To this end, we are jointly organising two days of informal discussions on Thursday 5 November POSTPONED* at the Académie du Climat and on Friday 6 November at the CNRS headquarters, focusing on the digital and ecological transitions in question (on Thursday afternoon), science in society (on Friday morning) and engagement (on Friday afternoon).

On the agenda for these days: guest lectures, round-table discussions, an exhibition, film screenings followed by debates, and more informal opportunities for discussion over lunch and in the late afternoon.

The programme

Thursday 5 November 2026 (in the afternoon, at the Climate Academy) – POSTPONED*

• 1pm Coffee
• 1:45pm Introduction – Daniel Florentin et Olivier Coutard
• 2pm-3:30 Digital transitions in public administrations. Speakers: Antoine Courmont (Latts), Lorenzo Bouel (Latts),  Anne Debar (Ministère de l’Ecologie), Animation : Gilles Jeannot (Latts)
• 3:30-4pm Coffee break
• 4pm-5:30 Technical worlds and terrestrial habitability. Speakers: Charles Claron (Latts), Béatrice Cointe (CSI), Caroline Gallez (LVMT), Bruno Turnheim (LISIS). Animation : Nathalie Roseau (Latts)

*Given the political and social context, the involvement of some of the laboratory’s staff in this movement, and the logistical uncertainties associated with the national day of action, we would like to inform you that the half-day scientific event originally scheduled for Thursday, November 5, at the Académie du Climat has been postponed.

However, in keeping with the spirit of the laboratory’s 40th anniversary—which we will be celebrating throughout 2026–2027—this half-day event will return in full force in the first quarter of 2027, in an even richer and more dynamic format.

And here’s some good news! The event on November 6 at the CNRS Michel Ange campus will go ahead as planned.

Friday 6 November 2026 (all day, at the CNRS headquarters in the Auditorium)

• 9am Coffee
• 9-10:45 Lattsian sciences in society. Speakers: Pauline Gabillet (Eau du Grand Lyon); Zélia Hampikian (IDFM); Marie Krier (Paris Sud Aménagement). Animation : Daniel Florentin (Latts)
• 10:45-11:15 Coffee break
• 11:15-11:45 The Latts as seen by its funders. Speaker: François Ménard, former permanent secretary of the PUCA
• 11:45-12:15 The Latts as seen by its supervisory bodies. Speakers from the CNRS, the ENPC and UGE (to be confirmed)

• 12:15-1:30 Lunch (buffet)

• 1:30-2:45 Commitments by stakeholders; commitments by researchers. Speakers: Antoine Esnos (Latts), Emmanuel Munch (LVMT), Maïder Olivier (Fondation pour le Logement). Animation : Niklas Gerst (Latts)
• 2:45-3:15 Science communication and science outreach for the general public, Latts-style. Speaker: Martine Drozdz (Latts)
• 3:15-3:45 Coffee break
• 3:45-5:15 Screening of Latts productions. The Great Together, a documentary by Rocio Calzado Lopez (Latts). Commented excerpts from Elsa Vivant’s documentary on the management of the opioid crisis in the United States
• 5:15 Cocktail

Informations pratiques

Registration is compulsory (and free)

The LATTS community would be delighted to welcome you to these events.

Daniel Florentin and Ludovic Halbert,
on behalf of all the staff at LATTS

The article LATTS celebrates its 40th anniversary – Scientific Days first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The round-table discussion will take place on Thursday 8 October 2026, from 6.00 pm to 8.00 pm at the University of Bordeaux, Victoire Campus (Denucé Room).

Please register on the Urban Forum website

The article Félix Adisson and Ludovic Halbert are taking part in the round-table discussion at the Urban Forum first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Together with Christoph Bernhardt (Humboldt University), she is organising a session entitled ‘Rethinking Modern Urban Infrastructures in the Light of the Anthropocene, 19th–20th century’.

