Produire la ville vivante : le travail des citadins et des non-humains

This contribution is conceived as a critique of the focus of the (francophone) literature on urban “nature” on the hypothetical “social demand” towards it. In contrast, we approach city-dwellers as makers rather than “users”, and “nature” not as a generic object but as a heterogeneous assemblage of active non-humans. By doing so, we seek to shed light on the productive activity performed by these two categories of actors, at a time when neoliberal austere policies question the role of professionals in the making of urban green spaces. We analyse the political economy of urban nature, to show that the development of programmes that mobilise volunteer work and non-human labour testifies to a new division of environmental labour.