Innover dans les forces spéciales

Un travail en « perruque inversée » en voie d’institutionnalisation

Bibliographic Data

ID6168978
AuthorsJean Francès (École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées Bretagne), Violette Larrieu (École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées Bretagne)
Year2022
Issue17
Pages161-185
Publication date2022-11-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocio (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2266-3134 • E-ISSN: 2425-2158
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/socio.13429
OpenAlexW4310345374
LanguageFR
References cited25

How do military personnel succeed in designing or perfecting equipment useful to their mission? This paper will analyse the production of material innovations that are characterised by their ability to respond to an operational need, whose design is based on the skills, resources and abilities of soldiers in the field, and whose modelling and prototyping do not require the deployment of major research and development resources. We will show that these activities are based on an inverted form of “something on the side”. More generally, the question arises as to the capacity of an institution marked by the rigour of its hierarchy to make accessible to its personnel the margins of autonomy necessary for the engagement of frugal forms of technological research and development. Through an analysis centred on two case studies—a grenade-launching pole and an oxygen mask for dogs—of innovation by and for Special Forces operatives, we highlight the difficulty, for the military institution, of making an ‘innovation logic’ coexist with an ‘organisation logic’ and articulating them

Humanities · Political science · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Diverse multidisciplinary academic research · French Urban and Social Studies · Healthcare Systems and Practices · History, Culture, and Society · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access