- University of Fribourg, Geosciences, Faculty Memberadd
- Human Geography, Urban Geography, Actor Network Theory, Political Ecology, Urban Political Ecology, Urban Gardening, and 22 moreGuerrilla Gardening, More-Than-Human Geographies, Non-representational theories, Affect, Landscape, Cultural Geography, Disability Studies, Géographie, Non-representational theory, Emotional Geographies, Paysage, Urban Studies, Visual Studies, Visual Anthropology, Political Geography, Social Geography, Urban Agriculture, Visual Methodologies, Politics of Scale, Neoliberalism, Critical Geography, and Michel Foucaultedit
- Geographer/political ecologist interested in urban green spaces, urban agriculture, environmental volunteerism, and h... moreGeographer/political ecologist interested in urban green spaces, urban agriculture, environmental volunteerism, and how they intersect with neoliberalism. Currently researching how bodies and affect are governed in environmental volunteering programs. Also interested in affective life, biocapital, and biocontrol issues.edit
« Zéro phyto », gestion écologique : les espaces verts urbains longtemps conçus sur le mode « nature morte » de la tradition horticole se font de plus en plus vivants. Plus participatifs aussi, comme en témoigne la prolifération des... more
« Zéro phyto », gestion écologique : les espaces verts urbains longtemps conçus sur le mode « nature morte » de la tradition horticole se font de plus en plus vivants. Plus participatifs aussi, comme en témoigne la prolifération des programmes de jardinage collectif. Cet ouvrage invite à comprendre l’insertion de ces transformations dans les nouvelles logiques de production de la ville et des services urbains.
Sur la base d’enquêtes de terrain menées à Genève (Suisse) – auprès de responsables administratifs, politiques et associatifs, de travailleurs de la nature, et de citadins-jardiniers – il illustre la manière dont les politiques urbaines néolibérales faisant la part belle à l’événement, au managérialisme et aux partenariats publics-privés modèlent la ville vivante et le rôle qu’y jouent humains et non-humains. En détaillant le traitement réservé à différentes formes de végétaux – horticoles, vivriers, bio-divers – l’ouvrage développe des outils conceptuels pour une écologie politique du végétal urbain.
Sur la base d’enquêtes de terrain menées à Genève (Suisse) – auprès de responsables administratifs, politiques et associatifs, de travailleurs de la nature, et de citadins-jardiniers – il illustre la manière dont les politiques urbaines néolibérales faisant la part belle à l’événement, au managérialisme et aux partenariats publics-privés modèlent la ville vivante et le rôle qu’y jouent humains et non-humains. En détaillant le traitement réservé à différentes formes de végétaux – horticoles, vivriers, bio-divers – l’ouvrage développe des outils conceptuels pour une écologie politique du végétal urbain.
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Thèse de doctorat en géographie de l'Université de Genève / PhD thesis in geography at the University of Geneva
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In a representational regime, planned urban events are used by urban planners to render urban projects visible and acceptable. As a corollary of the focus of urban studies on their representational dimension and in spite of a burgeoning... more
In a representational regime, planned urban events are used by urban planners to render urban projects visible and acceptable. As a corollary of the focus of urban studies on their representational dimension and in spite of a burgeoning literature on the notion of affective urbanism, the experiential character of events remains surprisingly unexplored. This paper argues that an ordinary regime of events is mobilised by city-makers to act on the embodied, affective experience of the city and on the ways urban dwellers know and act upon the city. By analysing planned urban events in their embodied, experiential dimension, we focus on the ways in which, through the design of ephemeral material dispositives, urbanists attempt to encourage citizens to incorporate ways of knowing and acting on space and on the modalities of knowing and acting that are at play. We stage an encounter between critical event studies and Ingoldian approaches to affect and attention, examining two urban events in a Swiss canton. We show how intense encounters with urban matter are staged in an attempt to modulate affects, guide attention, and produce alignment with a specific political project, asking urban dwellers either to embody a project still in the making or to cultivate expectations regarding an already-written future.
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This contribution is conceived as a critique of the focus of the (francophone) literature on urban “nature” on the hypothetical “social demand” towards it. In contrast, we approach city-dwellers as makers rather than “users”, and “nature”... more
This contribution is conceived as a critique of the focus of the (francophone) literature on urban “nature” on the hypothetical “social demand” towards it. In contrast, we approach city-dwellers as makers rather than “users”, and “nature” not as a generic object but as a heterogeneous assemblage of active non-humans. By doing so, we seek to shed light on the productive activity performed by these two categories of actors, at a time when neoliberal austere policies question the role of professionals in the making of urban green spaces. We analyse the political economy of urban nature, to show that the development of programmes that mobilise volunteer work and non-human labour testifies to a new division of environmental labour.
