Context
The agroecological transition underscores the need to rethink knowledge production in agriculture, especially in relation to experimentation. This includes involving a wider range of stakeholders and exploring diverse and complementary forms of experimentation.
Objective
This article aims to shed light on the diversity of existing collective experimentations, in order to document the ongoing renewal of experimental approaches and to propose benchmarks for understanding and supporting them.
Methods
We conducted 34 semi-structured interviews and 10 observant participations, leading to the identification of 28 case studies that we define as collective experimentations. We define collective experimentation as the process of implementing and monitoring an intervention with uncertain outcomes, which leads to the production of knowledge. We did a comprehensive analysis of these collective experimentations, to understand how and why they are conducted. To do so, our analysis considered both the physical design of the experimental setups and the questions addressed, as well as the collective organization of the actors involved.
Results and Conclusions
We propose six idealtypes of collective experimentations: Idealtype A: Replicating experimental situations to generate standardized data, Idealtype B: Integrating data from diverse experimental practices in a joint analysis, Idealtype C: Distributing questions to generate knowledge on a common topic, Idealtype D: Pooling a diversity of experiences to explore a common subject, Idealtype E: Distributing activities within a single experimental situation and Idealtype F: Gathering human and material resources on a single site to experiment jointly on several experimental situations.
Significance
These idealtypes shed light on the diversity of collective experimentation approaches in agriculture, which are often under described in the literature. By offering a set of structured reference points, it can support researchers, facilitators, and practitioners in recognizing, designing and valuing collective experimentations adapted to their contexts. It opens new perspectives for rethinking how experimental knowledge is produced, shared, and valued to support agroecological transitions.
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