The Géographie-cités laboratory is a joint research unit (UMR) with four cotutelles: CNRS, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Université Paris Cité, and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Géographie-cités also maintains a presence in Paris on the Olympe de Gouge site of Université Paris Cité and at the Institut de Géographie.
Géographie-cités is made up of three teams—CRIA, PARIS, and TERMS—which develop both their own research and cross-team themes. This research combines reflexivity, spatiotemporal studies, human geography, urban studies, urban planning, and territorial development.
The production of the CRIA team focuses on an approach wherein urban planning and development are conceived as a chain of collective and organized actions from various sectors which contribute to the transformation of space, territories, and living environments, with consideration of the reciprocal effects of these transformations. This approach is facilitated by the expertise of a strong multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary faculty. While production remains the key focus with analyses articulating actors, tools, and materials, the work is marked by shifts and developments in the themes addressed: ecologization, life management, vulnerabilities, financialization, widespread experimentation, and recourse to temporary solutions in an uncertain context.
The work of the PARIS Team is rooted in the investigation of interactions in geography. The aim is to analyze territorial dynamics by considering spatial and social interactions as driving forces of recomposition and reconfiguration. Strong themes such as modeling, geovisualization, and a growing interest in digital humanities are enriched by reflections on data and methods, whether in terms of heritage trajectories, digital traces, or the data enabling the reconstruction of social networks or relating to the attractiveness of city centers. Ecological transition is a new focus of the team’s work.
The work of the TERMS team develops two research perspectives that are firmly rooted in the UMR. The first considers the theoretical and communicative tools of the “sciences of space and the environment,” as well as the social history of their actors. The second focuses on the temporal dimension of geographical objects which involves examining the construction and evolution of said objects particularly those based on spatial divisions, and an examination of the performative effects of these geographical objects, on representations of the world, on territorial affiliations, on political or vernacular practices and, consequently, on the modalities of the production of spaces.
Exchanges between the three teams are structured around five transversal themes:
• Fabricating the urban: processes, actors, practices
• Mobilities and territories: towards a relational approach to space
• Data and protocols in digital humanities
• Subjectivities and reflexivity in research practice
• Doctoral workshop: fieldwork and research