Commercial flows (deliveries to shops, restaurants, individual and business customers) supply urban areas and are so integrated to the way cities function that they become barely noticeable. They are often considered to be a source of road congestion and pollution. Yet, throughout the world, they are deemed necessary and grow continually and quickly. In this context, the issue of urban logistics (organization and distribution of trade flows in cities) is a recent and international research topic. However, few studies have dealt with urban logistics in the context of cities from the Global South despite the fact that their issues are similar to that of the Global North. By cross-analysing Brussels, Paris, Casablanca, and Nouakchott, we aim to document how logistics transitions, marked by various forms of dualisation are at stake in cities from both the Global North and the Global South. The aforementioned cities from the Global South will help us better understand the ongoing transformations in Paris and Brussels, such as the growth of opportunities and risks that is consubstantial to the atomization and fragmentation of logistics operations in the city core, and its outsourcing to small-scale carriers. Conversely, the case of European cities brings light to what is taking place in the Global South, that is, the structuring of major national and global operators' networks from hubs located mainly in semi-urban areas. In this changing urban logistics landscape, looking at both Northern and Southern cities shows that analogous transformations take place in many cities of the world. By entering into the day-to-day reality of this sector in these four metropolitan areas, we wish to highlight the challenges of social, economic and political sustainability in the context of the growth of trade flows in the world's major cities. The research method of the Trans-Log project is both hypothetico-deductive and inductive: it starts from strong hypotheses (about dualisation and a beginning of logistics transitions) and at the same time will proceed inductively thanks to the feedback from the four field studies. The research method is also multi-scalar: from the analysis of commercial districts, which will serve as a starting point for our field work, to the North-South macro-regional links (i.e. integrated into a transnational space), via the articulation of logistics circuits within the urban area. The project is organised around four tasks that combine spatial and territorial contextualisation of logistics and field work phases. A transversal action of valorisation and dissemination, aimed at stakeholders outside the academic community, completes this framework.

The project aims to study the ongoing multidimensional changes in revolutionary Sudan within a dynamic context of (practical and conceptual) production of social alternative models inspired by a shared and multiform quest for equality and justice. Its methodology is based on intensive ethnographies, research training, participatory dimension with civil society’s actors. Grounded in the research on contemporary Sudan, an interdisciplinary team (anthropology, sociology, geography, political science, history, linguistics, law) benefits from an international consortium, as French institutions (LAVUE, PRODIG) work in synergy with 2 institutions in the country of inquiry (University of Khartoum and CEDEJ). The project’s is original at different scales : the specific Sudanese case study, the regional frame of an Arab-Muslim area whose scientific interest is enhanced by the recent international conjuncture, a wider comparative reflection on socio-political protest movements in contemporary world. At the theoretical level, the case of the Third Sudanese Revolution started in 2018, is chosen as a laboratory for a grounded theory which, first, nourishes recent approaches on inequalities and discriminations, and, second, challenges the encounter between two sides of the debate on decolonisation (the one on new imperialism and the “recolonization” of the Global South and the other on “decoloniality” looking at the intersection of race, gender, ethnicity, autochthony). The project team work by means of a twofold organisation, with the aim of crossing various empirical and analytical dimensions and merging academic approach, research training and coproduction. An articulation into 3 Transversal Issues (Gender, Environment, Citizenship) intermingles with a structure in 3 Task Forces (Socio-environmental injustices and commons rebuilding; Reshaping political arenas through inclusive citizenship; Cultural circulations, memories, imaginations). The team will be involved in three main activities: personal fieldworks (rural and urban); a Doctoral School on inequalities in situations of radical change; Workshops of knowledge co-production with civil society’s actors. The elaboration of a Participatory Digital Platform “Landscapes of the Sudanese Revolution” with 2 focuses (Mapping and Dictionary) is both a tool and a product of the project. The main team is formed by 9 researchers (6 senior and 3 PhDs) with solid experience of fieldwork in Sudan and other Middle East or African contexts. They work in coordination with 8 researchers of the University of Khartoum and will integrate members of 5 selected Sudanese civil society associations. A joint coordination is led by two researchers (Anthropologist and Geographer) with a strong background in scientific and pedagogic collaboration with Sudanese academic institutions and international partners. The deliverables of the project are: a collective volume (French, English, Arabic); an International Conference for the diffusion of scientific results; the creation of a French-Sudanese training pole extending the Doctoral School’s experience; the open access to the Digital Platform as an innovative tool for knowledge transmission; the elaboration of a Horizon Europe project on Inequalities, Revolutions and Fairer Futures. Its scientific impacts will be the contribution to debates on socio-spatial and environmental inequalities and injustices, and on socio-political protest movements in a global world, together with a reflection on theory/fieldwork dialectics. At the societal level impacts will concern the understanding of forms and imaginations for rethinking “fairer futures”, and of patterns “from below” for coping with inequalities and injustices to face governance, ecological and migration crises, together with the bridging of the gap between academic, civil and democratic training.

