La fabrique de la « ville sobre » en France : les sciences humaines et sociales au risque de contribuer au processus de normalisation des conduites et d’incitation au changement

Abstract

The development of the urban planning and architectural design model of the 'sober city' in France relates to putting the energy sobriety issue on the political agenda. From the watchwords disseminated through thermal regulations, energy performance labels and construction standards, energy becomes a determining element in the production, design and management process of the sustainable city. This evolution corresponds to the moment of public action known as the energy transition, where institutional expectations in terms of energy sobriety and proposals for solutions from private and industrial players meet on a French urban scale. In this context, the irruption of sobriety issues in research on the sustainable city is not without effect. Nor is the place taken by engineers in the allocation of public funding on this issue. In just a few years, it has led to an operational and prospective turn in research. This article wishes to question the incentive to take part in interdisciplinary and operational research that the Human and Social Sciences (HSS) are subject to when energy becomes a research subject in urban studies. The HSS are then in charge of initiating the transformation of the inhabitants' behaviours to the benefit of the technical solutions mobilized, disseminating the criteria of a "well-living" in the city. The request for usefulness addressed to the HSS is related to a moral conception of living, with an important ideological component.

Keywords

• energy sobriety
• city making
• public research
• normativities