The new environmental stewardships: Cooperating, hacking, and playing the ecological transformation in our territories[Les nouvelles intendances environnementales : Coopérer, hacker, jouer la transformation écologique dans nos territoires]

This article presents a review of a series of transdisciplinary residencies focusing on 'new forms of environmental stewardship' and 'living territories' in the context of climate change and ecological transformation. These residencies, carried out between 2021 and 2024 as parts of the successive editions of the 'Agir pour le vivant' [Act for the living] festival in Arles, explored innovative approaches to governance, citizen participation, and relationships between humans and non-humans. Researchers and experts in ecology, agronomy, social sciences and environmental humanities, architecture and conservation, as well as elected officials and activists, presented case studies and conducted cross-analyses. The challenges of trust, hacking, dialogue, addressing spiritual and emotional dimensions, and renewing narratives and mindsets, have been highlighted. Forum Theatre emerged as a relevant tool for acting out and reflecting on the lessons from these residencies, and for facilitating encounters between collective action and public policy. The reflections emerging from these residencies shed light on the urgent need for a collective, democratic, and sensitive ecological transformation. Science, although somehow weakened, still has a key role to play in engaging in shared experimentations with other fields of knowledge, and in documenting the ensuing transformations. Scientists are thus invited to keep on supporting the diversity of initiatives and imagining social and economic models that could foster habitability.