Territoire en Mouvement (Jul 2021)
Appropriation de l’espace à Sarlat et Dinan. Prendre, défendre ou laisser sa place dans de petites villes touristiques et patrimoniales
Abstract
This article aims to address the issue of appropriation of space in small tourist-historic cities. The arrival, in the summer season, of individuals coming to live temporarily in these places (tourists, seasonal workers, street artists, etc.), leads inevitably to a situation of more or less increased competition for the appropriation of space. Our work relies on fieldwork conducted in two small cities where tourism is partly based on enhancement of built heritage: Dinan in Côtes-d'Armor and Sarlat in Dordogne. Observation sessions were carried out there, as well as semi-structured interviews conducted with permanent and temporary inhabitants, but also with actors involved in heritage enhancement and tourism development of these cities. On the one hand, the article highlights the practices of tourists in Sarlat and Dinan and the ways in which they own them, among other things through the prism of a significant “presence marking”. On the other hand, it points out the different (re)actions of other inhabitants, whom we call "non-tourists". In doing so, it reflects a sharing of space that engages various forms of appropriation, but also “disappropriation” and “counter-appropriation”. Questioning the forms of appropriation of space inevitably returns to the question of the place of inhabitants in these two cities: the place that each one wants to take, the one that other individuals agree to leave him, the negotiation that takes place, as well as the way in which this place can be defended and legitimized by the one who claims it.
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