Thesis supervisors: Jean-Pierre Lévy and Latifa Oukhellou (UGE/GRETTIA) (more…)
Thesis supervisor: Alexandre Mathieu-Fritz (more…)
Thesis supervisor:
Thesis supervisor: Gilles Jeannot
Surveillance cameras have been part of our urban and even rural landscapes for several years now. However, these devices have not solved all the problems that led to their deployment in many public spaces. One of the solutions proposed to address this shortcoming of video surveillance is to add automatic detection software to the existing system. These additional components come in various forms: people counting, vehicle type detection, illegal dumping detection, abnormal situation analysis, facial recognition, etc. The first uses of these new forms of video surveillance took place in France, although they are not as widespread as in other countries.
This thesis seeks to provide initial reflections on these new surveillance tools and the context surrounding them by addressing three main aspects. The first of these aspects concerns the scientific developments that contribute to the construction of these new surveillance solutions. The second aspect focuses on the public debate surrounding automated video surveillance and the particular form that this debate takes. The third and final aspect examines the uses, most of which are experimental, that are taking place in France, as well as the objectives and conditions of these uses.
For the first aspect, this work aims to show the particular importance of infrastructure in the success of these artificial intelligence tools. Whether at the development or usage stage, artificial intelligence relies heavily on all the tools and materials mobilized in its operation. Data, networks, and sensors are all filters through which the software's work passes and which impose technical limitations. For the second aspect, the research explored the question of the presentation of these technical solutions, their promotion or criticism, as a problem, in public debates or in economic spaces. It appears that despite widespread criticism in society, economic arguments dominate in official reports. For the third aspect, while there is no consensus on the subject of automated surveillance, the thesis analyzes all the strategies and resources mobilized to build a market for automated video surveillance despite this.
Thesis defense on Thursday, March 28, 2024
Year of enrollment
: 2018
Doctoral School
: Organizations, Markets, Institutions – OMI
Composition of the jury
, ENPC, Thesis Director
Anne-Cécile DOUILLET, University of Lille, Rapporteur
Sylvain PARASIE, Sciences-Po Paris, Rapporteur
Valérie NOVEMBER
, CNRS, Examiner
Clément MABI, UTC, Examiner
Thesis supervisors: Alexandre Mathieu-Fritz and Stève Bernardin
Environmental risks, terrorist risks, health risks, identity risks, food risks, school risks… the list of risks we are asked to take a stance on seems to grow a little longer every day. Some sociologists see this as the advent of a true "risk society," undermining all the major principles of wealth redistribution inherited from past centuries. The process began in France at the end of the 19th century with workplace accidents, which were gradually covered by laws authorizing compensation for many workers in exchange for the introduction of compulsory insurance for all. Since then, insurance coverage and risk prevention have become ubiquitous, even indispensable, in the daily lives of all individuals, for example when they want to travel or find housing. Our thesis project aims to understand how this evolution is embodied and continues today, at a time when digital tools, giving rise to new models, could lead to a rethinking of the definition of the risks that surround us. More specifically, we propose to study the characteristics of a particular social group, that of "actuaries," statisticians specializing in insurance work, whose practices aim to assess and define the risks to which a given population is exposed.
Year of enrollment: 2023
Doctoral School: Organizations, Markets, Institutions (OMI)
Thesis supervisor
Thesis supervisor:
Conflict and urban production.
Mobilizations, materialities, and patrimonialist social forms in Vila Leopoldina (São Paulo).
Thesis supervisor: Sylvy Jaglin
Co-supervisor: Joäo Stte Whitaker Ferreira
Co-supervisor: Ozan Karaman (more…)
Thesis supervisors: François-Mathieu Poupeau and Caroline Gallez (more…)
Antoine Courmont joins LATTS as a senior lecturer (Gustave Eiffel University/Paris School of Urban Planning).
With a PhD in political science, his research focuses on the restructuring of city government linked to digital technologies, which he analyzes using a political sociology approach to urban data.
Before joining LATTS, he was scientific director of the Cities and Digital Technology Chair at Sciences Po. He has also held positions as project manager at Métropole de Lyon (2012-2017), post-doctoral researcher at Sciences Po's Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics (2017-2019), and digital sociologist at the CNIL's Digital Innovation Laboratory (2019-2022).
His thesis, defended in 2016 at Sciences Po, focused on the open data policy of the Lyon metropolitan area. He then continued his research by working on big data and digital platforms to understand how they challenge and contribute to the transformation of institutions, territories, and public policies. By analyzing these new players in the digital economy, his research aims to enrich work on the transformations of urban capitalism and on the relationships between public actors and companies.
