Co-constructing health policies for Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever in France: Knowledge, engagement and temporalities in a "territory-in-waiting"

This research will focus on the knowledge produced by lay groups and scientists onCrimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFv) and especially on the conditions and modalities of its future emergence in territories where it has not been detected until now. This research takes France as a field of investigation, a territory "in-waiting", and more specifically the department of the Pyrénées-Orientales (PO). Despite significant uncertainties regarding the conditions and temporalities of these emergences on French soil, current scientific evidence indicates that the appearance of CCHFv in France should be expected and that we should be prepared. The department of PO is of particular interest because Hyalomma marginatum, one of the main tick species capable of transmitting CCHFv has been detected there and recent models predict that this tick population will continue to expand. It is also a territory bordering countries where the virus has been detected, where there are many 'at risk' groups likely to be more exposed to CCHFv infection through tick bites. These 'atrisk' groups include hunters, farmers, breeders and hikers. Through their own practices, these groups are producers and holders of 'local ecological knowledge', i.e. knowledge embedded in and about local ecologies. This study will analyse how expert and local ecological knowledge on CCHFv and its conditions of emergence are developed, disseminated and appropriated (or not) by the different actors inhabiting this territory, focusing on lay actors likely to be targeted by health policies and 'expert groups' contributing to and promoting these policies. The final aim is to understand the processes of translation and integration of the various registers of knowledge - ecological and scientific - into health policies for combating CCHF and more broadly emerging infectious diseases. I will collect data through interviews and participant observation with farmers and breeders, hunters, tourists, hikers, as well as research experts. Furthermore, the collaboration with a participatory research programme on ticks (CiTIQUE) will enable an ethnographic investigation in spaces and at programmes where experts and lay groups meet, and where various types of knowledge on ticks and their environment are circulatde and elaborated. This investigation will support the analysis of tensions, negotiations, and complementarities between scientific and local ecological knowledge, in order to understand if and how local knowledge can shed light on the unknowns and uncertainties that constitute scientific knowledge, and vice versa. This research will pay attention to the social processes by which health policies are appropriated, interpreted and negotiated by "at risk" groups targeted by these measures. A reflexive analysis will help to understand the processes by which participatory science approaches shapes relationships with ticks and potential host species, and the elaboration of local ecological and scientific knowledge concerning the CCHFv and its host/vector species. Finally, an anthropological approach linking scientific and applied issues will shed light on processes of negotiation between lay actors and scientists during knowledge production and the conditions for co-constructing health policies in the context of the fight against emerging infectious diseases.