Glòria Serra-Coch

My thesis focuses on proximity effects in the diffusion of innovations. In particular, I focus on energy technologies, photovoltaic panels (PV), electric vehicles (EV) and energy management systems (EMS). I study the role of information exchanges through actor networks and the generation of tacit knowledge that contributes to the diffusion of these technologies.

There are multiple factors that can affect the generation of this kind of innovation networks in specific territories. In the case of the Jura Arc and, more specifically, La-Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle, I conceptualize this balance as expressing itself at three levels that can be translated to three geographic scales. Linking Infrastructure

Political. a national border acting as a seam

The Franco-swiss border at the Jura Arc, acts as a catalyzer of dynamics, a source of tensions as well as solidarity and mixing of ideas and people (Moine, 2013). The border works like a seam, accelerating the proximity effects of cross-border workers, and the ideas and practices they carry. These territories, however, are characterized by a lack of governance adapted to their scale and specific needs (Moine, 2013). Thus, border territories emerge at the fringes of control, and naturally tend to develop counter-structures and organisations necessary for their survival. These emergent practices in the territory could, in fact, be the key for innovation.

Social. institutional networks of trust

The disintegrated system of production of the Jura Arc has been coordinated through different institutions. Some of them are directly related with the watchmaking productive system1 and, at later stages, with the electronics industry2. However, “the complicated web of watch manufacturing permeated the core of the region’s social, political and economic institutions” (Glasmeier, 1991, p. 478). Education and training on watchmaking, and later on microtechnology, was offered by regional institutions3, other industries provided equipment, banking institutions were deeply involved in financing, and the industry invested in R&D laboratories (Glasmeier, 1991; Maillat et al., 1995). This milieu-type of organisation allowed the spur of collaborative initiatives between the different industrial and societal players. This structure is currently translated in the existence of regional associations with diverse and actors involved.

Technical. Being on the way to

Le Locle and la Chaux-de-Fonds are not only located “close” to the border but are also connection points in a transportation network that links Besançon, in France, with Neuchatel, but also Yverdon-les-Bains, and after Lausanne, Geneva and Bern. This privileged position can be viewed as the geographical parallel of a weak-tie in social network analysis (Grannovetters in Hanneman & Riddle, 2014) the one that ensures that new information and ideas are introduced in a social system.

Spaces of Interface

At a smaller scale, these knowledge exchanges also happen at a specific time and space. Spaces of interface can be permanent locations that foster the interaction of different actors in the same geographic place, or can involve temporal organised events that bring people together (Torre, 2008). Several scholars, such as Gehl, Jacobs or White, outline certain serendipity conditions for these exchanges to happen, such as ground-floor permeability or active uses. Porosity (Benjamin, 1985) of urban life allows “a rich network of practices” to transform space into a “potential theatre of acts of encounter” (Stravrides, 2006). Porosity also implies a loosening of borders, which Walter Benjamin sees as “a way to reclaim the power that thresholds posses to mediate actions that open spatially (as well as socially) fixed identities and encourage chance encounters” (Stravrides, 2006, pg. 3).

At all these scales, or levels, we identify a counter-narrative emerging. There is a disorder that scapes from the control and generates spontaneous situations of exchange and connection between otherwise separated elements. We could speak of heterotopias “places where differences meet”, a concept that Foucault (1993) introduces as “counterrangements, those spaces that are absolutely other compared to the normal spaces they “reflect”, representing them, challenging them and overturning them (Stravrides, 2006 pg. 4). Heterotopias are counterspaces to the dominant ones, sites of resistance, but also the juxtaposition in a single place of several spaces (Cenzatti, 2008), places of interface that enable “productive and social actors to interact”.

Our FIELDWORK focused on trying to uncover, with limited time and knowledge, this specific sliver in the field. We aimed at discovering the (invisible) spaces of interface; looking for the fringes and revealing tensions between the visible and the invisible, the controlled vs. the spontaneous, curated vs. organic, or intended vs. unintended.

As a group, we started by heading to la Chaux-de-Fonds and walking the city following the official UNESCO itinerary in the opposite sense, starting from the centre and ending on the outskirts [Journal p. 23]. We collected our impressions in the notebooks while also exchanging between us. The group had diverse research interests that were challenging to reconcile, from structural joints in industry to biodiversity in urban spaces. Nevertheless, after discussion, the thread of counter-spaces and invisible vs. visible emerged as a common ground. The fieldwork allowed us to identify two types of spaces of interface.

Firstly, we identified a physical interface space that derived from the grid. The integration of diverse typologies and uses in the urban grid implied the emergence of a specific type of “interstitial spaces” [Journal p. 25-26]. While the streets reflected a regularity that expressed control, and a utilitarian view aiming at ensuring functionality, in terms of circulation or sunlight access; we discovered another type of spaces, not visible at first glance, that embodied the opposite characteristics. Within the blocks, in the left-over spaces between the different shaped buildings, there were irregular communal outdoor areas. The street grid displayed a top-down quality but we realized that the actual building footprints were scattered within the regulated space of the block, creating interstitial spaces behind and between the buildings. These include improvised playgrounds, gardens, parking spaces but also orchards. Like in the studies of heterotopias and porosity of Stravrides (2006), these spaces stand in direct contrast to the rational and function-oriented buildings and are not signalled by absolute boundaries. Some of them have fences or low walls but are all recognizably part of a communal outdoor space.