His current research project aims to analyze the place and effects of Google Maps in territorial governance and on local commerce and mobility markets. The dominant position acquired by this digital mapping has transformed individual and professional daily practices and raises regulatory issues. The objective of this research project is to unfold this data infrastructure in order to highlight, on the one hand, the modes of hierarchization and regulation embedded in this informational layer of the city and, on the other hand, the construction of a territorial data market.
At the EUP, he teaches on topics such as digital cities and territorial data, as well as socio-technical controversies in transportation. He will also teach courses on qualitative and quantitative methods.
Isabel Soto is beginning her PhD at LATTS under the supervision of Nathalie Roseau and Antoine Picon. Her thesis is entitled "The Design Engineer and the Architect, France, 1970-2000: Practices, Networks, Transfers in the Engineering Landscape." Her work focuses on analyzing and studying the collaboration between these two professions during the years 1970-2000 in France, as well as the legacy of this period marked by collective awareness of the ecological crisis, which is still relevant today.
With a dual background in engineering (University of Granada, Spain) and architecture (ENSA Paris-Malaquais), she has always been interested in the complementarity and synergy between these two disciplines in the service of creation. She has accumulated ten years of experience in international architecture firms, where she has had the opportunity to work on projects with great technical ambitions, such as the Luma Foundation in Arles (F. Gehry), the Saint-Denis Pleyel train station in Paris (Kengo Kuma), and the Toronto Law Courts (Renzo Piano). Far from distancing her from technology, these diverse experiences have reinforced her interest in the importance of communication between architects and engineers from the very beginning of a project's design.
With this in mind, alongside her professional career, she has been teaching at École des Ponts ParisTech since 2019. In collaboration with her colleague Laurie Rowenczyn, they lead the course "Les ouvrages construits: du projet à la réalisation" (Built Structures: From Design to Completion), an off-campus training program that offers an introduction to built structures through lectures and guided tours.
The defense will take place on Friday, September 8, at 2 p.m., at the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (room P302 – 3rd floor of the PRONY wing)
, in Champs-sur-Marne.
Thesis summary
: This thesis examines the conditions for the emergence of seismic risk in Istanbul—before the seismic disaster occurs—by studying the structures between geographical scales and the potential dialogues between actors and entities involved in this emergence. Particularly after the August 1999 earthquake in the Marmara region, the prospect of a potential major earthquake (olası depremi) in Istanbul has brought together the actors involved in the city's development to address the issue. The research is based on a qualitative survey to closely monitor the operators (scientists, engineers, public institutions involved in planning and disaster management, construction and real estate companies, associations) who, in the sense of the sociology of science and technology, are "interested" in seismic risk. The increasing complexity of the concept of "fabric" makes it possible to reconceptualize the modes of interaction between risks and urban spaces in a joint manner, based on two areas of analysis. The first strand explores the performative aspect of seismic risk in order to understand how this risk structures the organization of urban planning in Istanbul. In a context of economic and political instability, fragile buildings are a source of interest in seismic risk and bring together actors in the construction sector, while fragmenting the professional world of urban planning in return. The second strand examines, at the neighborhood level, the local assemblages at work in the fabrication of urban space, as material and social products of stabilized or unstable negotiations between urban planning actors and residents and their spokespersons (neighborhood mayors, associations, solidarity groups, or disaster education centers). The latter highlight alternatives for managing risks based on new knowledge. On the other hand, their reinstitutionalization at higher levels calls into question the standardization of local practices. The thesis highlights the complex relationships between risks that a priori belong to different categories. It emphasizes the idea that, as seismic risk is translated, seismic hazard is diluted in broader assemblages of actors, entities, and correlated risks. Through the prism of sociotechnical systems, the thesis sheds light on the delicate coexistence of these risks in the same place, if not their intertwining or even friction.
Keywords
: urban fabric, seismic risk, intermingling, sociotechnical systems, Istanbul
Composition of the jury
Laurent Devisme, Professor at ENSA Nantes (Rapporteur
)
Valérie November, Director of Research, CNRS (Thesis Supervisor
)
Jean-François Pérouse, Senior Lecturer, University of Toulouse Jean-Jaurès (Examiner
)
Sezin Topçu, Research Fellow, CNRS CEMS-EHESS (Examiner
)
Elsa Vivant, Professor, Gustave Eiffel University (Examiner
)
Albena Yaneva, Professor, University of Manchester (Rapporteur
)