Session Abstract

The contribution, over the last three centuries, of urbanisation processes (technical, social, economic, political and cultural) to the ‘Anthropocene’ —that is to say, the alteration of the biosphere by human activities, which is having dramatic consequences for the planet’s environmental boundaries—calls for a rethinking of approaches and subfields of urban history through the lens of the Anthropocene. Although the term ‘Anthropocene’ is contested in public and scientific debates, the transdisciplinary controversies surrounding this issue over the past two decades can help to reformulate research questions in urban history and to innovate established concepts in urban political, cultural and environmental history. With this in mind, the session focuses on urban infrastructures and invites participants to re-examine the emergence and ecological footprint of urban networks (water, transport, energy, waste, data, etc.) in terms of their spatial and material scales, their socio-political configurations, and their human and non-human agents. Contributions, grounded in empirical research, are expected to foster the convergence of the fields of urban history and Anthropocene studies.

This session features presentations by Giulia Scotto, Jaume Valentines-Álvarez, Sabine Barles, Etienne Dufour, Nathalie Roseau, Timothy Moss, Matthijs Degraeve, Erika Hanna, Dimitra Kanellopoulou, Charles Ambrosino and Antoine Brochet, Monika Motylinska and John Lagae, followed by a concluding discussion led by Carl Nightinghale.

You can find the detailed programme for the session on the EAUH2026 conference website.

Nathalie Roseau will present a paper entitled ‘Consciousness and denial of/in the Anthropocene. How did New York envisage its metropolitan future in the early 1970s?’

Paper Abstract

The Anthropocene era (Chakrabarty, 2018) is a long-standing period of history characterised by competing rationales that are acknowledged when the time comes to move on. One of its aporias concerns the concepts of ‘consciousness’ and ‘denial’. The growth of knowledge has continually taught us about the risks of upheaval and multiplied warnings. Yet, despite the predicted disasters, trajectories have continued along their course and the “Great Acceleration” has persisted. This paper focuses on New York City in the early 1970s. This period, marked by the end of the Vietnam War, was also a time of growing awareness of the planet’s scale (captured by the Apollo missions, from ‘EarthRise’ in 1968 to ‘Blue Marble’ in 1972) and its finite nature (*The Limits to Growth* was published in 1972, followed by the 1973 oil crisis), whilst 1970 saw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. In New York, three major exhibitions presented the state and future of the metropolis, reflecting the socio-environmental catastrophe. In May 1970, the exhibition “The Rise of American Architecture, 1815–1915” opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking back at the architectural heritage of the 19th century. In October 1972, the exhibition “Olmsted’s New York” at the Whitney Museum of American Art celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect and designer—along with Calvert Vaux—of Prospect Park and Central Park. The exhibition toured the United States under the title “The New York that might have been”. The installation of scenographic elements immersing visitors in the scale of the creations and destructions that shaped metropolitan urbanism echoed CITYRAMA, inaugurated at the same time by the Museum of the City of New York, a multimedia installation in which visitors were introduced to the city’s centuries-old history in 17 minutes. By focusing on the exhibitions through which New York represents and renews itself in this moment of lucidity, this article seeks to understand the mirror that opens onto the metropolis: that of an awareness of the environmental crisis. By scrutinising this infrastructure of visuality through which the city envisions its future, we shall seek to understand the enigma of clarity and blindness in which urban societies find themselves caught.

The article Nathalie Roseau is taking part in the EAUH conference ‘City Networks in Europe and Beyond’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

She will present ‘Why is it important to take a close look at legal mechanisms when studying territorial governance in geography? Some examples from the energy-territory nexus’.

Find all the information about this event on the CIST website

The article Emmanuelle Santoire is taking part in the seminar ‘The Legal Spatiality of Land, Water, and Infrastructure’ first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Operationalizing Energy Justice: Social Sciences and Quantitative Modeling

In a nutshell

Emmanuelle Santoire is taking part in the workshop entitled “Operationalising Energy Justice: Social Sciences and Quantitative Modelling”.

Description

This session proposes an interdisciplinary exploration of energy justice through the combined lenses of social sciences and quantitative modeling. It brings together expertise from energy system modeling and planning, energy geography, decision-support modeling, and the analysis of underground resource use, availability, and associated industrial developments. The session addresses a central challenge of contemporary energy transitions: translating the normative concept of energy justice into operational tools that inform energy planning and resource allocation. Designed as an interactive and participatory workshop, the session will engage participants in real-time modeling exercises, allowing them to explore how different justice-oriented constraints affect energy system outcomes and material requirements. By directly interacting with simplified planning models and resource-use frameworks, we will collectively examine trade-offs between technological choices, resource constraints, and equity considerations. A core objective of the session is to gather feedback from the audience in order to foster a collective reflection on how energy justice can be defined, interpreted, and operationalized through the lens of energy planning and resource use, thereby contributing to more transparent, inclusive, and just decision-making processes.