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Cet article se veut une prise de position à l’encontre des approches de la « nature » en ville par la présupposée « demande sociale » dont elle ferait l’objet. Abordant les citadins non comme des « demandeurs » mais des acteurs voire des faiseurs, et la « nature » non comme un objet générique mais comme un ensemble hétérogène et multiple de non-humains agissants, il vise à saisir l’activité de production mise en oeuvre par ces deux catégories d’acteurs à l’heure où les politiques néolibérales d’austérité remettent en cause la fabrique professionnelle des espaces verts. Nous penchant sur l’économie politique de la nature urbaine, nous montrons que les programmes de bénévolat et de mise au travail des non-humains dans les parcs sont des témoins d’une nouvelle division du travail environnemental.
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Cet article se veut une prise de position à l’encontre des approches de la « nature » en ville par la présupposée « demande sociale » dont elle ferait l’objet. Abordant les citadins non comme des « demandeurs » mais des acteurs voire des faiseurs, et la « nature » non comme un objet générique mais comme un ensemble hétérogène et multiple de non-humains agissants, il vise à saisir l’activité de production mise en oeuvre par ces deux catégories d’acteurs à l’heure où les politiques néolibérales d’austérité remettent en cause la fabrique professionnelle des espaces verts. Nous penchant sur l’économie politique de la nature urbaine, nous montrons que les programmes de bénévolat et de mise au travail des non-humains dans les parcs sont des témoins d’une nouvelle division du travail environnemental.
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Community gardens in the canton of Geneva (Switzerland) are predominantly organised through municipal programmes. Because of their highly regulated character, they are at odds with dominant depictions of community gardens as contestatory,... more
Community gardens in the canton of Geneva (Switzerland) are predominantly organised through municipal programmes. Because of their highly regulated character, they are at odds with dominant depictions of community gardens as contestatory, grassroots spaces. They, however, do not map perfectly either onto the accounts of institutional " organised garden projects " deemed to accompany municipal entrepreneurial strategies and/or the implementation of neoliberal governmentality. Critically engaging with municipal involvement in community garden and urban agriculture development, this paper draws attention to the contradictory ways in which municipal actors frame and govern these issues. Drawing upon a case study in the municipality of Vernier, it argues that the municipality's integrated urban agriculture programme serves different and contradictory functions and is simultaneously progressive and neoliberal. Indeed, while Vernier's programme clearly attempts at reversing processes of space privatisation and nature commodification, its focus on individualised action and choice contributes to reinforcing neoliberal modes of subjectification. This analysis, I hope, will encourage urban agriculture scholars to question their reliance upon a dichotomy between benevolent civil organisations and profit-oriented public institutions, and to account more precisely for the singular processes of neoliberalisation at play within the boundaries of their case studies.
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"During the past ten years, both public policies and scientific research have tended to pay increasing attention to what they refer to as ‘‘urban gardening’’ and ‘‘urban agriculture’’. In this paper I argue that the term ‘‘urban’’... more
"During the past ten years, both public policies and scientific research have tended to pay increasing attention
to what they refer to as ‘‘urban gardening’’ and ‘‘urban agriculture’’. In this paper I argue that the
term ‘‘urban’’ poorly reflects the diversity of spatial references that underpin such projects. I explore
the framing process of two competing agriculture and gardening projects in Geneva, Switzerland. I first
show that the social and spatial frames of the projects, i.e. the central definition of a public and of a spatiality
are inextricably linked. In the second part, I argue that by ranking the spatial units that ground the
spatial frames of the projects according to the specific public they are aimed at, the most powerful actor
makes competitive use of scale frames. This paper thus argues for more attention to the socio-spatial
framing of urban agriculture and urban gardening projects. It contributes to the debate on the politics
of scale by exploring how a scalar hierarchy is performed through the strategic deployment of spatial criteria
by social actors. The hierarchy appears to be contingent and context specific, with prevalent notions
of locality and proximity."
to what they refer to as ‘‘urban gardening’’ and ‘‘urban agriculture’’. In this paper I argue that the
term ‘‘urban’’ poorly reflects the diversity of spatial references that underpin such projects. I explore
the framing process of two competing agriculture and gardening projects in Geneva, Switzerland. I first
show that the social and spatial frames of the projects, i.e. the central definition of a public and of a spatiality
are inextricably linked. In the second part, I argue that by ranking the spatial units that ground the
spatial frames of the projects according to the specific public they are aimed at, the most powerful actor
makes competitive use of scale frames. This paper thus argues for more attention to the socio-spatial
framing of urban agriculture and urban gardening projects. It contributes to the debate on the politics
of scale by exploring how a scalar hierarchy is performed through the strategic deployment of spatial criteria
by social actors. The hierarchy appears to be contingent and context specific, with prevalent notions
of locality and proximity."
