Le territoire : un dispositif opératoire révélé par l’activité de travail

Abstract

Work activity analysis allows us to rethink the status of territory in our research. It is not only the “ground” on which the history of work activities and their protagonists is daily woven: we consider territory to also be a result of the work activity; it is acted upon and reconstructed on a daily basis - the activity plays a role in the processes of territorialization. This perspective justifies the presence of work activity in debates on the collective life and public action options relating to territorial planning. We therefore question the modes of public participation and demand that working citizens be more closely involved. But how should we proceed? What are the signs capable of demonstrating how work activity contributes to territorialization processes? These questions emerged in the context of a research program - and we underpin them in this paper by revisiting a study carried out on the road passenger transport sector in a rural area. The analysis of territory, as we conceive it, is thus enhanced by considering the point of view of the activity and by the debates that emerge from it. The territory thus revealed by the activity is above all what its protagonists make of it, over the course of a process of transformation that all too often lacks visibility; it gradually takes place through a number of silent repetitions, until it finally becomes a collective resource.

Keywords

• road passenger transport sector in a rural area
• redesign of a transport network
• territorialization processes
• macro-micro relations
• indicators and markers