Maud Chalmandrier
Doctoral fellow
At IGD until 2023

SNSF PhD candidate in Geography from november 2018, with a specialisation on urban and environmental issues.


Research Interests

  • Human Geography and Environment.
  • Social and Cultural Studies of Science.
  • Cultures of Nature.
  • Urban Ecological Knowledge Practices and Representations.
  • The Co-production between Space and Knowledge.


Background & current research

In 2016, I completed an interdisciplinary master's degree "Territories, Spaces, Societies" at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. During and after this training, I had the opportonity to carry out research tasks on topics such as: controversies and conflicts related to eco-neighbourhood urban renewal projects; the renaturing of contaminated industrial wastelands; animal feeding and rat infestations management in Parisian open spaces.

Currently part of the SNSF research project "When ecology goes to town" (2018-2022), I am conducting a doctoral research on the emergence and development of the urban object in ecology in Switzerland, under the co-supervision of Joëlle Salomon Cavin (UNIL) and Céline Granjou (INRAE). Based on a geographical approach of scientific practice which considers the production of ecological knowledge as historically situated "spatio-epistemic" processes that are constitutive of these spaces (de Bont and Lachmund, 2017), my research is structured around two lines of questioning:

  • The city in ecological research in Switzerland at the crossroads of biographical paths and scientific institutions: When and how did the city become an environment worthy of ecological and scientific interest? Where is research on the city produced, by whom, and what conditions have made its existence possible? What are the epistemic commitments and collaboration networks of researchers? The central dimension underlying these questions is the enduring marginality of urban ecological research in Swiss academic institutions.
  • Ecological practices and the nature of the city: What are the objects of study in urban naturalistic and ecological research? How does the study of the city influence research practices, methods and approaches in ecology? How are nonhuman beings in the city made sense of and qualified, which types of nature and spaces are valued or excluded? What representations of the city are produced? What is the role of ecological expertise in urban fabric?