We are pleased to announce the publication of issue 259 (2026/5) of the journal Réseaux, entitled ‘Alternative and Esoteric Online Practices’, edited by Valérie Beaudouin and Arnaud Esquerre.
Overview of the case
How do digital platforms both support and challenge the growing interest in alternative or esoteric practices? Online communities enable individuals who are involved in, or interested in, practices that are generally stigmatised to exchange ideas and share knowledge, sometimes outside the realm of mainstream practices. In doing so, this environment can offer new opportunities for professionalisation to practitioners by enabling them to promote their expertise to an audience that may become a client base. However, these practices – made visible by their online presence and the promotional efforts of those involved in the field – can also arouse mistrust, provoke criticism and give rise to numerous controversies. Through several studies focusing on raw foodists, geobiologists, free-birthers, witches and fortune-tellers, this special issue demonstrates how the digital space serves simultaneously as a forum for exchange and the construction of knowledge, as a promotional platform with a view to professionalisation, and also as a site of controversy.
Keywords: esoteric practices, non-conventional careers, communities of practice, online market.
Contents
Connected Margins: Unconventional Practices, Alternative Knowledge and Digital Collectives
- By Valérie Beaudouin and Arnaud Esquerre
Alternative and esoteric online practices
In the ‘raw food’ market. Epistemic enterprises and alternative forms of knowledge
To use or challenge geobiology? Controversies surrounding the impact of electrical infrastructure in agricultural areas
Building a community around self-directed childbirth. Conflict avoidance and the process of politicisation in online communities
The Web of Witches: The Role of Online Communities in the Dissemination and Legitimisation of Contemporary Witchcraft
The emotional labour of fortune-tellers on online platforms. Supporting their clients whilst keeping them at a distance
Reading notes
Dominique BOULLIER, *Digital Dehumanities*, Malakoff, Armand Colin, 2025, 221 pp.
Marie BERGSTRÖM (ed.), *The Sexuality to Come: Young People and Intimate Relationships in the Wake of #MeToo*, Paris, La Découverte, 2025, ‘Sciences humaines’ series, 392 pp.
- By Margot Déage
Anne ALOMBERT, *On Artificial Stupidity: Towards a Policy on Digital Technologies*, Paris, Allia, 2025, 139 pp.
Ève CHIAPELLO and Alexandre VIOLLE (eds.), Sociology of Financial Circuits: The Infrastructure of Money and its Policies, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, 2025, 422 pp.