The contributions of socio-environmental information maps in an environmental mobilisation: the case of a fight against a highway project in France

ABSTRACT

Large linear transport infrastructure projects, such as highways connecting large metropolitan areas, are continuously under development in France. Although the economic and social benefits of such projects are often disputed, their impacts on the environment and local populations are multiple. These potential impacts almost systematically result in conflicts between decision-makers and planners on one side, and local actors with various profiles (e.g. farmers, residents, environmental associations) mobilised against the projects on the other. In the context of a citizen mobilisation against the A45 highway project in eastern France, this study aimed to analyse the social contributions of maps in terms of information reception. The study is based on the creation of maps representing combined spatial impacts (on mobility, housing, land, landscapes, agriculture, and ecosystems). These maps, created by researchers, were presented in the form of posters aimed at opening discussions with non-experts. The maps created an original medium for discussing and debating the impacts of a highway project through the participatory encounter. Under the lens of spatial and environmental justice, this study questions the discrepancies between who makes decisions on a project and who suffers its impacts, and also raises questions about the position of scientific research in citizen mobilisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Public participation
• environmental mobilisation
• spatial planning
• mapping
• highway

Acknowledgements

This work was conducted as part of the ECOMOLY research project funded by the University of Lyon 3 Jean Moulin. The authors thank Gérémine Girard and Marie Detemple for their parts in facilitating the participative workshops and the photographs of this day, Ismail Sanchez-Penas for construction of the land cover map, and Gilles Vuidel for helping compute ecological networks for Posters 6 and 7. The authors also thank all workshop participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical considerations

The procedures involving human participants in this research are in accordance with the French GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and with European regulations relating to the protection of individuals and their personal data and its circulation.

Notes

1 As early as the 1970s, when the A47 highway project was not yet completed, there were already projections of a rapid saturation of this first highway, and the idea of a second highway was being discussed. Indeed, in the context of the “Trente Glorieuses” (the “Glorious Thirty”, the thirty years from 1942 to 1973), with oil still very inexpensive and an all-car population being considered the ideal, the French model was still very much oriented towards the development of heavy infrastructure to support the growth dynamic and compensate for the excessive centrality of Paris.

2 These decision-making processes and support for the infrastructure project are part of partisan political orientations. Thus, the lower administrative levels largely conform to the political leaders:the President of the region is for it, as is the mayor of Saint-Etienne, from the same (right-wing) political party, while the mayor of Lyon (socialist party), from the opposite party, finally spoke out against the project in order to distinguish himself from his competitor in an election for the leadership of the city.