Acknowledgments
The French Ministry of the Environment, through its Division of
Studies and Research, has generously supported this unconventional
basic research project that aimed from the outset at the production of
a book (contract no. 96060). It goes without saying that the ministry is
in no way responsible for the result. I have benefited throughout from
the indispensable support of Claude Gilbert, whose liaison work made
it possible to create a French environment conducive to original re-
search on collective risk. I thank the students of the London School of
Economics, and especially Noortje Marres, for helping me during two
courses I taught there on the politics of nature and for giving this en-
terprise its definitive form. I am immensely grateful to the experts
who first agreed to put my drafts to the test, especially Marie-Angèle
Hermitte, Gérard de Vries, and Laurent Thévenot. To name all the
others would mean prematurely exposing the extent of my limitations
and my debts. Their most important contributions are included in the
notes. I also thank Graham Harman for many witty comments on the
French edition.
This book could not have progressed without the invaluable work
done by Florian Charvolin on the Ministry of the Environment, by
Rémi Barbier on waste products, by Patricia Pellegrini on farm ani-
mals, by Elizabeth Rémy on high-tension power lines, by Jean-Claude
Petit on nuclear reactors, by Yannick Barthe on the burial of radioac-
tive waste, and by Vololona Rabeharisoa and Michel Callon on the
French Muscular Dystrophy Association.
I have dedicated this work to Isabelle Stengers and Vinciane