Estelle

Evrard

Dr Estelle Evrard is a Research Scientist (Maître assistante) in political geography. She holds a Master Degree in European Law and a PhD in Geography. Her interest in the European integration is the common thread through her professional career. She studies how the local territorialises space and adjusts to/against EUropean dis.integration. She works with notions such as autonomy, spatial justice, territory and practical knowledge. 

In the last years, she looked at border areas as spaces where the local and (supra)national constantly renegotiate space and power (PhD thesis and monography). More recently, she studied place-based local development strategies in response to spatial disparities and injustices (H2020 project RELOCAL "Resituating the Local in Cohesion and Territorial Development” 09.2016-11.2020). She also observed how local governance deals with legal and administrative obstacles in border areas (external expert for DG Regio "Easing legal and administrative obstacles in EU border regions" 2016 and AEBR "b-solution project” 2018).

Her work is informed by European integration theory, spatial justice, legal geography, Raffestin's understanding of territory and Aristotle's understanding of practical knowledge.

She is involved in projects at the interface with planning (Luxembourg in Transition, UniGR CBS Spatial planning working group) and other disciplines of the humanities and social sciences (UniGR-Centre for Border Studies). She has worked with contemporary artists to think and contribute to local development (Common Wealth). She has also dealt with the research-policy interface (National Contact Point for the ESPON programme 2013-2020).

She is a member of the editorial board of the Justice Spatiale/Spatial Justice Journal and teaches the Geographies of European integration at the University of Luxembourg.