Faced with the difficulties of implementing energy policies based on existing structures, scientific research offers only limited insights. On the one hand, technical and financial knowledge and methods are being developed, but these come up against social and human factors that are still poorly integrated. On the other hand, human and social factors are increasingly illuminated by specialized studies and research, but are not finding their way into the actual implementation of projects, programs, and renovation policies, which are largely dominated by technical and financial approaches. Finally, significant public and private funding is being mobilized to try to ensure that the technical and financial offer reaches the target audience, but with still very limited results.
This project builds on all of these findings to develop a method that combines technical-financial and socio-anthropological approaches in order to help target public actions. More specifically, the hypothesis is that specific work on comfort would optimize the mobilization of resources at the urban level. Understanding what triggers energy renovation would require situating it at the intersection of the life paths of individuals and social groups (comfort is not a fixed given but subject to change over the course of a lifetime) and the trajectories of built environments (whose technical components change over time).

Keywords: Comfort, energy, urban strategy, users

Method: First, a theoretical analysis of approaches to comfort is cross-referenced with data collected at the urban and housing levels to address this issue. Second, empirical work in five fields tests the analytical frameworks for comfort and its link to energy renovation decisions. The result will be a proposed methodological approach.

This postdoctoral research focused on risk/territory relationships and the processes of territorialized management of major risks, particularly in urban areas. It was conducted by LabeX Futurs Urbains and involved three laboratories: LATTS, headed by Valérie November; LEESU, headed by Gilles Hubert (now Lab'Urba) and José-Frédéric Deroubaix; and Lab'Urba, headed by Jocelyne Dubois-Maury. As such, the research included an experimental dimension of inter-laboratory work and was designed to address the issues faced by operational actors.

Context:

In a context of widespread urbanization, or even metropolization, and climate change, the articulation of urban and territorial development issues with those of natural or technological risks is becoming crucial, and urban development actors can hardly avoid it (Regghezza, 2006, Beucher, 2008). This issue of the "territorialization of risks" has been identified as a major challenge for the Paris metropolitan area (Beucher, 2007; Beucher and Reghezza-zitt, 2008), which is characterized by:

– strong pressure on land, with available land often located in flood zones;
– a politically highly invested metropolitan project known as “Grand Paris.” The Grand Paris Express project (dedicated to public transportation) in particular will contribute to the construction of metropolitan-scale territories;
– a particularly complex institutional context in terms of government services, with numerous powerful local actors with often divergent interests, caught up in both local and national economic and political issues;
– a discourse on the possibility of disaster through the famous "flood of 1910" (a once-in-a-century event). An OECD study (2014)2 shows that the cost would be a real economic disaster, compounded by the slow recovery in degraded mode once the flooding is over.

Numerous studies have explored the issues of territorialization, the relationship between urban planning and risk prevention, and how risks help shape territories and vice versa (Brun and Adisson, 2011; Brun and Gache, 2013; Daluzeau et al. 2013; Meschinet de

Richemond and Reghezza, 2010; November 1994, 2004, 2011; November et al., 2008; Rode 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012). In addition, a great deal of academic and operational work is currently being carried out to understand how and under what conditions it is possible to innovate in the development of risk-prone areas.

Fieldwork:

As part of a research agreement between Labex Futurs Urbains and the ORSA public development agency, we were able to conduct part of our survey within the EPA (in the executive sphere, Strategy Department), with easy access to data and the opportunity to attend meetings on an urban project in a flood zone upstream of Paris, Les Ardoines. From a methodological point of view, this can be described as an "embedded research" approach: presence within the EPA, observation of meetings, analysis of documents produced by project stakeholders, semi-structured interviews, as well as numerous more informal discussions. This led to a particular perspective on the part of the researchers, who approached the case study from the standpoint of the Public Development Agency (EPA), the project owner, which is not neutral, regardless of the efforts made to maintain distance. The material collected (

Public d'Aménagement (EPA), the project owner, which is not neutral, regardless of the steps taken to maintain distance. The material collected (interviews, observations, a very rich database) was mainly subjected to qualitative analysis. It should be noted that the process we sought to document is not yet complete, and that the reading carried out as part of the project is not intended to conclude the analysis or establish a definitive account of the facts. Rather, the aim is to highlight a particularly crucial moment in the project under observation (2013/2014) by placing it in context, based on the information available to us, which may be supplemented in due course by monitoring the project over the coming years.

