Call for papers

The management of resources represents a major challenge for the sustainability of our society, a fortiori in the Anthropocene era. It demands a fundamental paradigm shift from that of our current society, as much at the international as the local level: the need to abandon the endless exploitation of natural resources in favour of their ‘maintenance’. The COVID-19 crisis, combined with global warming and its effects, has only accelerated its awareness in all segments of society, whether individual or collective, and especially within private and public organisations, both large and small, whether or not profit seeking, family-owned or otherwise.

As a consequence, organisations must confront essential questions of transmission and thereby, of heritage: What did they inherit? From whom did they inherit? What do they wish or should transmit? What will they leave as a heritage for future generations? These interrogations lead to the question of patrimony in the two principal senses of the word, namely that of acquisition and that of transmission. Indeed, the noun ‘patrimony’ refers to two related, yet confused, notions, that of ownership and that of transmission.

Patrimony in the sense of ownership stems from the Latin patrimonium, from pater, father. It refers to the assets inherited from the father, from the family, understood in biological terms but not uniquely so. Thus, patrimony is associated with the notion of heritage. In terms of transmission, it refers to the links between past, present and future generations, whether these links be real, symbolic, or fictitious, links established via the mediation of the assets passed on. Thus, it underscores the link of patrimony to history, to memory, and to temporality.

We anticipate that the Journées 2023 will provide an opportunity to reflect on this question of transmission from a sustainability perspective, whether at the level of a single organisation or that of society as a whole. It suggests several questions for examination:

• Transmission actors and their roles: men/women, old/young, consultants/companies, associations/alternative groups...?
• The objectives of the transmission: The tools/means/levers of transmission;
  • to ensure the maintenance of the dominant reproductive system (natural/legal persons);
  • to ensure the “good” of society, in this case its survival; and
  • to provide mechanisms to manage the tensions between these two objectives.
• Types of properties: individual/collective: public/private, family/non-family;
• The evaluation, valuation, and sustainability of property as an “asset” (resource); and
• Heritage objects: tangible or intangible assets (patents, knowledge, culture of the organisation); hierarchy and/or combination:
  • Can heritage be considered as a resource to be shared?
  • Can we combine the management of a personal patrimony with a shared patrimony and/or of an individual patrimony with a collective patrimony?