This article offers a look at the critical dimension of Espaces & Sociétés from the standpoint of a member of the present editorial board. It begins with an analysis of the board’s own eclectic relationship to critique. On the basis of a questionnaire submitted to its members, two main positions can be discerned: one considers that the critical dimension is inherent in a scholarly approach, while the other maintains that this approach does not suffice to guarantee the integration of power relations, both in the production of knowledge and in the social world it analyses. To some extent, these divergences can be explained by the social backgrounds and political socialisation of the different members of the editorial board. In a second section, the author looks back over the journal’s history to show that the tempering of critique is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, the debate over its critical stance already enlivened its thirtieth-anniversary issue.