Results:

This case study proved to be both exemplary, as it highlights common difficulties in this area, and atypical, as the "resilient" project that was ultimately adopted is more ambitious in terms of "living with water" than the legal minimum, namely the requirements of the Flood Risk Prevention Plan (PPRI). Analyzing the trajectory of this project has enabled us to:

– identify certain obstacles to innovation in the development of flood-prone areas;
– reflect on what the term "resilience" can mean in an operational context;
– highlight the key factor that made innovation possible in this case: the integration of crisis management issues into the development arena.

This last point is probably the main contribution of the project, as it emerges at the intersection of two historically autonomous and curiously separate academic and operational fields: risk prevention through/by development and crisis management.

There is indeed an institutional and temporal disconnect between the planning and crisis management arenas: with the exception of mayors, who combine expertise in both areas, the actors are different, both at the state level and at the level of local authorities and technical services responsible for implementing these policies. The rationales for action in these two arenas diverge profoundly and are part of timeframes that are difficult to reconcile (Levin et al., 2007): planning, when designed with sustainable development in mind, has a horizon of around 100 years, and urban projects are developed over a time horizon of at least 20 to 30 years. On the other hand, the world of crisis management, even if it develops medium-term thinking, is constrained by an almost seasonal timeframe. The representative of the Defense and Security Zone explains, for example, that their concrete problem is to be as operational as possible for this winter, then for the following winter. This divergence implies different ways of working (particularly in the examination of files) and a mutual difficulty in understanding each other's issues.

In this inherited and relatively undiscussed context, our case study shows how the argument of action and crisis management can help to shift the boundaries in a development process. In fact, this argument has made it possible to shift the debate to a different level and a different time frame: we are thinking about the long-term development of a space, but the future is no longer a vague, stable, and distant concept. It is a future made up of events that will need to be managed that is entering into today's logic of action, which highlights the limitations of the different arenas: development is no longer without effect or consequence on future action (crisis management), and crisis management can no longer be imagined solely as a "plan" detached from reality.

Ultimately

, we have had to update a process of integration (or even instrumentalization) of the issue of action in situ (through crisis management) into the planning process. This phenomenon is quite atypical and seems to be linked to issues and constraints that are very specific to the territory concerned, as well as to the commitment of certain actors. We are therefore probably dealing with a special case, a first in the Paris region, which is particularly interesting in light of the questions we have raised and the ongoing discussions on sustainability and adaptation (Berdoulay and Soubeyran, 2014): by making dependence on time horizons a lever for action—rather than an insurmountable problem—our case study opens a breach in what appeared to be a super wicked problem

(Levin et al., 2007).

These results have given rise to two main papers, in France and Quebec, as well as a publication to be released in 2016 (Créton-Cazanave, L., J.-F. Deroubaix, G. Hubert, J. Dubois-Maury, V. November. (Under review). "Possibilities and conditions for the emergence of 'resilient urban planning' in flood-prone areas. The example of Les Ardoines, in the Paris region. In Climate Change and Urban Planning

(provisional title), Ed.: F. Rudolf.)

Keywords: Major risks, Territorialization, Urban Projects, Action in situations

The SHINRAÏ project aims to develop a detailed understanding of the mechanisms involved in the loss/gain of public trust in institutions following a nuclear accident and to analyze the emergence of new citizen experts, or "counter-experts." In addition, the project aims to shed sociological light on issues related to land management after a nuclear accident: evacuation decisions, radiological threshold decisions, the role and limitations of decontamination, waste management, etc.

Rina Kojima is participating in this project in order to conduct field research for her thesis. Her thesis focuses on analyzing the social consequences of the "reconstruction" policy for residents affected by the Fukushima accident in areas contaminated over the long term.

Method

The SHINRAÏ project includes field research in Japan with four types of actors:

• Authorities involved in post-accident management at various levels: governmental, prefectural, municipal (e.g., Reconstruction Agency, Accident Victim Assistance Office, Fukushima Prefecture Decontamination Service, etc.),
• Scientists and experts involved in advising the authorities, or members of expert committees, or those who are critical of or denounce the measures taken by these authorities,
• Non-governmental organizations: aid to victims and radiation refugees of the nuclear accident, citizens engaged in carrying out "independent" measurements of radioactivity, so-called "citizen scientist" movements engaged in building up expert knowledge independent of state expertise,
• Residents affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident. The investigation focuses on the two towns of Naraha and Kawauchi, located in the mandatory evacuation zone after the accident. Following decontamination operations, the Japanese government wishes to organize the return (once the evacuation order has been lifted) of residents to their towns and has drawn up a general program for the return of evacuees, which is to be implemented by local authorities. The survey aims to analyze this process, as well as the decisions of residents (to return or not to return) and the various reasons behind these decisions. An additional case concerns the Watari district (in the city of Fukushima), which was not part of the "forced evacuation" zone but was subject to decontamination operations due to contamination above established standards (presence of numerous "hot spots"). Rina Kojima conducted surveys with these residents during three missions to Japan: March 2015, September 2015, and September 2016.

