Abstract
This doctoral research aims to rehabilitate a processual approach to the Anthropocene, understood as a particular dynamic, based on evolving relationships with non-humans, with strong impacts on "global systemic effects" that are likely to restrict the possibility of humans to control the direction of local trajectories (Beau and Larrère, 2018). To this end, "construction waste" or waste-materials from (un)construction are problematized as "political matter" (Braun and Whatemore, 2010; Pilo' and Jaffe, 2020), both physical and discursive (Rudolf, 2012), invested by diverse actors at different scales and at the center of power games. Through the sociology of associations (Latour, 2007), the material and relational reading (Blanc et al., 2020) proposed here includes all the social groups linked by these physical or discursive materials: those who interact directly with these wastes or materials; those who decide or are responsible for their management; those who talk about them and mobilize around their management. Beyond the sociotechnical aspect, the im/material circulations narrative (Choplin, 2020; Quet, 2022) of these waste-materials demonstrated their political character and their socialization around the issues of illegal dumping and industrial pollution on a local scale. In a context of transition to the Circular Economy announced by ecological policies (LTECV law of 2015; AGEC law of 2020), the entry through circulating materials then made visible the contemporary dynamics of globalization (Abélès, 2008) of the Circular Economy referential in both waste and construction circles. We can thus observe the thematic shifts from one political strategy to another on a (supra)national scale, as well as the complex, long and winding translation work (Akrich et al., 2013) carried out by regional players in order to take control of these issues. Moving from policy to action, this work focuses on the public action in being of transition to Circular Economy in building sector on a regional scale. This analysis dissociates substance from form, distinguishing between the political trajectories of ecological transitions (from more circular waste management to the transition of construction practices), and the operating methods chosen by stakeholders (leadership, financial support, networking). Through a individuation movement (Abélès, 2008) within the Region Occitania, this thesis examines the singular political strategy of this actor and the transformations observed in ecological action - here related to "building waste". From a holistic perspective, the final objective is to qualify what "acting for ecology" means for this local authority whose ecological public action is in its infancy but innovative (Laboratoire des Transitions and Pacte Vert pour l'Occitanie). In this way, analysis through institutional and socio-ecological transitions (Carrère et al., 2019) made it possible to investigate the rise in competence and materialization of an ecological policy within the Region Occitania, which was based on the territorialization of Circular Economy policies introduced on a regional scale by the theme of waste