Thinking Dimensionally in Social Sciences.

An unconventional notion of social space for research on social topics.

This article carries the constructivist idea to its logical conclusion. If space is always perceived in three dimensions and does not have a substance, why not consider social topics in the the same way and see whether this produces informative and new insights ? The notion of Euclidean space as a dimensional system of ordering is an elementary concept in social sciences. This article gives two examples of how this concept could be employed in a non-positivistic and non-essentialist [...]

Interroger l’infrastructure de représentation du monde.

Kurgan, Laura. 2013. Close up at a distance. Mapping, technology and politics. New York : Zone Books.

With her book Close up at a distance. Mapping, technology and politics, Laura Kurgan, Professor of architecture at Columbia University in New York city, interrogates the political, technical and ethical debates around satellite imagery, GPS and Geographic Information Systems. The originality of Kurgan’s work comes from her theoretical articles, that use geography and sciences, technology and society resources, and the presentation of nine artistic projects that she has been working on for twenty years, using case studies of satellite [...]

Exploring tourist mobility in Paris. A combined visitor survey and GPS tracking study.

This article presents a series of the findings from a combined visitor survey and GPS tracking study that was conducted in May and June 2013 in Paris. The mobility of the 129 participants in this study is characterized by a high degree of spatial concentration at several major tourist attractions. Moreover, the most important axes of tourism mobility in Paris are identified. [...]

La géohistoire de l’espace viticole français sur deux siècles (1808-2010) : plusieurs cycles viticoles décryptés.

Geohistory of the French wine area (1808-2010) highlights, for the whole of the French territory, two cycles of growth and decline of vineyards. We can observe a period of wine transition (“transition vitivinicole”) during the second cycle, which is in fact divided into two phases : the first one represents the decline of wine surfaces, especially those producing wines of regular consumption. The second phase consists in the mix of two trends : the confirmed decrease of areas producing [...]

Traversées cinématographiques en Bordelais.

Fiction films and television series shot in the Bordeaux area are the corpus of study of this article. Their study provides a crossing of the urban area rooted in history. The tradition of shooting in Bordeaux is a player in the local economic dynamics. Through fiction, the geographer observes a recomposition of urban transects which highlights the identity elements of the city. These elements contribute to give the town its heritage and its roots in history, its bourgeois character [...]

Mobilités numériques. De l’usage à l’expérience utilisateur (UX) du monde.

Mobility issues do not only involve the act of moving nowadays. The concept itself evolves continuously thanks to technological and social innovations. The main stakes do not focus anymore on improving speed, but on enriching the experience of travelling, even in the case of short trips. One of the main factors that fosters this evolution is the progressive adoption of information and communication technologies that help to reshape the issues of contemporary cities. For example, the quality of travel [...]

Littérature et identité postcoloniales kanak : lire, écrire et agir avec Fanon (1969-1973).

In New Caledonia, the abrogation of the “Décret d’Indigénat” in 1946 marked the beginning of the politicization of the Kanak community. Some Kanak leaders, albeit briefly, joined the Communist Party in 1947. However, the effects of this politicization only started to become visible once the first generation of Kanak students came to France in order to complete their studies at French universities. The main objective of this article is to analyze how Frantz Fanon’s thoughts influenced early Kanak emancipatory [...]

Les musiques urbaines, ou la subversion des codes esthétiques occidentaux.

The purpose of the present contribution is to provide a way of thinking the wide category of urban musics (including hip-hop, slam, electro and improvised music). Several ethnographic observations have lead the author to the idea that the musical practices and inherent speeches are used by the artists to subvert western aesthetic codes by deconstructing several structural oppositions (such as scholar/popular, imitation/creation, singing/talking...). Moreover, the groups that are socially dominated use these musical technics as a tool for affirming [...]

Traverser les paysages : le plateau de l’Aubrac sur les chemins de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle.

The crossing of the Aubrac plateau is very much appreciated by all hikers/pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela. This paper uses a collection of pictures as scientific material to study the landscape on offer along this route. Landscapes are described and then compared in order to identify the specificities of the crossing of the Aubrac and beyond and, more generally, to understand how cultural routes transcend landscapes and vice versa. In this original spatial experience, various walking rhythms are [...]

Pour une ethnographie pragmatique du politique.

Berger, Mathieu, Daniel Cefaï et Carole Gayet-Viaud (dirs.). 2011. Du civil au politique. Ethnographies du vivre-ensemble. Bruxelles : Peter Lang, coll. « Action publique ».

This article analyzes the different ways of conducting ethnographic investigations that are proposed in the book Du civil au politique. Ethnographies du vivre-ensemble by Mathieu Berger, Daniel Cefaï and Carole Gayet-Viaud. Firstly, it examines the authors’ choices : the ethnographic method as well as the relationship between political and civil activities can be found in each article. Secondly, it discusses the commitments and central propositions of the book. It shows how the authors reconcile a pragmatic perspective with an [...]