How can psychology contribute to biodiversity conservation? This has been my main research topic since 2020.

Moving beyond the dominant discourse on the need to ‘reconnect with nature’—which reveals its limitations in the premise of a disconnection from nature that is merely illusory, given how much we depend on the proper functioning of ecosystems for our survival—I work to identify and develop socio-cultural mediations of our relationships with and dependencies on nature, adapted to our urban lifestyles.

I focus in particular on education in botanical gardens, highlighting the professional practices employed by educators to connect children with nature in school workshops. Forging links with living things here involves complex work, within an urban natural space fraught with tensions and paradoxes, to create the conditions for a possible encounter between children and plants.

I also analyse how the ecosophy of visitors, volunteers and professionals at the Bioparc, an animal sanctuary in Geneva, manifests itself materially in interspecies relationships that involve both care and DIY, and which challenge the traditional boundaries between humans and other animals at the zoo.

This research programme also seeks to highlight the power of language in reproducing the dualisms that underpin our modernity, as well as to experiment, through various artistic or educational approaches, with transformations of language that enable us to rethink our relations with other living beings. Crafting a language suited to the challenges of the environmental crisis is also a request for contemporary environmental psychology.

Some publications on this topic:

Kloetzer, L. & Raggenbass, H. (in press). Supporting Transformative Change in Wolf-Smart Communities: a contribution of Sociocultural Psychology to Biodiversity Conservation. Handbook of Psychology and the Planet.

Sénécail Alain, Quarello Saskia, Ordonez-Pichetti Oriana, Cohen-Azria Cora, Picard Marion, Wobmann Léa, Kloetzer Laure (2025). Une approche didactique de l’émerveillement : ces “presque riens” qui disent beaucoup, revue ¿Interrogations ?, N°40. L’émerveillement : de l’émotion individuelle au geste social, juin 2025 [en ligne], https://www.revue-interrogations.org/Une-approche-didactique-de-l (Consulté le 11 juin 2025).

Deshayes, T., Kloetzer, L. Prévot, A-C., & Jimenez, M. S. (2024). Analyse discursive de « récits de nature » de jeunes Parisiennes et Fréjusiennes : une approche sociolinguistique des expériences de nature. Langage et société.

Kloetzer, L. (2024). Photovoice, un outil pour explorer l’expérience des jeunes en nature. In Virginie Boelen, Laura Nicolas (Dir.). L’éducation par la nature : Théories, pratiques, formations. Éditions Le Manuscrit, 2024, Langues et langages du vivant, Joëlle Aden, pp. 147-170.