The PASTO project: an innovative agricultural system of practices for mountain regions

Mountain agriculture faces numerous challenges: diminishing number of farms and of animals, advancing of the forest, search for viable economic alternatives and multiple social demands concerning the maintenance of landscapes, of biodiversity and the offer of local quality products. Within this context, the PASTO project is testing and developing extensive production methods for meat of the Herens cattle breed, This method should both help maintain the landscape and create added value for the local economy. The project can count on an interdisciplinary partnership and has developed an integrated approach allowing to test these practices according to different aspects: agronomic, zoological, economic, environmental and social. With the objective of implementing these practices, different scenarios have been elaborated and then evaluated.

Villes à la frontière et transformation de l'espace

Lena Poschet El Moudden

Few borders exist which separate two countries as dramatically disparate as the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Both share the territory of the Hispaniola island, but a profound process of differentiation rooted in the colonial division of the island between France and Spain and ideologically maintained by both modern nations, has lead to what Théodat (1998, 2003) calls the "twofold insularity" – each country behaves as if it were located on a separate island. In spite of all prejudices and ethnical, historical, linguistic, social, economic or religious differences, people living in the border regions established cross-border relations which, even if largely based on economic interests, are much more frequent and important to both nations than officially admitted (De Jesus Cerdano and Dilla, 2005; Sillé & Segura & Cabral, 2002). The local dynamic created by this exchange becomes palpable when one observes the busy binational market in the border towns of Ouanaminthe (Haiti) and Dajabón (Dominican Republic). Twice a week, people from nearly the whole northern part of both countries travel to these towns located on either side of the Masacre River, in order to buy and sell goods or to offer services in the market of Dajabón. The other days, tons of cargo transit to Haiti, to the extent that the once small borderland settlements have become an important junction in the economic subsystem of the northern part of the island. Moreover, the construction of a free zone in Ouanaminthe in 2002 –to produce textiles for the US-market– has connected the borderland towns to the international economy. This recent development is set within a context of progressive opening of borders (Martinez, 1994). It is the result of international policies that have been decided in the capitals, without consulting the concerned regions. In Ouanaminthe and Dajabón, local institutions are weak and receive no or little financial and administrative support from central administration. They do not have the means to cope with growing pressure on land and infrastructure, as the emergence of legal and illegal livelihood opportunities in the borderland has generated a threefold increase of the overall population in the past twenty years (Dajabón grew from 8'500 inhabitants in 1980 to 16'000 in 2002 and Ouanaminthe from 7'000 in 1981 to 39'000 in 2003). How did these recent economic, political and societal transformations shape the urban space of the two borderland towns? I addressed this issue by analyzing the motivation of stakeholders involved in the process of spatial transformation, and the impact of their actions. In my work I refer to the conceptual framework of urban intermediation (Bolay and Rabinovich, 2004), i.e. the spatial issues that each town has to address according to its internal characteristics, its function in national and international networks and its relation to the direct rural environment. In order to use this framework for the borderland issues, the conceptual part of this study proposes to develop the concept of "borderland intermediation". To the existing urban intermediation concept, it adds the influence of the characteristics of the border (based on policy and political aspects, economic issues, local identities, social networks, national defense issues and geographical insertion). By doing so, it relates the bi-national system of borderland towns to the intermediation concept. Data has been collected over three and a half years during several periods of fieldwork: observation and mapping of occupation and use of urban space, cartography, qualitative interviews with local stakeholders and residents, completed by other primary and secondary sources. This study shows that the recent transformations have accentuated the existing unbalanced relationship between the two towns. The powerlessness of the municipality of Ouanaminthe to meet population growth and to impose regulations or taxes related to the growing trade has enhanced its dependency to the Dominican town. For a growing number of Haitians, it is of existential importance to cross over to Dajabón in order to seek income, healthcare and education and this, in spite of latent racism and mistreatments. Founded on a strong sentiment of exploitation, Haitians often criticize the capitalist or even colonialist relationship imposed by their neighbors: not only the fact that the bi-national market takes place in Dajabón, but also that Dominican enterprises develop subsidiaries in Ouanaminthe, taking advantage of cheap labor and the absence of local production. On the contrary, the majority of Dajabón residents interviewed do not need to cross the river for their living. Most of them have never been to Ouanaminthe, but consider it insalubrious, out of control and dangerous. Both towns lack application of regulations in urban planning matters. Thus, spatial growth has entirely been ruled by landowner structure and land occupation practices. Around Dajabón, the adjacent land belongs mainly to two landowners, whose strategy –to enhance soil value through development of equipped middleclass neighborhoods– has restricted the urban sprawl. In Ouanaminthe land belongs to a multitude of small peasants. The selling and illegal occupation of rather small plots leads to sprawling urban growth, guided by rural pathways and leaving entire parts of neighborhoods inaccessible to motor vehicles. Population growth has also been absorbed by high densification of existing neighborhoods. No formal collaborations exist between the two municipalities. Informal ones do, through the implication of the two mayors, but overall, cross-border collaboration is left to NGOs and professional associations who militate for human rights, environmental issues and fair treatment inside the bi-national market. International development agencies present in the borderland initiate projects with bi-national concern, but these are disconnected from the local level and strongly influenced by the fact that these agencies relate directly to the central governments. We also observe a process of internal segregation in both towns, as commercial establishments progressively occupy parts of the town centers and the emergent middle class gathers in specific neighborhoods. Ouanaminthe and Dajabón are functionally interlinked and their transformation is undeniably governed by the progressive permeability of the border. Nevertheless, this border separates two completely different urban landscapes that are deeply marked by the internal characteristics of each town. Furthermore, the unequal and complex relationship of both populations creates the paradox that their spatial proximity accentuates the segregation in both towns, as it allows the citizens of both countries to stay in their environment and to commute –if necessary– even daily. This work shows that the application of the intermediation concept is relevant for the study of complex relationships that govern borderland space. The analysis based on this concept has enabled to study, on a local level, processes that are taking place on a global level. In so doing, it has allowed us to provide some answers to the central question: "How do local populations, national and international firms and governments react when a territorial economy, based on agriculture, is progressively linked to international networks? "

