Vanessa Jérome

PhD in Political Science & Sociology (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Université, Paris), certificate in ‘Administration of public policies’ (Cedis-Paris 1), and continuing education in Psychoanalysis (Séminaires psychanalytiques de Paris).

Area

Political Science. Sociology. Gender Studies. Qualitative Methods. Biographical Approach. Intersectionnality. Political parties. Political militancy/Activism. Political careers. Territorial Public Policies. Feminism/Ecofeminism. Sexualities. Conjugalities. Sexual violence in politics.

Bio

Vanessa Jérome is, first of all, an experienced teacher. Since 1995, she has taught, across several French universities, to many different types of audience, courses in Sociology and Political Science, including: Political Institutions, Political Parties, Engagement & Activism, Gender Studies, Sociology of Inequalities, and even Qualitative methods. 

Jérome is also a distinguished researcher. For many years, her research focus was on political ecology and environmental activism. Her doctoral thesis on Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) remains the first—and only—long-term participative ethnographic study of the French Green Party. Her recently published book (Militer chez les Verts, Presses de Sciences Po, 2021) takes up the conclusions of the thesis and presents several more recent surveys, including an original study of the French Young Greens. In this publication, Jérome describes the social characteristics of green activists and the plurality of their matrices of engagement—left Catholicism, support for the independence of Algeria, participation in the May-June 1968 events or, more recently, in various pro-European mobilizations and the new climate movement. She also emphasizes the harshness of partisan socialization—people often learn to become a member of EELV through symbolic violence, silence, and examination of conscience—and the importance of distinctive everyday practices in the process of ‘becoming a Green’. Jérome brings to light the relatively stigmatizing dimension of environmental activism, and the role played by ascetic socialization in the green activists’ ability to reverse the stigma and make their partisan membership a source of pride. She insists on the political semi-professionalization towards which green militancy leads those who are most willing to take advantage of their paradoxical relationship to politics, power and institutions. With this work, Jérome also contributes to an understanding of the factors which lead the youngest ecologists to join the party, as well as what distinguishes them from the activists who decided—since the decade 2010-2020 and with the success of collapsologist theses—to join other movements with greater visibility on the media scene (Youth for climate, Extinction Rebellion…). With this book, she contributes, more generally, to unveiling the logics that structure the political minorities’ engagement and understanding their attachment to political organizations that do not produce a structuring and lasting inscription within the political field. Indeed, to feel—including by family tradition, empathy with the oppressed, refugees, dissidents and whistleblowers—or even to assume oneself to be a 'minority in the institutional majorities’, constitutes one of the many facets of green activism that Jérome explores.

As a project in parallel, several years ago, Jérome started to investigate the influence of sexualities and conjugalities in the political careers of straight & LGBTQ+ green activists. Doing this, she demonstrated the predominance of a heterosexual conjugality on the ascendant careers of French Green activists, and the paradoxes of the French Green Party's feminism and 'gay friendliness'.

Pursuing these topics, Jérome has dedicated her latest research to the comprehension of sexual violence in politics. Her forthcoming book (Violences sexuelles en politique, Editions du Croquant) shows, in concrete cases, the interweaving of social, political, and partisan logics of this type of violence. It helps develop an understanding of the mechanisms of complicity and political loyalties which invite the silencing of the attacks and complicate their treatment by justice.

Unquestionably committed to academic life, Jérome is part of several research groups. She also has dedicated a large amount of her time to the Tepsis laboratory of excellence’s flagship project, politika.io (https://www.politika.io/en). The development of this first free bilingual online platform for Historical and Social Sciences of Politics put Jérome in contact with researchers from the multidisciplinary laboratories that make up Tepsis and many colleagues abroad. As a project manager, she contributed to the production, editing, and online posting of notices, filmed interviews, and resources that make up the platform today.

Considering more than ever that politics is a ‘chair and bones’ activity, and engaging in the promotion of an open-minded (towards various types of discrimination) approach in political science, Jérome will dedicate this 2021/2022 CSPT fellowship towards exploring, from an intersectional perspective, all of the facets of what she calls ‘New (em) bodie·s in politics’.

Selected Publications

Most of Jérome's publications can be found on Academia.edu (https://uvic.academia.edu/VanessaJérome) and on Cairn international (https://www.cairn.info/publications-de-Vanessa-Jérome--122116.htm).