Sarah Van Hollebeke

PhD candidate (UCL-CriDIS)

;

PhD student in sociology at the UCLouvain (CriDIS/ team Metrolab) and in urban planning at Grenoble National School of Architecture (UMR AAU-team CRESSON), Sarah Van Hollebeke is conducting a survey on the performance of experts, recognized as professionals of discourse and experience, when they are called to coordinate and communicate with specialists in visual production in the context of architectural and urban projects. More specifically, she questions the operational scope of the communication media mobilized to increase the reception of this knowledge into the world of urban planning.

Research abstract

If, at the end of the last century, the practices of urban planning saw the emergence of new professions of mediation, participation and translation that privileged the citizen's voice and public debate, today they seem to be framed by disciplines whose mode of expression for representing territories, visualizing problems, acting on them and designing spaces is the “image”. This thesis explores the meeting between specialists in visual production and speech professionals called to coordinate in urban project. It sheds light on the way in which the actors expected as experts in speech and ordinary life, can today intervene in a meaningful and effective way when they are invited to act on the renovation of a neighborhood, the design of a space, the design of a building, or in a broad sense the planning of a territory. Based on "pragmaticist" sociology (Berger and De Munck, 2015), the thesis questions (i) the conditions of recevability of these more minority knowledges; and (ii) the receptivity of the urban planning and planning world. The survey conducted in the Brussels context combines a genealogical and ethnographic approach that allows us to follow over time the concrete experiences of these experts engaged in several arenas where they are fighting to share their knowledges and being heard (an institutional urban renewal system, co-creation workshops and the activities of transdisciplinary collectives).

To know more about Sarah's contribution in the framework of Metrolab:

illustrations by Pam & Jenny — Website design & development by Variable