EPFL2006

En quête d'habitat

Marie-Paule Thomas

This doctoral thesis is based on the observation that the individualization of society that is taking place today has led to new differentiations within the domains of lifestyle and residential choice. Our main hypothesis was that lifestyle influences residential choice. What kinds of differentiation with regard to lifestyles are we seeing currently? What connections are there between lifestyles, residential preferences and localization? Theoretically, the typical methods for describing residential choice and environment rely on epistemological, methodological and empirical corpuses that are quite varied and, at times, contradictory. On one hand do we find economic and demographical approaches based on the theory of the "rational" actor who attempts to optimize his localization according to "functional and economic" parameters (i.e. proximity to the workplace, the price and size of the residence depending on income and background); on the other we find sociological and anthropological approaches based on theories of social action where choice as a general rule is "socially" determined based on the individual's family ties, tradition, culture, way of living or even social position (Authier & al., 2010). Above and beyond such rational or social perspectives, other factors also influence the choices we make, including the sensitive dimension related to an individual's physical and emotional experience of space. In order to grasp all three logics of action in a single analytical frame we based our analysis on the postulate that residential choice is "plural." Thus do multiple criteria – accessibility, social rooting of families, social status of the residential residence, appreciation of the morphological qualities of the environment, etc. – figure into the decision. We assumed that based on their lifestyles that households blended one or the other of these logics of action, thus resulting in their ranking their criteria for choice in different ways. We proposed a conceptualization of lifestyle that offers a compromise between classical structuralist perspectives (Bourdieu, 1979) and individualist perspectives (Beck, 1983). In our opinion residential choices are influenced by a three-fold dimension of lifestyle: urban practices and daily life (stylization), values and urban representations (evaluation) and resources/constraints (stratification variables). Thus did we couple classic vertical forms (training, income, gender, etc.) with new horizontal forms (attitudes, opinions, values, practices, etc.) that engender social inequalities. Residential choice therefore results in a compromise (resulting from lifestyle) between the different functional, social and sensitive criteria that are or are not present in the structural, socio-historical, environmental context (potential receptiveness). Methodology The cities of Bern and Lausanne in Switzerland – two cities of comparable size but whose socio-historical backgrounds and urban structures vary significantly, particularly with regard to the quality of public transportation service – served as the field for our study. As families often use long-term residential choices to realize plans for the future, we chose to look at them. We used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods for our empirical work. At the macro level we describe the territory using a series of functional, social and sensitive indicators that allowed us to characterize "potential receptiveness" at different levels, from citywide to neighborhood. At the micro-sociological level we conducted: a quantitative telephone survey of 500 households in each agglomeration, a qualitative survey comprised of 40 semi-directive interviews in eight neighborhoods that distinguished themselves by their geographical location (central, suburban, peri-urban) and architectural diversity. Principal findings In general our findings show that income inequalities have a discriminatory effect on the size and price of the residence as well as on the probability of finding a living space that is entirely adapted. These inequalities however only play a secondary role when it comes to explaining differences in terms of residential preferences. Whether or not the households had a weak or strong income, certain areas of the city were never considered if they did not correspond to the individual's lifestyle. To begin we showed that the immediate environment plays an important role in quality of life for families, especially with regard to the presence or absence of elements favoring children's autonomy. Access