Xavier Bernier est professeur des universités en géographie à Sorbonne Université Paris, où il dirige le laboratoire Médiations-Sciences des lieux, sciences des liens (Unité de Recherche de S.U.). Il est également membre du rhizome Chôros. Il étudie les sociétés au prisme de leurs mobilités et de leurs différentes façons de traverser l’espace. Ses travaux sur la notion de traverser le conduisent à interroger ce défi social à travers les figures spatiales qui lui sont associées.
This work is an exercise in style that is new on a formal level because it is entirely done in "Twitter writing", in the form of alternating exchanges of 280 signs. It is also a reflexive work and a research on the figure of the passenger in the space of societies. It is emblematic of the contemporary world and allows us to question the passage as a fundamental motif of human spatiality. [...]
Is there a ‘sextinction’ in progress? The recent observation that sexual practices are experiencing a reduction among the younger generation deserves a close scrutiny. Paradoxically, the liberation from constraints and taboos that had impacted sexuality has eventually made possible its relativization with regard to other activities. As a language, ethic, and culture, sex is being reinvented within the moving picture of social life. [...]
Inhabiting happily in the World: the idea has often been associated with mobility. By restricting them, the current coronavirus pandemic crossed with old texts, invites us to ask the question again... [...]
Une affiche dans le métro. Elle fait la publicité pour des psychologues venant au domicile des patients. Mais elle interroge aussi la nature de la relation entre les lieux et les habitants à travers les mots qui en résultent. Ce faisant, elle implique l’une des questions essentielles de l’habiter. Habite-t-on d’abord une langue ou des lieux ? [...]
Different kinds of conquest are more and more about circumterrestrial and interplanetary space. It concerns directly the meaning of the World and the place of humanity. What does it really mean to live outside the Earth ? Based on the recent spectacular promotional events of Elon Musk’s societies, this paper aims to give a social point of view. [...]
The ordinary people’s daily life is full of adventures and misadventures, but less and less of tragedies. This is the consequence of the growing density of the interactions they perform with their fellow humans, which protect them from disasters and even boost them towards happy endings. This emergence might be a typical feature of the contemporary world. [...]
Seen through the experience of a couple on their honeymoon, the bankruptcy of the Thomas Cook company is structurally revealed as the all too successful success of a project aimed at training residents in tourism. Tom and Amelia are trapped in this situation. But this is without taking into account their ability to turn an unfavourable situation around and give it a successful outcome... [...]
Seasons are commonly presented as meteorological cycles deriving from climatic phenomena. They rather are conventional divisions of time and are part of the ritualization of social life’s repetitive components. As a result, when the presence or the absence of "natural" seasons and their supposed qualities or flaws are simplistically invoked, vigilance might be required. However, societies constantly strove to bypass cyclic weather constraints. Contradictions between official seasons and climatic practices actually paved the way for worthy-of-attention imaginaries and aesthetics. [...]
Selfying is nowadays a massive and worldwide practice. Recently, certain types of schizophrenic selfies have increased, especially on social media. Pictures of oneself may be transformed, by image distortion but also by several concealment techniques. What are the real stakes of these developments in the space of societies ? [...]
A practice almost as old as humanity itself, the technique of tattooing, an injection of ink under the skin, continues to be interpreted and reinterpreted, according to the times and societies. The contemporary period does not escape the phenomenon and, faced with the multiplication of these forms of writing that take the body as a page, invites reflection and questioning : what meanings, for tattooed people as well as for those who look at them ? [...]