The potentiality of disasters forces us to rethink progressive, yet non-linear definitions (“instauration,” in Souriau vocabulary) of risk, space, and expertise. Following a symmetrical approach, this work explores several moving dimensions of the subject and space “at risk” in the San Francisco Bay Area, within the shared experience of an epistemic community waiting for a major earthquake – “the Big One” – to unfold. With a Geography, Science and Technologies Studies perspective, we will look at the complex system of relations that co-construct the risk of earthquakes and the ways in which this successive instauration convenes transformations in the making of space, the definition of risk, and finally, the translation of this scientific work into public policies and the figure of the expert.

Drawing from in-depth empirical research in the Bay Area, analyzing the community of "Earthquake Junkies"—as these experts called themselves—and other risk-conscious residents, this work emphasizes the role of experience and emotions in multiple intertwined processes, connecting risk, space, and expertise.

Following this exploration will show that the rigid definitions that have separated science and experience, rationality and emotion, expertise and lay perception should be recomposed in favor of a more systematic approach that takes into account the role of the different dimensions of knowledge. As a prospect for a better understanding of the complex definition of risk in the public sphere, this research also proposes a framework for thinking about the definition of the subject "at risk," as well as allows for reflection on the establishment of a closer relationship between scientific and non-scientific knowledge.

Key words:
risk, earthquake, expertise, instauration.

Thesis defense: Tuesday, January 6, 2015 Doctorate in Geography

Year of thesis registration:
January 1, 2009

Thesis supervisor: Olivier Coutard Since 2006, the Chinese authorities have been committed to (more…)

Thesis supervisor

: Jean-Pierre LEVY Sustainable (more…)

Thesis supervisor(s): Sylvy Jaglin (more…)

(more…)

Thesis supervisors

: Taoufik Souami, Pierre-Arnaud Barthel (more…)

Thesis supervisors

: Olivier Coutard, Jonathan Rutherford (more…)

In collaboration with Nadia Arab (Collab. Lab'Urba) and Jean-Marc Weller (Resp Lisis)

This research project focuses on innovations aimed at transforming administration in ways that are intended to be novel, apparently alternative to the managerial reforms carried out until now, and characterized by their use of design methods. These actions take many different forms: discussion forums, the design of communication media (blogs, documentary films, photographic exploration, etc.), "rapid prototyping" of new services, etc. As for the concrete effects, these would also need to be described. But that doesn't matter. The fact is that today, in a scattered but nevertheless recurring manner in a number of national public services in Denmark, England, Finland, Canada, the United States, and France, we are seeing unprecedented attempts at reflection and action. They seem to bear no resemblance to anything we are used to seeing in established public bureaucracies: new communication media, field visits with an "embedded" photographer or cameraman, collective projects involving designers, architects, researchers, and creative professionals, public exhibitions using artistic processes, etc.

In short, these forms of public innovation are intriguing. Are they an alternative form of what public services have been familiar with for the past 30 years? How should we understand their claim to be based on design approaches? Are we dealing with genuine organizational innovations, a source of inventions and unprecedented action? Or, on the contrary, are they merely sympathetic but nevertheless harmless attempts? Unless, in truth, they are simply a continuation of unchanged rationalization projects, cleverly packaged, of course, but with the aim of gaining greater acceptance. Without prejudging the reasons that led to their emergence, and without any a priori consideration of their content or effectiveness, this project proposes to explore these FIPs (forms of public innovation). What is their origin? Can we specify the model(s) that bring together their essential features? Can we evaluate their effectiveness and, more generally, their effects? Do these PIFs constitute credible alternatives to the doctrines that underpin the current "public modernization" initiatives?

These are the issues that this project aims to explore, based on an investigation of a variety of PIFs and a research partnership with 27eRégion, which is a key player in France in the phenomenon we are seeking to understand.

The work program proposes and is based on three distinct areas of focus: the first consists of mapping the forms of public innovation (FPI) currently being developed in France and in various European countries, based on an initial corpus of interviews and documentary research; a more in-depth investigation of a limited number of FIPs in order to rigorously qualify them by looking at their methods, the actors involved, and the expected results based on a corpus of interviews and observations of FIPs "in progress"; a third axis invites us to explore the conditions for the sustainability and deployment of these original actions. In this context, and taking into account the insights gathered during the investigation, we will ask whether public innovation can and should be institutionalized in one or more structures, as seems to be encouraged by the creation of "public innovation laboratories" at the regional or national level in various countries.

The results of FIP Explo