Le jeu de l'implication et le feu de l'engagement : chroniques nicaraguayennes

It is now well-known that quality of the technical solutions is interdependent with those who produce and apply them. The invention of a different agriculture, reclamed by numerous researchers and institutions calls for the invention of different relationships between research, development and production. These three poles have to learn to work together so that they may build a new research object where everyone will provide his know-how. This practice isn't so easy for the agronomist who tries to do so by reconciling research and action, through a permanent to and fro process of construction-de- construction-reconstruction and finally taking distance. For five years in a researchdevelopment project in Nicaragua, the researcher, initially an observer, became involved and then truly participated in the action with the extensionists. The itinerary, the resistance, the doubts, the interest, and the lessons of this social experimentation are thus drawn.