Analyze

New social and environmental obligations are now imposed on transnational companies. They are now responsible for the concrete implementation of these obligations and are developing a set of practices to measure, prevent and remedy their environmental impact. These “corporate transition policies” (Lhulier & Tenreira, 2023) are at the frontier of law, management and natural sciences (mapping, indicators, thresholds), thus constitutive of a new co-produced scientific-normative space. A qualitative Science & Technology (STS) analysis on the basis of corporate documents and other collective practices is useful in order to describe this “corporate assemblages” (Tenreira, 2023), especially using Jasanoff's four-tiered analysis. The case study analysis reveals that the firm Decathlon refers to the 9 planetary limits ("experts/identities" N°1). It also refers to "institutions" (N°2) such as Sciences Based Target. The analysis of the "discourses" (N°3) shows that Decathlon's commitment actually appears largely declarative. The firm falls short of adopting concrete methodologies for calculating its ecological footprint, thereby highlighting a gap between rhetoric and action. This discrepancy presents a unique "representation" (N°4) of science, which permits the company a considerable degree of latitude in employing or constructing scientific indicators according to its “discretion”. At this stage of the analysis, it is thus possible to “problematize” (Laurent, 2022) corporate objects as corporate assemblages. The next steps of the analysis would nevertheless require other methodological approaches to “assess reflexively” these assemblages regarding an “rhizomatic ecological reality”.

Image : Tomas Saraceno, "Galaxies Forming along Filaments, Like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider’s Web", 2009, in Bruno Latour

Tenreira, Luca. 2023. "The construction of an episteme of objectification of corporate practices in the field of transition." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

Remember the arrivals of Mā’ohi ancestors who traversed the sea and surged upon the shores. Over generations, many groups explored and peopled te fenua, travelling around the archipelagos by va’a and on bare foot. Te nūna’a Mā’ohi built up the land, and the land built up te nūna’a, with fare, fa’apū, tumu, marae, and stories. Te fenua and te nūna’a shared experiences and developed knowledges, year in, year out, together. 

In other worlds, those we call popa’āwere knowing and being in very different ways. Over time, te popa’ābuilt physical, spiritual, and epistemic walls to imagine a separation between themselves and the land. They dreamed of knowing without relation, and called it “objectivity.” Adrift in the violent nightmares of their mindless fantasies, te popa’ābecame ungrounded. They tried to fill this existential void through stories of supremacism, which they acted out through projects of transoceanic conquest. In their empty confusion, te popa’ācame to te fenua Mā’ohi with greed, envy, arrogance, disease, and weapons of mass destruction. 

Whether through deliberate genocide or oblivious indifference, popa’āarrivals decimated Mā’ohi communities, as local populations fell by 80% to 90%. This formative trauma foreshadowed disasters to come. Te popa’āstole te fenua’s physical wealth on a massive scale, and then imposed a nuclear weapons testing program, bringing radioactive waste, cancer, and other illness. Te popa’ātimed the introduction of mass tourism with atomic testing, to obscure the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the nuclear program. They deceived ta’ata Mā’ohi with empty stories, progressively luring many ta’ata into a modern nuclear-tourism future of individualism, wage labor, cash economies, consumer advertising, broadcast entertainment, artificial scarcity, and nuclear family subdivisions. Te popa’āsought to break the bond between te ta’ata and te fenua. They did not know, this bond cannot be broken. 

The popa’āproject of supremacist colonial modernization is ongoing. But so is the Mā’ohi project of knowing and growing with the land. 

Tahitian language glossary

fare house(s), building(s)

feafea (i) thinking (of, about)

fenua land(s), territory(ies), world(s)

fa’apū garden(s); place(s) for growing crops

nūna’a people, peoples, nation(s)

Mā’ohi Indigenous to French Polynesia

marae ceremonial pavilion(s)

miti salt water; sea(s)

o of

popa’ā the people who think they are white

te the, a, an, some

ta’ata person, people, human(s)

tumu tree(s); root(s)

va’a canoe(s); sailing canoe(s)

Photo: Maupiti lagoon. Text, photo and layout by Teo Akande Wickland. Made with Mā’ohi, Black American, Latinx, queer, feminist and modern/colonial knowledges.

Wickland, Teo Akande. "Feafea i te miti o te fenua ." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11, 2023

REMM was built by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Office of Planning and Emergency Operations, and cooperate with other organizations.

REMM is a website to offer people information about the radiation and emergency response.

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