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The contemporary relationship between city and agriculture is undergoing two processes: on the one hand the urbanisation of agriculture and on the other hand the ‘agriculturalisation’ of the city. The first proposition sounds obvious and... more
The contemporary relationship between city and agriculture is undergoing two processes: on the one hand the urbanisation of agriculture and on the other hand the ‘agriculturalisation’ of the city. The first proposition sounds obvious and refers to the effects of urban sprawl. The ‘agriculturalisation’ of the city may be a more surprising proposition, and is worth explaining. After identifying its main characteristics, we propose an analysis of this process in Geneva, Switzerland. In the last part, we put forward the limitations to the process, and by so doing, critically examine the role of agriculture as a tool for urban planning.
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La géographie a récemment vu se développer simultanément un intérêt pour les méthodes de recherches audiovisuelles et pour de nouveaux objets et démarches de recherche qualifiés de non ou plus-que-représentationnels. Cet article explore... more
La géographie a récemment vu se développer simultanément un intérêt pour les méthodes de recherches audiovisuelles et pour de nouveaux objets et démarches de recherche qualifiés de non ou plus-que-représentationnels. Cet article explore et critique les arguments présentant la vidéo comme un outil spécifiquement adapté pour ces nouvelles démarches. Il met en garde contre certains arguments et propose de nouvelles pistes de réflexion et d’exploration méthodologique.
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Published in Gandy, M. & Jasper, S. (eds) (2020) The Botanical City. Berlin, Jovis Verlag.
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Née concomitamment au courant moderniste en urbanisme, la notion d'espace vert s'est substituée à partir des années 1960 à celle de parcs et de jardins dans les intitulés des services administratifs les prenant en charge (Le Crenn Brulon... more
Née concomitamment au courant moderniste en urbanisme, la notion d'espace vert s'est substituée à partir des années 1960 à celle de parcs et de jardins dans les intitulés des services administratifs les prenant en charge (Le Crenn Brulon 2010 ; Lofti et al. 2012). Référant à une vision fonctionnaliste de la nature réduite à des surfaces vertes dédiées aux loisirs (Le Corbusier 1971), cette approche de la nature en ville se voit remise en cause à partir du milieu des années 1980 par la notion de gestion différenciée, qui prône une diversification des espaces de nature en ville ainsi que des types de végétation et de leur mode d'entretien. Née en France dans les villes d'Orléans et de Rennes, diffusée à l'ensemble du territoire au fil des années 1990 (Allain 1997 ; Le Crenn Brulon 2010), la gestion différenciée fait son apparition en Suisse romande à Lausanne dès 1992. Elle est adoptée en 2004 en ville de Genève, et diffusée dans les autres communes du canton dans les années qui suivent. On y voit alors, comme ailleurs, apparaitre des prairies fleuries, des parterres de graminées, ou encore des massifs de vivaces, autant de motifs jusqu'ici plutôt associés dans les imaginaires à un espace rural. En négatif, d'autres types de végétaux –massifs de plantes annuelles, de rosiers, ou encore verts gazons– sont en perte de vitesse. Face à cette évolution du végétal urbain, il est légitime de s'interroger sur les référentiels mobilisés par les gestionnaires d'espaces verts pour donner du sens à leurs (nouvelles) pratiques. Une enquête ethnographique combinant observation et entretiens a donc été menée auprès de trois services municipaux d'espaces verts (SEV) dans le canton de Genève entre mai 2012 et avril 2014 : Genève, Vernier et Thônex 1. Alors que la gestion différenciée est ailleurs souvent associée à la figure de la nature urbaine sauvage ou champêtre (Aggeri 2004), l'enquête révèle l'émergence de la figure du vivant dans les discours des jardiniers et des responsables de services.
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As part of neoliberalization processes, the past 20 years have witnessed a growing involvement of the private sector in the governance, maintenance and financing of environmental projects and areas. Alongside private companies,... more
As part of neoliberalization processes, the past 20 years have witnessed a growing involvement of the private sector in the governance, maintenance and financing of environmental projects and areas. Alongside private companies, non-profits have made their way and volunteer work has developed into a variety of forms – ranging from one-shot cleaning-up of natural areas, to long-term devolution of environmental responsibilities onto local groups. While international environmental volunteering and its neocolonial and neoliberal colorations are now well documented (Cousins et al. 2009; Griffiths 2015; Lorimer 2010), the specific forms that environmental volunteering might take within the austerity framework of Northern countries still needs to be more comprehensively addressed. Furthermore, while a literature addressing the changing role of the third-sector within neoliberal settings has developed (Fyfe 2005), it only rarely addresses environmental governance.
