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Viticulture negatively impacts the environment, biodiversity, and human health; however, despite the widely acknowledged challenges that this intensive agricultural activity poses to sustainable development, measures to reduce its invasiveness are constantly being deferred or rebuffed. Constraints to change are linked to vine cultivation methods, the impacts of climate change on vine resilience and disease sensitivity, and socio-economic models, as well as growing criticisms from society. Research and training have thus far failed to provide solutions or mobilise stakeholders on a large scale. Such resistance to sustainable practices development calls into question the effectiveness of knowledge production systems and relations between scientists, winegrowers, and society: Have scientific disciplines overly isolated themselves from each other and from the wider society to the point of losing the capacity to incorporate alternative forms of knowledge and reasoning and achieve collaborative action? Herein, we describe our findings from a participatory action research project that began in Westhalten, France, in 2013 and ultimately spread to Switzerland and Germany over the next 6 years. We show that participatory action research can mobilise long-term collaborations between winegrowers, NGOs, advisers, elected officials, members of civil society, and researchers, despite differing visions of viticulture and the environment. The epistemological framework of this research promotes consensus-building by valuing complexity and dissensus in knowledge and reasoning such that all actors are involved in experimentation and the production of results. From these findings, consensus statements were collectively elaborated in qualitative and quantitative registers. Once acknowledged by the scientific community, these consensus statements became shareable knowledge. We propose that this renewed interdisciplinarity associating the human and social sciences with agronomic and biological sciences in collaboration with stakeholders produces actionable knowledge that mobilises and engages winegrowers to conceive and implement sustainable viticulture on a transnational scale.

: The transition from subsistence to global division of labour and hence global competition is obvious and visible in the transformation of the economic structure, from agriculture to industry to a knowledge-based service economy. Obviously the Alpine realm is also subject to this process of segregation of well and less suited locations, probably with a wider than average span of location costs, and hence larger disparities and uneven (diverging) development. Given such conditions we want to explore the сonsequences for the А1pinе economy , and subsequently the Alps. Shall we regard the Alpine economy as something special, not subject to the general titles of development? Will there be a specifically Alpine eco- nomic policy to even out the gaps created by market conditions. Given the heterogeneity of the Alpine realm, it is safe to think of the Alpine ecconomy as a complementary system of uneven regions. The true challenge will therefore be to decide the dispute between free-market models with incoherent accidental decision processes along the line of the market logic, or some type of regional governance substituting chance by democratically approved perspectives. But what should be the criteria to base such decisions upon ?

L’écart entre les centres et les périphéries se creuse et l’exode des régions excentrées augmente. Dans les zones moins attractives, on dissout les infrastructures et les sites de production, ou, pour le moins, on ne les développe pas au même rythme que dans les métropoles. La Nouvelle politique régionale de la Suisse poursuit une direction orientée plus fortement vers l’économie que la politique de ses prédécesseurs. Son objet n’est plus la conciliation entre les régions, le maintien de l’occupation décentralisée du territoire et donc l’empêchement de l’exode des régions de montagne, mais plutôt la promotion des centres économiques. Si une politique régionale durable doit être mise en œuvre, il est aussi nécessaire de définir des objectifs clairs ainsi qu’une série de mesures probantes pour les régions périphériques. Parallèlement les obstacles de la politique sectorielle toujours en vigueur doivent être surmontés. Il reste à savoir ce qui devrait se passer dans les régions substantiellement et structurellement affaiblies à cause de décennies d’exode, là ou aucun investisseur ne veut se rendre pour valoriser les ressources encore disponibles. La politique régionale va devoir discuter ouvertement de cette problématique, mais aussi déterminer comment un déclin souhaité et structuré pourrait avoir lieu dans certains secteurs régionaux. Eviter de traiter un tel sujet serait peu efficace étant donné que ce déclin est en cours depuis longtemps, de manière silencieuse, peu visible et jusqu’à présent totalement désorganisée.
The gap between urban centres and peripheral areas is widening and the depopulation of remote regions is increasing. In the less appealing areas, infrastructures and production plants are being wound up or, at east, not developed at the same rhythm as in urban agglomerations. Switzerland’s New Regional Policy (NRP) focuses more intensely on the economy than the previous policies did. It no longer targets regional balance, or maintenance of regional occupation in decentralized areas thus preventing depopulation of mountain regions, but is focusing on promoting economic centres. Although a sustainable regional policy must be implemented, it is also fundamental to define clear objectives and a range of conclusive measures for the peripheral areas. At the same time, the obstacles of the sectoral policy still in effect today, must be overcome. It remains to be seen what is likely to happen in regions that have been substantially and structurally weakened by decades of depopulation; regions where investors prefer not to venture to develop resources that are still available. Regional policy must discuss this issue openly, and also determine how a desired and structured decline may be implemented in certain regional areas. It would be considered highly ineffective to avoid such a subject, as this decline has been progressing for a long time, silently, quite invisibly, and in a totally disorganized manner until now