Undisciplined Life: When Technological Infrastructures Lose Control

In a nutshell

Olivier Coutard is taking part in the thematic session entitled “Undisciplined Life: When Technological Infrastructures Lose Control”.

Description

Over the last two centuries, and particularly since the mid-twentieth century, the development of large infrastructure systems has deeply affected ecosystems (and biogeochemical cycles) on a planetary scale, according to highly uneven geographies of opportunity and exposure. In the recent period, infrastructures have become increasingly associated with living organisms, ecosystems, and more broadly with ecology, as reflected in the development of “green infrastructure”, the infrastructuring of living systems in so-called nature-based solutions, the growing pervasiveness of infrastructure-based environments – not to mention the increasingly-present reality of infrastructure spaces (ducts, galleries, facilities…) as living environments. However, an unavoidable tension exists between infrastructure projects for living environments and ecological dynamics;the former rely on a reductionist approach that seek to standardize and control ecosystems, while the latter operate through nonlinear, adaptive, and often unpredictable dynamics. This tension almost necessarily results in various forms of disruption to the script assigned to living organisms within these infrastructure projects. It also entails social consequences, through infrastructure failures and environmental crises that tend to amplify existing inequalities.This session will question these unescapable tension(s) between infrastructural developments and the dynamics of ecosystems in different social context, as well as the inequalities resulting from these tensions.

The article Towards a just and habitable world: exploring the role of technology first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

This presentation is part of the seminar ‘The Paris Region: Territories and Cultures’, organised by Emmanuel Bellanger (CHS, CNRS/University of Paris 1), Paul Bastier (National Archives), Béatrice Hérold, Dominique Juigné and Anne-Cécile Tizon-Germe (Paris Archives), Christine Langé and Caroline Andreani (Seine-Saint-Denis Departmental Archives), Rosine Lheureux (Val-de-Marne Departmental Archives) and Sylvie Zaidman (Paris Musées). The 2025–2026 seminar series is devoted to “Senses and Feelings in the Paris Region, 18th–21st Centuries”.

Raphaële Bertho and Nathalie Roseau have chosen to focus on the Paris Ring Road by undertaking a photo-historical study based on the premise that photography can help to reveal the vernacular uses that have shaped this political landscape over the last century. The presentation will focus in particular on the Porte de Bagnolet, a site that undoubtedly embodies the way in which the development of the belt’s territory has affected, or even caused the disappearance of, previous vernacular practices.

The article The Paris Ring Road: Photographic Perspectives and Local Uses first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Download the offer: Internship offer

The article Internship offer: Environmental impact of LATTS research first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The article Kick-off workshop of the FinPlanet ANR-FAPESP project first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

The concept of "global financialization," inspired by the 2010s debate on "global urbanization,
" highlights the key role of capitalist accumulation in the transformation of spaces, communities, and environments on a global scale, from agricultural land, forests, and mining sites to the urban areas they support.

The hypothesis of global financialization offers a conceptual platform for transcending current scientific fragmentation and fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. With this in mind, the International Workshops
seek to engage critically with this concept. The goal is to work toward a refined definition of this notion and to anchor it in multiple theoretical traditions (Marxist, feminist, political ecology, etc.) by developing appropriate methodologies to study its possibilities and limitations in a context of systemic social, environmental, and political crises.

The project brings together specialists eager to share their knowledge of the existing literature and to create a first comprehensive mapping of global financialization, its geographical, social, and ecological variations, its actors, instruments, and policies in the North and South.

This series of international scientific events will culminate in the publication of the book Financialization and Space. Following the first workshop in May 2024, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this second workshop will focus on the presentation of the complete chapters proposed for the book, as well as its structure, with workshop discussions.

Event closed to the public.

The article Second International Workshop of the Planetary Financialization Research Project first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

By: Nathalie Roseau

The article LATTS Seminar – May 19, 2025 first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

By: Arnaud Passalacqua

Discussant: Claire le Renard

The article LATTS Seminar – April 28, 2025 first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

By: Margot Pellegrino

The article LATTS Seminar – March 31, 2025 first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.