This session therefore aims at identifying and analyzing the ethics and rationalities that accompany the development of volunteering in environmental management in the global neoliberalized North, both from the point of view of institutions and of volunteers, as well as at exploring its affective and material dimensions. Drawing inspiration from recent work on affect and emotion in political ecology (Singh 2013; Sultana 2015) we would like to understand the role that the corporeal and affective dimensions of volunteering play in the mobilization and motivation of participants, as well as in the production of consent towards this emerging mode of regulation. With this objective in mind, the session will put into question the technical devices used to turn citizens into environmental subjects and the materialities of the natures produced by volunteers.
Presentations may encompass the variety of institutional and spatial forms of environmental volunteering (Environmental activism v. volunteering; Ad-hoc forms of environmental volunteering v. the " third sector " ; Urban gardening as volunteering; Conservation volunteering; Volunteering in landscape management, etc) to include topics such as but not limited to:
The affective politics of volunteering: Affective encounters with nature as source of consent to neoliberal environmental governance / The marketability of affective socio-natural encounters and the development of a voluntary economic sector / The recourse to volunteering as mode of legitimization.
Devices and techniques used to produce environmental subjectivities through volunteering; affect and environmentality.
The natures of volunteering: Are specific charismatic species and spaces used to mobilize volunteers? What are the preferences and partialities of volunteers in terms of species and landscapes?
The social life of environmental volunteering: What impacts does volunteer work have on local socio-spatial and socio-natural relationships? / What impacts does it have on (new) environmental professions? / What role(s) do professional environmental managers play in the development and management of volunteers and volunteering in general?
Please send a title and abstract of no more than 250 words to Marion Ernwein (marion.ernwein@unifr.ch), Claire Tollis (clairetollis@gmail.com) and Timothy Tait-Jamieson by February 10th 2016.
This session therefore aims at identifying and analyzing the ethics and rationalities that accompany the development of volunteering in environmental management in the global neoliberalized North, both from the point of view of institutions and of volunteers, as well as at exploring its affective and material dimensions. Drawing inspiration from recent work on affect and emotion in political ecology (Singh 2013; Sultana 2015) we would like to understand the role that the corporeal and affective dimensions of volunteering play in the mobilization and motivation of participants, as well as in the production of consent towards this emerging mode of regulation. With this objective in mind, the session will put into question the technical devices used to turn citizens into environmental subjects and the materialities of the natures produced by volunteers.
Presentations may encompass the variety of institutional and spatial forms of environmental volunteering (Environmental activism v. volunteering; Ad-hoc forms of environmental volunteering v. the " third sector " ; Urban gardening as volunteering; Conservation volunteering; Volunteering in landscape management, etc) to include topics such as but not limited to:
The affective politics of volunteering: Affective encounters with nature as source of consent to neoliberal environmental governance / The marketability of affective socio-natural encounters and the development of a voluntary economic sector / The recourse to volunteering as mode of legitimization.
Devices and techniques used to produce environmental subjectivities through volunteering; affect and environmentality.
The natures of volunteering: Are specific charismatic species and spaces used to mobilize volunteers? What are the preferences and partialities of volunteers in terms of species and landscapes?
The social life of environmental volunteering: What impacts does volunteer work have on local socio-spatial and socio-natural relationships? / What impacts does it have on (new) environmental professions? / What role(s) do professional environmental managers play in the development and management of volunteers and volunteering in general?
Please send a title and abstract of no more than 250 words to Marion Ernwein (marion.ernwein@unifr.ch), Claire Tollis (clairetollis@gmail.com) and Timothy Tait-Jamieson by February 10th 2016.
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Cette communication se propose de replacer les pratiques émergentes de jardinage urbain (jardins collectifs et guérilla jardinière notamment) dans le contexte plus large de la production de la nature urbaine, en explorant, à travers le... more
Cette communication se propose de replacer les pratiques émergentes de jardinage urbain (jardins collectifs et guérilla jardinière notamment) dans le contexte plus large de la production de la nature urbaine, en explorant, à travers le cas de Genève, le système d’acteurs participant à produire et jardiner la nature en ville. Trois catégories d’acteurs sont identifiées: les jardiniers professionnels communaux, les jardiniers des jardins collectifs, et les jardiniers dits "subversifs", pratiquant la guérilla jardinière. Il s’agit d’interroger les positionnements mutuels, intersections et circulations entre ces différents acteurs, qui ont en commun de jardiner l’espace public urbain, et de montrer que si un certain nombre de pratiques jardinières amatrices se sont constituées en opposition ou en complément aux pratiques professionnelles traditionnelles (ou vues comme telles), ces pratiques amatrices non seulement suivent un certain nombre de tendances amorcés par les jardiniers professionnels, mais elles sont également, en retour, en cours d’intégration par les jardiniers professionnels et les décideurs politiques. Cette communication vise donc, in fine, à décentrer la question du jardinage urbain de celle de l’agriculture urbaine pour penser ses filiations et ruptures avec les modes de production et de gestion de la nature urbaine.