Understand the process of designing a work system in the indivisibility of time

Abstract :

This thesis focuses on understanding the processes of designing work systems of farmers engaged in an agroecologicaltransition. It is based on the implementation of a method: the Chronicle of Change. By offering farmers to build design narratives, it reveals the overall design process in which they are involved. This process is analyzed on the basis of a dialogical model of design (e.g. Béguin, 2010) that puts the poles of virtual and real into tension, to which we add a pole of designable to show the movements between past – present – future, which are at work in the process.

These narratives make visible the object being designed: the working system composed of subsystems. The farmer's experience with these subsystems contributes to the progress of the design process and the farmer's construction of a systemic approach to his purpose.

In perspective, this thesis opens on the role of narrative in the development of the experience of a design process and on the notion of designing sustainable work systems.

Thesis defended on 26 november 2019

Co-supervision :

Flore BARCELLINI (CNAM) et Lorène Prost (INRA)

Jury :

• M. BEGUIN Pascal, Professeur des Universités, Université Lumière Lyon 2 – Rapporteur
• M. OLRY Paul, Professeur des Universités, AgroSup Dijon – Rapporteur
• Mme. KOSTULSKI Katia, Professeure des Universités, Cnam – Présidente du jury
• Mme. GAUDART Corinne, Directrice de recherche, Cnam – Examinatrice
• M. DEDIEU Benoît, Directeur de recherche, Inra – Examinateur