Analysis of the Grenoble Alpes Métropole construction waste sector: decompartmentalizing knowledge through action research[Analyse de la filière des déchets de chantiers du bâtiment de Grenoble Alpes Métropole : le décloisonnement des savoirs par la recherche-action]

Since the early 2000s, French public policies on waste management and treatment have moved radically towards a "product" approach to waste (Rocher, 2006). This perspective has contributed to the rise of a "value creation regime" in which the sector's socio-ecological issues are approached through an industrial and commercial prism (Beulque et al., 2016). The construction sector is particularly revealing of the dynamics of liberalization, aimed above all at inflating recovery rates to the detriment of a real questioning of the rates at which natural resources are extracted (Arnspenger & Bourg, 2018). In contrast to this trend towards the commodification of waste, on which the recycling industry has been built (Levänen & Hukkinen, 2013), Grenoble Alpes Métropole (GAM) aspires to reappropriate waste deposits by transforming local building production systems. In this context a CIFRE was set up by the local authority to take ownership of the metropolitan construction site waste sector. A framework of analysis was thus constructed to grasp the dynamics that structure this instituted meso-system (Assogba, 2018) and participate in the development of situated transformation knowledges (John et al., 2019). By building this bridge with academia, GAM identifies a definite interest in the infusion of theoretical knowledge within these waste management strategies. Over and above the methodological challenges, the CIFRE is above all characterized by the challenge of appropriating knowledge by stakeholders. Although this challenge is identified at the outset of the research process, it is no less complex to operationalize on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, there is a gap between, on the one hand, the pragmatic vision of practitioners looking for concrete, directly applicable answers; and, on the other, the conceptual vision of doctoral students who are gradually building up their knowledge. Questions quickly arose : how to bridge the gap between the expectations of practitioners and academics? How to produce and transmit knowledge? What posture and role to adopt? (Daoud et al., 2021) While the three pillars of action research (Prévost & Roy, 2013) proved essential in structuring the analytical framework, they did not provide all the answers to these questions. This contribution aims to reconstruct this action-research process, based on the researcher's inclusion within the community and punctuated by abduction - deduction - induction loops (Figuière et al., 2018).