Since the late 1990s, France launched a large program of demolition in public housing located at the periphery of the city. By its extent, spectacular nature and conjunction of interests, this program constitutes a good analyzer of references and institutional representations of space that guide urban policy. The authoritarian action "breaking the ghettos" and "finishing with large ensembles” by blasting them, seems a typical case where political, architectural and urban planning practice can be seen in its full extent. Indeed, these operations of "ground zero", which the equivalent is in brownfields (Graçon, 2002), show you the criteria of normal and pathological judgments in the urban area. These evaluative and praxeological framework, underlying the disqualification of the built environment, reveal, by the negative, but in a "detonating" way, the figures of acceptable and unacceptable urban. With the demolitions we can observe the system of idea of policymakers, technicians and the media. Demolitions make particularly clear the imputation system governing the action on and by space. The postulates and attributes that lead to a reading of large ensemble on the mode of disappointed expectations, failure, deficiency are also those that lead to the formulation of the expected judgments that the media refer to as "criminogenic". Therefore, the “wrecker discourse" appears as a way to capture the socio-political contemporary imagination of space and the city. We therefore consider demolition as an intervention that reveals especially social and institutional expectations vis-à-vis space and action – action being presumed efficient. Our research does not focus on the spatiality («uses of space, the arts do with the space in the everyday life by individuals and groups") but on the space in the meaning of the ecological-ethologism (how configurations of physical space could determine social relations). The demolition of housing estates represent the quintessence of the ecological-technocratic ethologism of the past and it allows to update the way whose the founding postulate of the urban action is redefined today in the system of beliefs of both public actors of urbanization and, often to a lesser degree, the private stakeholders.

The year 2008 marked an important turn in terms of self-treatment , in a context of health expenses shortening and healthcare reforms. Following the example of Great Britain in 2000, the French government invited patients to support their own health for « benign situations », favouring free access to certain medicines available without prescription in pharmacies. Nevertheless, the promotion of self-treatment, following an economic rationale, raises the risk of favouring a problematic use of medicines, in the absence of independent and reliable information of the patient. Self-treatment and free access raise the issue of responsibility and education of the patient, and could be a relevant indicator of inequalities in accessing healthcare. In the frame of the “Social determinants of health” call for project, this project proposes original analyses of socio-economic, social, territorial and pathological factors determining self-treatment. This project mobilises researchers in general medicine and general practitioners, as well as researchers in sociology and social geography. This research is not only pluridisciplinary, but also integrated, giving ground for the common construction of research tools and operations, and looking forward to crossing multiple explicative data amidst the same population. The theoretical framework of this project, structurally and strategically marked by the notion of autonomy of the patient, steps on Robert Castel’s analysis of negative individualism, in which “autonomy” is a burden for the one who has low economic resources and insufficient social support, but experienced as freedom for the one who benefits from social security and social affiliation

The Amazon is a capital region for the world’s ecological and climate balances. It is also under pressure by deforestation and by local expectations of improvements in life conditions, much often reflected by the progression of unsustainable lifestyles. At the same time, in the last 20 years, the Amazon has been turned into a laboratory for sustainable development. International and national attention was attracted by the threats on the rainforest and a great number of initiatives were launched in order to promote sustainability, also prompting a reinterpretation of traditional cultures, whose integration with their environment is now seen as exemplar. Based on a detailed comparative study of 13 sites where sustainable development projects have been implanted, the DURAMAZ1 (2006-2010) project has developed an innovative indicator system allowing a comparison between the sites even if the belong to very different cultural, economic or social contexts. Capitalizing on this basis, the DURAMAZ2 proposal will build a theoretical model of the influence of different indicators of sustainability and their interactions at site-specific level and across sites. It will also identify common elements that could explain successes or failures and could constitute the basis of a theory of sustainability in the context of tropical forest areas. But new thematic, geographical or methodological questions will also be addressed, making the DURAMAZ2 project a very innovative proposal. From a thematic point of view, the DURAMAZ2 project will analyse the impact of new policy instruments for promoting sustainability, such as REDD or PES. It will also focus on corporate social and ecological responsibility, adding new sites of study that are under the influence of multinational firms. The project will aim at a better integration of ecological and climate dimensions underlying sustainability through the development of new modules around the uses of biodiversity and around the perceptions of climate change inside the communities. The question of institutional arrangements around the use of natural resources, studied by Nobel Prize E. Ostrom, will also be tackled by adapting Ostrom’s IAD framework to the DURAMAZ indicator system and fieldwork protocols. From a geographical point of view, the DURAMAZ2 project will expand the coverage of DURAMAZ1 by adopting a pan-amazonian approach including sites in the French Guiana and in Equador. Also, control sites where there were no specific policy will be added. At the same time, the DURAMAZ2 project will promote a new observation campaign in the sites that were included in the first phase. This will allow us to compare this “t1” observation to the “t0” (i.e. around 2007) observation, thus offering an unique opportunity for comparative and longitudinal analysis supported by a unique high precision database system already held by the project. From a methodological point of view, the DURAMAZ2 project will innovate by adapting the SIEL spatial model to the Amazon region so as to propose prospective scenarios. It will also take advantage of new tools such as the very high resolution remote sensing sensors. The DURAMAZ2 project is split in 6 main tasks. Four of them form a sequence during which the observation protocol will be adjusted, fieldwork will be realized at 20 sites by multidisciplinary teams and results will be analyzed and published. Two other will last the whole project’s duration. The first is devoted to setting up and running the SIEL model and the other to the project management and to convert it into a proposal of a permanent observatory of sustainability, which will be offered to local and international institutions engaged in the Amazon region. The consortium gathered around the DURAMAZ2 project is composed of internationally recognized research centres of France, Brazil and the USA, leaded by the CREDA, a French centre specialized in latin American and Amazonian issues.