalisation du genre”, 2013-2016, Maison interuniversitaire des sciences de l’homme MISHA Strasbourg.
  • Member of the scientific board of the review L’Homme et la société.

Contact

EHESS (office 503), 190-198, Avenue de France, 75013 Paris.
E-mail: Ioana.Cirstocea@misha.fr
Personal webpage: http://www.cessp.cnrs.fr/spip.php?rubrique262.

Education

2004: PhD (Sociology), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

2000: DEA, equ. 2nd year of Master (Sociology), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

1996 : Master (Cultural Studies), University of Bucarest.

1995 : Maîtrise, equ. 1st year of Master (French Studies), University of Bucarest.

Awards

2013: Prix de la Francophonie pour jeunes chercheurs.

2004: Mention spéciale, Prix de la meilleure thèse soutenue à l’EHESS (best PhD defended at EHESS).

Professional Experience

Research

From 2006: chargée de recherche au CNRS (section 40) ; membre de l’UMR 8209 CESSP Paris depuis le 1er octobre 2015, précédemment membre de l’UMR 7363 SAGE Strasbourg ; chargée de recherche de première classe depuis 2011.

2013-2016: coordinatrice du programme ANR « GLOBALGENDER. Regards croisés sur la globalisation du genre » (Maison interuniversitaire des sciences de l’homme Alsace MISHA Strasbourg).

2011-2013: Coresponsable avec Dorota Dakowska (Université de Strasbourg) du projet « L’Académie en chantier. Transformations des universités centre-est européennes depuis 1989 » (Programme formation-recherche du CIERA Centre interdisciplinaire d’études et de recherches sur l’Allemagne).

2013-2015: Membre du programme « Réformer l’Etat par le marché. L’’économisation’ du secteur public dans l’Europe postcommuniste » (MISHA Strasbourg coordonné par Valérie Lozac’h).

2010-2013: Membre du programme ANR « EureQUA. Quantifier l’Europe » (Université de Nantes-ENS Paris, coordonné par Martine Mespoulet)

International Research Stays

2014 (September-November): Center for European and Mediterranean Studies, New York University (Soutien à la mobilité internationale of the CNRS).

2010 (September-October): Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers State University, New Jersey (Visiting Global  Scholars;  Fulbright grant).

2008 (February-June): Central European University, Gender Studies Department, Budapest (visiting scholar in residence).

2005-2006 (October-July): Faculty of Social, Political and Economic Sciences, Université libre de Bruxelles (bourse postdoctorale de l’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie).

Teaching

From 2013: Séminaire de recherche « Regards croisés sur la globalisation du genre », EHESS, Paris (avec Delphine Lacombe et Elisabeth Marteu, dans le cadre du programme ANR « GLOBALGENDER » et du master « Genre, politique, sexualités » (mention Sociologie) de l’EHESS).

2008-2015: Cours à l’Université de Strasbourg (Institut d’études politiques, Institut des hautes études européennes) : « Initiation à la recherche en sciences sociales » ; « Genre et politique » ; coordination d’une douzaine de mémoires de recherche d’étudiants.

Publications (selection)

Book

Faire et vivre le postcommunisme. Les femmes roumaines face à la « transition », Bruxelles, Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2006.

Articles
  • « La ‘sororité’ à l’épreuve – pratiquer l’internationalisme féministe au lendemain de la guerre froide », Critique internationale 66, janvier-mars 2015 (dossier thématique « Communismes et circulations transnationales » coordonné par Paul Boulland et Isabele Gouarné), pp. 85-104
  • « Soi-même comme un autre » : l’individu aux prises avec l’encadrement biographique communiste (Roumanie, 1960-1970),  Bernard Pudal (dir.), Le sujet communiste. Identités militantes et laboratoires du « moi », Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2014, pp. 59-78
  • « Les restructurations de l’enseignement supérieur en Roumanie après 1990 : apprentissage international de la gestion, professionnalisation de l’expertise et politisation de l’enjeu universitaire », Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest, Vol. 45, 2014, n° 1, pp. 125-163
  •   « Cooptation et adhésion des femmes au Parti communiste roumain », in Rose-Marie Lagrave (dir.), Fragments du communisme en Europe centrale, Paris, Editions de l’EHESS, 2011, pp. 143-191.
  • « The Transnational Feminism in the Making: the Case of Post-communist Eastern Europe », in C. Fillard, F. Orazi (dir.), Exchanges and Correspondence: the Construction of Feminism, Cambridge, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010, pp. 64-83.
  • « Eléments pour une sociologie des études féministes en Europe centrale et orientale », International Review of Sociology/ Revue internationale de sociologie, 20, n° 2, 2010, pp. 321-346.