Élise Avide: The Metropolitan Fabric of ‘Everyday’ Stations: Imaginaries and Symbolic Functions of a New Category in Greater Paris

Since the early 2010s, the term ‘daily-use’ has replaced ‘suburb’ in certain political discourse to refer to local railway stations in the Île-de-France region. Unlike ‘sensitive neighbourhoods’ or ‘urban areas’, the expression ‘everyday stations’ appears, at first glance, to be much more of a new, fashionable turn of phrase than an established political or administrative category.

Nevertheless, this issue has emerged in the public debate at a particular juncture – against the backdrop of the Grand Paris Express project – as if spurred on by a number of stakeholders whose strategies and ideals appear, at first glance, to converge, and is accompanied by a wave of construction work that is quite unprecedented in the stations of these networks.
Furthermore, the ‘everyday’ cannot be equated with the same images or values as the ‘suburbs’.

In this respect, this shift cannot be considered coincidental. Drawing on an analysis of the representations conveyed by various forms of narratives from stakeholders on the one hand, and an exploration of the stations and the projects concerning them in the Seine Aval region on the other, this thesis aims to reveal the ruptures that enable the emergence of ‘everyday’ stations as a new category within Greater Paris, the meanings that run through it, and the transformations it entails. Its ambition is thus to discuss more broadly the imaginary functions of categorisation in the construction of urban spaces.

In doing so, this study offers a fresh perspective on the contemporary history of urban planning in the Île-de-France region through the lens of ‘everyday life’, and from this angle reveals certain shifts in the relationship between transport and urban planning stakeholders and the ‘suburbs’ and their inhabitants, as well as in the professional divisions and power dynamics at play.

Members of the jury

• Xavier Desjardins, University Professor, Paris-Sorbonne University
• Jacques Peynot, Director of Stations for the Île-de-France region, SNCF (guest)
• Antoine Picon, Research Director, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (Director)
• Paola Pucci, Professor, Politecnico di Milano (rapporteur)
• Olivier Ratouis, University Professor, University of Paris-Nanterre (rapporteur)
• Nathalie Roseau, Associate Professor, École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (co-supervisor)