Breaking the invisibility of occupational and environmental cancers

In this session, Sylvain Bertschy will present the research-action project run by the Groupement d'Intérêt Scientifique sur les Cancers d'Origine Professionnelle et Environnementale dans le Vaucluse (GISCOPE 84). This is an interdisciplinary research and action program involving medical and paramedical staff, researchers and occupational health and prevention professionals. Its aim is to generate knowledge on work- and environment-related carcinogenic risks, support eligible patients in their efforts to obtain recognition as occupational diseases, and promote exposure prevention and training.

Sylvain Bertschy is a researcher in history who joined the Centre Norbert Elias in 2024 as a junior professor at the University of Avignon. He is in charge of the "Toxicités et citoyenneté" (ToxCit) research and teaching program, which aims to understand how historical mutations in work and production, notably their chemical intensification, have contributed to the process of "toxification of ecosystems and bodies", and how, in turn, the latter challenges the historical forms of the social and health state.