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This thematic issue aims at sharing a collaborative reflection on participation, a major contemporary trend in knowledge production, especially naturalist knowledge, for environmental management. In French the semantic diversity of this term “participatory sciences”, “participatory research”, “citizen sciences” reflects the diversity of participation modes. The purpose of this thematic issue is therefore to generate a dialogue between case studies and more methodological or theoretical work emanating from different disciplines, and different research fields and objects. This enables us to override usual divides including those between the natural and social sciences and between different continents. The production of naturalist knowledge is being redesigned, interwoven as it is in the relationships between scientific institutions and the societies within which this knowledge is embedded. The present issue thus attempts to explore the questions raised by these ongoing changes regarding the acknowledged legitimacy of epistemic frameworks and the place of partnership networks.