Faculté des sciences de la société Sciences de la société

Anne Philibert

IMG_1671.jpg

Anne Philibert is a sociologist whose work focuses on contested markets and the processes through which they emerge, are structured, and evolve in response to regulatory change. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Geneva in 2021. Her doctoral dissertation examined the legalization of cannabis through a comparative study of the United States, the Netherlands, and Uruguay. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, where she conducted research on the development of market infrastructures in the emerging cannabis industry.

Her research lies at the intersection of the sociology of markets and market regulation. She is interested in how regulatory frameworks shape the development, organization, and dynamics of emerging industries, including drug markets (cannabis, psychedelics, research chemicals) and other rapidly evolving sectors such as artificial intelligence.

Her work combines comparative analysis and mixed-method approaches, including interviews, surveys, document analysis, and trace ethnography.

Current research

Grey markets under regulatory closure

This research examines how grey markets operate in the interstices of regulation and develop distinctive organizational forms that allow them to function in the absence of a clear legal framework. It investigates how market actors reorganize and adapt when the regulatory gaps that sustained them begin to close.

Regulatory infrastructures and emerging technologies

This project examines how regulatory systems designed to control material goods are challenged by emerging technologies that transform the nature of regulated objects. Focusing on the case of 3D-printed firearms (“ghost guns”), it investigates how regulatory infrastructures built around traceable physical objects struggle to govern distributed forms of production and digital design.

Publications 

  • Philibert Anne. Regulating contentious markets. Cannabis legalization in the United Stated, the Netherlands, and Uruguay. Seismo Editions. (Forthcoming 2026).
  • Philibert Anne. Cultivating cannabis markets: How infrastructure work made Colorado’s cannabis industry succesfull, Socio-Economic Review [under review].
  • Gagnon François,  Anne Philibert, Benjamin Carignan, Elsa Labonté, Yannick Dufresne. Psychedelics stores, their regulation and public health: knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and opinions of Canadians. International Journal of Drug Policy [under review]. 
  • Philibert, Anne (2022) Revisiter une panique morale dans une perspective interinstitutionnelle. Regards croisés entre la campagne anti-cannabis (FBN) et la campagne de guerre au crime (FBI) aux États-Unis dans les années 1930. Numéro spécial sur les paniques morales, Émulations – Revue de Sciences Sociales, Presses Universitaires de Louvain. 
  • Philibert Anne (2022), Dos and Don'ts in Cannabis Regulation. Federal Commission for Addiction Issues, Switzerland..
  • Philibert Anne, Zobel Frank (2018), International Review of Cannabis Regulation Models, Sociological research study, N°41, Genève : Université de Genève.
  • Philibert, Anne, Géraldine Morel, Loïc Pignolo, et Sandro Cattacin. 2017. Le processus d’endettement dans le jeu excessif. D’une revue de la littérature à l’élaboration d’un modèle. Sociograph, Sociological research study, N°33, Genève : Université de Genève.
  • Philibert, Anne, Géraldine Morel et Loïc Pignolo. 2015. Le processus d’endettement dans le jeu excessif. Résultats d’une recherche exploiratoire, in Psychotropes N°21(2), p.95-107.
  • Philibert, Anne et Sandro Cattacin. 2015. Un lieu pour penser l’addiction. Evaluation de l’Académie des dépendances. Sociograph, Sociological research study, N°18, Genève : Université de Genève.
  • Cattacin, Sandro, Anne Philibert, Loïc Pignolo, Barbara Broers et Guillaume Rey. 2020. Les drogues dans tous leurs états. Sociograph, Sociological research study, N°46. Genève : Université de Genève.