to public transportation for instance is a decisive factor in terms of localization for most families. Above and beyond these commonalities we highlighted six axes of differentiation for residential preference that indicate the qualities most sought after by families: do they want to live in an environment that first and foremost is safe, densely-populated, convivial, traditional, calm or elite? To identify how families classify choice criteria and in so doing position themselves on the different axes we did a typological analysis, thus allowing us to categorize households into seven major "residential lifestyles," each of which valued the environment's social, sensitive and functional qualities in varying degrees. Thus we found there was not a quality of life that held true for all groups but rather qualities of life. Two main groups stood out, highlighting as such the contrast between ways of living typical of (modern) industrial society, based on classic models of upward social mobility, work and material success, and those originating from (post-modern) post-industrial society, based on self-enrichment, post-materialism and criticism of so-called "bourgeois" values. The groups identified are products of the historical sedimentation of the different ways of relating to the environment that have appeared over time. By comparing our analysis of residential lifestyles and the structural/cultural differences between the cities of Lausanne and Bern we were able to highlight the impact of context on the spatial distribution of lifestyles at different scales (from nationwide to the neighborhood level). We were also able to prove that geographical distinctions such as center, suburban and peri-urban become less important; each area has its own individual functional (accessibility, services), sensitive (urban morphology, architecture) and social (social-spatial diversity, segregation) qualities. Based on these characteristics, an environment is more or less receptive to different types of residential lifestyles (can I do everything on foot in this neighborhood? Can my children go to by themselves? Is there a strong social/community dynamic?). With such a detailed qualitative and quantitative description of areas it becomes easier to determine who would like to live in a given neighborhood and who, on the contrary, would not ("describe where you live and I'll tell you who you are?"). To guarantee the success of urban development or regional policies, those responsible for planning and development need to consider urban planning not only in terms of "social mixing" but in terms of the "mixing of lifestyles" as well. Through this notion of potential receptiveness, the urbanism of lifestyles is one of the main functional conclusions of this study, for which we propose avenues of change and recommendations (how to plan and think about urban development based on use?).

EPFL2011

Hypertypes: From social bridges to an urbanism of aspirations, affordances and capabilities

Shin Alexandre Koseki

Using multilayered individual massive data and geo-localization tracking, Computational Social Science and Social Physics attest the importance of face-to-face and place-to-place interactions in shaping human agency. The research suggests that collective and individual behaviors can be described by the “social bridges” that bind local communities in daily activities. By looking at various metropolitan regions across the world, findings point to the resilience of social bridges in predicting economic, political and health-related characteristics of local populations. Communities that share similar practices of metropolitan spaces also express similarities in those behaviors. Such results are akin to theories of urbanism that promote the importance of spatial configurations in describing markets, power and well-being. With this paper, I wish to look at the empirical findings of Computational Social Sciences and Social Physics through the lens of those theories, and propose a general understanding of human agency based on aspirations, affordances and capabilities. Instead of competing with previous approaches, the view that individuals act in accordance to their environment as an extension of their desires and aptitudes provides a long-waited hinge to bind Social Physics and previous theoretical models. In a second step, I discuss how such model can afford tools to architects, planners and policy-makers to increase collaboration and cooperation between local communities and decrease the economic and political polarization of contemporary metropolitan spaces.