Considering the chains of editorial work, the temporalities and social conditions of production, the place assigned to every male and female participant in the publishing process, this issue of Tracés aims to reflect on the effects of the "academic journal" format on the production and reception of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences.

This issue elaborates upon the notion of singularity, in an interdisciplinary way, from a double point of of view: the analytic operations of producing generalizing knowledge from objects deemed singular; and, more empirically, the processes of singularizing individuals from their social practices and ordinary sociabilities.

Considering the current injunction to reintegrate, rehabilitate, and recycle everything, this issue makes the hypothesis that this injunction also tends to deny the fact that industrial capitalist societies massively and constantly produce people and things beyond reclaim.

This volume dedicated to the "contactless worlds" aims to reflect upon the social uses and functions of proximity and distance, relationships with others and on the breakdown of these relationships in social and historical contexts.