A book by Jérôme Denis and David Pontille published by La Découverte

What do a furnace, a car, a signpost, a smartphone, a cathedral, a work of art, a satellite, a washing machine, a bridge, a clock, a computer server, the body of an illustrious statesman, or a tractor have in common? Almost nothing, except that none of these things, small or large, precious or banal, lasts without some form of maintenance. Every object wears out, degrades, eventually breaks, or even disappears. However, do we really grasp the importance of maintenance? […]

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A book edited by Franck Cochoy, Gérald Gaglio, Anaïs Daniau, with the collaboration of Madeleine Akrich, Cédric Calvignac, Roland Canu, Alexandre Mallard, Morgan Meyer

In 2020, when Covid fell on our heads, sanitary masks also fell on our noses. But are Covid and masks inextricably linked? Do masks have more distant origins? Has it now become a fashion item? Has the standard sanitary mask mutated into multiple “variants”? How is the mask apprehended, whether for children, the “firsts in line for chores”, caregivers or shopkeepers?

This richly layered book provides answers to these and many other questions. It draws on […]

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Innovating in times of crisis. Reactions and adaptations to the Covid-19 crisis

Hervé Dumez, Benjamin Loveluck and Alexandre Mallard (Eds.)

Crises definitely give us food for thought – but not just about how to avoid them or how to get out of them. They challenge us in our ability to find solutions in the face of unprecedented difficulties, to rethink problems that we thought had been solved, or to accelerate developments that we had only sketched out. In short, they drive us to innovate.

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The Making of Encryption, Secure Messaging and Digital Liberties

by Ksenia Ermoshina and Francesca Musiani

Concealing for Freedom: The Making of Encryption, Secure Messaging and Digital Liberties sets out to explore one of the core battlegrounds of Internet governance: the encryption of online communications. Current debates around encryption have fundamental implications for our individual liberties and collective presence on the Internet. Encryption of communications at scale and in increasingly usable ways has become a matter of public concern, especially since Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelations. A new cryptographic imaginary is taking hold, which sees encryption as a necessary precondition for the formation of networked publics.

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