Quand la biogéographie métagénomique reconfigure les spatialités.

Metagenomics, also termed environmental genomics, is a recently developed technique aiming at the global characterization of the ensemble of DNAs present at a given site. As such, it gradually establishes itself as a novel form of spatial metrology and as a quantitative and qualitative measure of the DNA content of a portion of space (taken in turn as an indicator of the community of human and non-human life forms present at the sampled site). It is currently being applied [...]

La lutte pour l’instauration de nouvelles normes corporelles.

Le cas des mouvements naturistes en France (du 19e siècle aux années 30).

Naturism is based on the practice of collective nudity. That’s why it has long appeared to be part of a deviance, of an abnormality. In the 19th century, as in the beginning of the 20th century, the pioneers of naturism are aware of transgressing social norms, with the judicial risks involved. From these remarks, we will examine, from an historical perspective, the factors that determined the emergence of these bodily practices deemed deviant, but also their diffusion and their [...]

Le rythme urbain : un outil de réflexion sur la reconfiguration de la morphologie de l’espace.

In recent years, the study of rhythm and its possible impacts on the urban environment has become important. Today more than ever, the study of rhythm in a city has a transversal approach and enters in to several social science disciplines. As a result, the article has a transdisciplinary approach and seeks to question the relationships between urban rhythm and the morphology of space, in order to contribute to the reflection of the specialists who are interested in it. [...]

Les pratiques touristiques : transgression normalisée ou norme transgressive ?

By examining the Baltic coastline of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a culturally and spatially highly standardized tourist area, this paper aims at analysing the relationship between norms and tourism practices. Spatial planning, like boundaries between nudist and non-nudist beaches, or those tolerating pets, demonstrates the public stakeholders’ intention to regulate tourism practices, which therefore proves the political dimension of norm. If German tourists are aware of these spatial norms, the latter appear more formal than efficient. Indeed, tourism practices tend to [...]

Tourisme gay et normativités sexuelles.

Berlin, destination hors normes ?

This paper aims at understanding the mechanisms behind Berlin’s attractiveness for gay tourists. With a focus on urban events and their representations, the article investigates the role taken by sexual normativities in the shaping of a tourist destination. The city positions itself not only as beyond heteronormativity, especially as it is considered a gay homeland, but also as beyond other normativities which marginalize some sexual practices, like the one linked to leather and fetish culture, for example. This paper [...]

Le concept de rythme au coeur d’un tournant esthétique de la pensée et des politiques de la ville.

In many respects, the city's policies and practices are now experiencing what could be called an "aesthetic shift". Most of the time, this turning point is the subject of analyses focused on one or other of its components, such as the rise of the creative city's standards or attractiveness, but without their aesthetic significance, in the full sense of the term, which refers to aesthesis, to sensitivity. By focusing on the concept of rhythm, which is also gaining momentum [...]

Les rythmes indisciplinés.

This article encourages us to reflect on the existence of undisciplined rhythms, that is to say the personal manners to flow that come into tension with the tone of a given situation and induce a recomposition of the collective rhythm. This article questions the different devices of the urban design that enforce a rhythm and allow to "set the rhythm" of mobility and experience or, on the contrary, provide affordances to the performing of alternative rhythms. In the first [...]

Les techniques du corps, des compétences pour faire avec de l’espace.

This paper offers a discussion about the integration of the « techniques of the body » within a geography of action. The main idea is to define « skills » as the mastery of body techniques. We argue that this mastery gives individuals a capacity of adaptation to cope with space they do not know yet. More precisely, the article discusses the relevance of Marcel Mauss’ proposition, especially in the light of the reading established by Tim Ingold. This [...]

Économie des rythmes urbains.

The economics of urban rhythms tell us that cities are characterized by a double scarcity, that of time for individuals, that of space for the community. The former, because of the increase of their income, seek to intensify their activity programs. For this they develop their mobility at the risk of causing traffic congestion. Public policies are therefore in charge of managing the scarcity of space, so that individual mobility is part of a collective process of production. But [...]

Corps et spatialités.

Les spatialités en questions.

The body is an "object" whose status is problematic since at least Antiquity in the "Western tradition". First approached by philosophers, whose representations are historically differentiated, it was then invested by other human and social sciences, which have remained most often silent on the relationship between body and spatiality. The geographers, for their part, have kept away from this "object", but the question of the body has become an epistemological issue, especially for those who have invested the concept [...]