The Dispositif

Introduction

To deal with the concept of the dispositif (dispositive)¹ and respect the logic of the Concepts to Conceive the 21st Century set, our discussion is based on two clearly distinguishable parts. Part 1 covers the epistemological foundations of the dispositive. It clarifies the concept of dispositive by means of authors of any disciplines who have provided a definition or discussions related to one of the technical, organizational or cultural aspects specific to their field of research. This part is intended for any person interested in human and social sciences, who wishes to further study what we call the dispositive. Part 2 focuses more on issues concerning information and communication sciences. Our collective position is to consider ICS as, on the one hand, an academic discipline contributing to the transmission of the information and communication culture and, on the other hand, a research discipline.

Even though we note that numerous authors use the term dispositive in its notional form, this book explores its heuristic potential. The approach is to clarify points of view, whether they are those of practitioners or researchers. This is why discussions often vary between operational considerations and theoretical ones, as they influence each other.

The first part provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of the art of the concept, in which the author of the book often gives way to the authors quoted. The second part is more focused on the vision of ICS, ...