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The Amoco Cadiz oil spill on the coasts of northern Brittany in March 1978 marked history in several ways. In particular, it aroused an unprecedented mobilization of scientists in the natural sciences. While previous oil spills had given rise to attempted legal actions carried solely by the Breton association for environmental conservation, this time the scientific dynamics and the mobilization of local actors joined forces to undertake and pursue a legal action aimed at recognizing the oil spill damages. What motivations pushed them to participate in this action? Interviews showed that they felt concerned by a range of damages and were driven by multiple objectives, both moral and intimate, as inhabitants and scientists. They described their involvement as activist and engaged in political issues and considered it as self-evident. However, twenty years later when the Erika oil spill occurred, scientific circles seemed to be confined to scientific follow-up programs, much to the astonishment of their elders. They sought a certain impermeability of their activities towards political and judicial circles. How did the scientists envisage their role? In this process-oriented dynamic, how did they apply their role to producing scientific information? From interviews with them, our paper analyzes the plurality of “attachments” embedded in each situation of choice and ordeal: political and moral foundations, interests and success objectives of action for change, intimate attachments.
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