Écrire au pouvoir pour participer au gouvernement des ressources. L’usage des mémoires dans la controverse sur le chalut (Normandie, premier XIXe siècle)

Abstract

The conflict about trawling, which started during the French Restauration between Chambers of Commerce from different fishing harbours in Normandy, is an ideal field to study both practical and legal uses of petitions. Pros and cons of this way of fishing – considered for a long time as harmful to sea resources – are indeed fighting through formal applications aimed at authorities. Those applications are opportunities for debates on norms and are meant to have an influence on fishing regulation: pros assert that not only isn’t trawling harmful but is also useful, whereas cons state that trawling destroys sea resources and hence endangers the trade itself as its workers. The justifications made by the application’s authors are based on their direct and concrete experience of the fishing world. In return, this experience is being used as the cornerstone of their own legitimacy and as a licence to write down their opinions the way experts do.

Keywords

• conflict
• justification
• regulations
• common resources
• trawling
• Normandy