Post-socialist urban transformations in Saint Petersburg: The advance of urban authoritarianism through urban renewal

This thesis was completed at LATTS, under the supervision of Elsa Vivant and co-supervision of Martine Drozdz.

Composition of the jury:

• Béatrice VON HIRSCHHAUSEN, CNRS Research Director, Géographie-cités/Centre Marc Bloch (Rapporteur)
• Martin MÜLLER, University Professor, University of Lausanne (Rapporteur)
• Elsa VIVANT, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University (Thesis Supervisor)
• Martine DROZDZ, CNRS Researcher, LATTS/French House of Oxford (Co-supervisor of thesis)
• Claire CARRIOU, University Professor, University of Paris-Est Créteil (Examiner)
• Lydia COUDROY DE LILLE, University Professor, Lumière Lyon 2 University (Examiner)
• Ozan KARAMAN, CNRS Research Fellow, LATTS (Examiner)
• Perrine POUPIN, Research Fellow, CNRS, CRESSON (ENSA Grenoble) (Examiner)

Summary of the thesis:

This thesis examines post-socialist urban transformations in Saint Petersburg through the lens of the renovation of Soviet architectural heritage, which reveals the rise of urban authoritarianism. Using a mixed methodology – combining interviews, observation, mapping, statistics, network analysis and online ethnography – it explores the political, economic and social forces that have shaped the city since the fall of the USSR. The research highlights the gradual commercialisation of the ‘socialist city’, while challenging the dominant narratives of neoliberalisation, revealing in particular the clientelist and authoritarian dynamics of urban power at work in the demolition and reconstruction projects of Soviet buildings. The Narvskaya Zastava neighbourhood, a former emblematic working-class area, serves as the main case study for analysing the resulting tensions between heritage preservation and urban transformation.

Based on both fieldwork and digital research, the thesis shows that heritage becomes a strategic space for contesting authoritarianism and forced politicisation. Architectural, historical and legal expertise is mobilised as a political resource by residents, activists, professionals and, sometimes, representatives of the authorities, thus revealing the internal flaws and tensions of the authoritarian state. However, the study highlights the plurality of rationales that structure residents’ reactions, whether favourable or opposed to renovation projects, and reveals post-socialist social relations that are much more complex than a simple opposition between winners and losers of economic liberalisation.

The article Thesis defence by Olga Suslova first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.

Privacy in the smart city: what is the problem? Privacy issues in the effective trajectory of a smart city: the case of Dijon.

This thesis in sociology was completed at LATTS, under the supervision of Alexandre Mathieu-Fritz and co-supervision of Sylvie Douzou (Senior Researcher at EDF R&D).

Composition of the jury:

• Corinne Delmas, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (Chair of the jury)
• Florence Millerand, Professor, University of Quebec in Montreal (Rapporteur)
• Gérald Gaglio, University Professor, Université Côte d’Azur (Rapporteur)
• Alexandre Mathieu-Fritz, University Professor, Gustave Eiffel University (Thesis Supervisor)
• Éric Dagiral, Senior Lecturer, Paris Cité University (Examiner)
• Antoine Courmont, Senior Lecturer, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (Examiner)
• Cécile Caron, Research Engineer in Sociology, GRETS–SEQUOIA, EDF R&D (Guest Member)

Summary of the thesis:

The rise of smart cities reveals a fundamental tension between the promise of urban data integration and the requirements for data compartmentalisation, particularly when services rely on the use of personal information. Smart city policies promote the fluid and cross-cutting flow of data within integrated infrastructures, while a set of regulations—notably the French Data Protection Act (1978) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2018)—strictly govern the conditions for data collection, use and storage. This work shows that, beyond a simple opposition between technological imaginaries and legal norms, issues related to the production, circulation, use and protection of data that may affect individuals’ privacy directly contribute to shaping the technical architectures, modes of governance and methods of appropriation of smart city projects.

The core of this research is based on empirical data collected in Dijon (France) between January 2019 and February 2022, combining ethnographic observations in public spaces, participant observations in work meetings, individual and group interviews with project stakeholders, and a questionnaire on digital technology, smart cities and privacy. Based on this case study (Chapter 1), the thesis analyses how privacy is distributed, expressed and embodied in the different phases of design, deployment and maintenance of a smart city. From the point of view of operational stakeholders, it initially appears to be a non-issue (chapter 2): little discussed politically, presented as under control from the design stage, rarely raised by technical operators and largely absent from citizens’ concerns. This discretion leads us to question the conditions under which privacy issues remain invisible. The notion of “socio-technical ambiguity” is a central analytical tool here, mobilised across five entries: the stages of the project (chapter 3), thematic projects (chapter 4), actors (chapter 5), technical devices (chapter 6) and the data itself (chapter 7).

As far as residents are concerned (chapters 8 and 9), the smart city does not spark local public controversy, as it remains discreet, integrated into an already dense digital environment and barely noticeable in everyday life. Residents report a diffuse, localised and rarely politicised approach to these issues.

This work highlights that, in Dijon, privacy protection relies less on a unified framework than on the fragmented structure of the project’s activities themselves. We refer to this dynamic as the “paradox of fragmentation”: it constitutes both a limitation on the integration of urban data and an effective mechanism for protecting individuals. While this fragmentation restricts the expected performance of integrated infrastructures, it simultaneously helps to contain the circulation of personal data.

Part of the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), this research shows that privacy acts as a discreet but structuring operator, actively participating in shaping the technical architectures, organisational arrangements and forms of appropriation of smart cities.

The article Thesis defence by Sofia Laborde first appeared on LATTS - Laboratory for Territorial and Societal Techniques.