Socio-ecological coviability is defined as human/nature interdependence resulting from interactions between human and non-human systems based on mutual sustainability (Barrière et al., 2019). The CovPath project proposes to implement this concept of socio-ecological coviability with a bottom-up approach, starting from local actors. It defines a paradigm for a new trajectory of sustainability under the concept of One Health. Therefore, the CovPath project will further advance the concept of coviability by involving the local actors (populations, managers, decisionmakers...) and consequently will enable an empirical understanding of the concept. Ultimately, the outcomes will serve as basis to develop a framework for a concrete implementation. Work on coviability has been federated between numerous disciplines in the humanities, ecological and mathematical sciences collectively. Coviability lies at the heart of the interrelationships of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those relating to SDG2, SDG3, SDG13, SDG15, SDG17. The network CovPath will rely on a broad representativeness of case studies starting from UNESCO designated biosphere reserves, which are model regions for sustainable development. Of the six reserves located on four continents, the research focus on an endogenous definition (from within for social acceptance) and an empirical approach to the pathway to socio-ecological coviability to prepare a guide on human/non-human interactions defining coviability. From there, the objective is to lay the foundations for extrapolation perspectives of this new trajectory of sustainability: on the one hand, by formalizing a methodology for the co-constructed and participative implementation of this trajectory and, on the other hand, by moving forward coviability modeling elements for the sustainable management and the resilience of social-ecological systems.

Health status is the result of complex interrelationships between individual behaviors and contextual characteristics in which we live. The FabHealth project aims to explore the effects of an urban development program on both environmental exposure (air quality, noise, transport, foodscape), health-risk behaviors (dietary, physical activity and sedentary lifestyle) and health. Based on a “natural experiment” design, we will collect and analyze individual and contextual data to assess changes throughout the renewal of the Saint-Denis Canal. This project is based on a consortium that brings together geographers, epidemiologists, expert in physico-chemical instrumentation, urban planners and stakeholders allowing an interdisciplinary and participatory approach. The results will help define public health and urban planning policies.

INTERRUPTIONS examines newly-mechanized societies relationship to the environment in South American territories under extractivist constraint, through the study of how accidents, malfunctions and downtime fashion landscapes, technicities and society. The advancement of extractivist fronts into indigenous territories in South America has normally been understood as a linear movement consisting of the integration and global standardization of populations and ecosystems that were previously peripheral and heterogeneous. However, these territories are characterized by a large number of accidents, shocking to those on the ground but unattended to by administrations, and which often take place in informal contexts and among populations that are newly-mechanized (women, children, indigenous peoples). Similarly, the operation of extractive industries in these remote and poorly regulated contexts is frequently interrupted by social flux (road blockages, strikes, etc.), technical contingencies (breakdowns, malfunctions, etc.) or environmental hazards (floods, earthquakes, fires, etc.) that cause frequent time spent idling. These different forms of interruptions are the root causes of detours, handiwork repairs or bypassing methods, which can be hypothesized as shaping these territories as much as public policies or the actions of dominant actors (companies, the State, etc.). South America’s extractive landscapes are thus scattered with accidents and roadside memorials, with daily life punctuated by time spent idling or waiting, and scarred landscapes. These breakdowns and accidents, which are rarely studied, have been partially approached through the prism of road safety and accident-prevention policies. INTERRUPTIONS studies accidents, malfunctions and forms of downtime as processes that fashion space, technology and society. It considers two large South American territories under extractivist constraint, the Southern Andes and the Gran Chaco, through three research axes: 1) Accidents as fashioning landscape and memory studies the documentary, memorial, ethnographic and material traces of breakdowns and accidents in indigenous territories as re-elaborations of relationships to death, time and nature; 2) The technicities and affordances of malfunctions focuses on forms of repair and the maintenance of mechanical devices outside of formal circuits, affordances and norms of intended use; 3) The life of downtime and the social agency of interruptions examines how interruptions and downtime shape social, gender, ethnic-based and intergenerational relationships, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. INTERRUPTIONS is supported by three large laboratories (CREDA, Mondes Américains and PRODIG), which share a common location on the Campus Condorcet and bring together a young, gender-equal, multidisciplinary and international team with long-term experience in South American fields. The project envisages the recruitment of 3 post-docs and is organized around 4 work-packages regrouping the different tasks of ethnographic, spatial and historical research that will nourish the virtual platform INTERRUPTIONS, which will be both a tool for and result of the project. The project contains a risk management strategy and an ethics and gender-parity monitoring system. In addition to the expected scientific impact of this novel and high-potential research, it will raise awareness among local administrations about the importance of identifying and preventing occupational and traffic injuries in indigenous contexts. The main deliverables of this project are: i) a permanent seminar at the Campus Condorcet; ii) the platform and virtual museum INTERRUPTIONS: Another view of extractive territories; iii) three workshops and a final colloquium giving rise to three thematic dossiers and one collective publication; iv) ten collective articles in international journals; v) an ERC or H2020 relay project that will be presented.