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Landscapes and terroirs

Paysages et terroirs

Paisajes y Terroirs

Territorial key issues, games of actors, interdisciplinarity

Enjeux territoriaux, jeux d’acteurs et interdisciplinarité

aspectos territoriales, juegos de actores e interdisciplinariedad

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Published on mercredi, novembre 14, 2012

Summary

Within the framework of a conference planned in Aix-en-Provence from May 14th to May 16th 2013, we propose an organized reflection around notions of landscapes and terroirs. We expect a very wide range of contributions as well from the point of view of our disciplinary subject geography as from sociology, going through city planning, economy, history, agronomy, and ecology of landscapes, as well as from the point of view of territories from the most urbanized areas to forest or mountain areas.

Announcement

Landscapes and terroirs: Territorial key issues, games of actors, interdisciplinarity

Argument

Within the framework of a conference planned in Aix-en-Provence from May 14th to May 16th 2013, we propose an organized reflection around notions of landscapes and terroirs. We expect a very wide range of contributions as well from the point of view of our disciplinary subject geography as from sociology, going through city planning, economy, history, agronomy, and ecology of landscapes, as well as from the point of view of territories from the most urbanized areas to forest or mountain areas.

The notions of landscape and terroir have both of them been for decades the key elements of the geographers’ tool box. During the first part of the twentieth century, rural geography tried its best to define different types of agrarian landscapes, the origin of the shapes of fields, the nature of terroirs according to their soils, to their orientation and to the slope.

Landscapes and terroirs have been important landmarks when analyzing land structures undergoing major changes. Then during the two last decades of the twentieth century, the complexity of the relationship between town and country and the appearance of questioning about environment and sustainability of territories put landscapes and terroirs at the heart of concerns for scientists from different horizons. Then landscapes and terroirs became complicated concepts differently defined according to subjects. The eco-physiologists’ terroir or the agro-pedologists one isn’t the lawyers’ one or the one of heritage specialists. A landscaped approach considered by city planners or the philosophers is very different from biogeographers or geomorphologists’ one. This semantic richness can be expressed in very different scientific practices, but this polysemy is far from being an obstacle to the spreading of studies on terroirs and landscapes.

  • As part of their planning and development policies, civil society and territorial authorities got hold of landscapes (law on landscapes as part of European laws in 2000, landscaped charters) and terroirs (development of appellations of origin and promotion of agricultural labels of quality).
  • The scientific community answered to this semantic complexity of terroirs and landscapes with theoretical analyses including the polysemy of the two concepts and with interdisciplinary research programmes. The challenge is not to discipline the scientific vocabulary at the risk of making it ineffective but to create links between searchers to approach issues that one subject alone wouldn’t be able to solve, as for example environmental problems or sustainability of territories.

If landscapes and terroirs specially mobilize searchers it’s because they are at the very heart of big challenges for the future of territories. For about thirty years landscapes and terroirs have been very much solicited to understand the dynamics of suburban spaces, these in between territories. They threw lights on housing problems, on food supplies, on the quality of the environment, and on the multifunctionality of agriculture. More recently some searchers focused on the last agricultural productive spaces left within built-up areas. They analyzed the part left to agricultural spaces in the urban plan and the appearance of alternative forms of agricultural production. From now on, when town planners want to favor ecological continuities as being part of new environmental policies, a field is treated with the same consideration as Public Park.

In the context of the framework of this conference, we wish to extend this questioning, without focusing on the rural or metropolitan nature of the studied spaces. Promoting the entry through landscapes and terroirs we wish to bring searchers to wonder about the connection of scales of analysis, from the parcel to a landscaped unit, from the cultivated field to the delimitation of an appellation, from an agri-tourist scheme to a landscaped policy on the level of a community in a built-up area on a Region or State level. This multiscalar logic is also an opportunity to ask questions about the use of new tools of analysis. How do searchers integrate cartographic databases, land registers, land use maps, graphical register of the plots of land? From now on, it’s possible with these new sources to work on a more subtle scale on the parcel, without limitation, to the study of a few farms or to a small member of village limits, as it was in the past. What are the consequences for Research? To be able to answer these questions linking landscape and terroir, we propose four main lines of work: exhaustiveness is not our purpose; our point is rather to emphasize a few sets of problems.

Focus 1: Land property issues and conflicts of actors

Landscapes and terroirs are often mobilized in antagonistic relationships between space users. The installation of collective facilities having an important impact on landscapes, or a transport infrastructure consuming agricultural land, can both provoke a conflict between local elected authorities and State agents. Locally the balance of power has been changing, on the one hand farming people become progressively marginalized from a demographic and political point of view- on the other hand the generalization of hobbies and of outdoors activities developed new practices (trekking, mountain-bike riding, horse trekking…) which sometimes are hardly compatible with agriculture productive activities or traditional practices as shooting or hunting.

What sort of conflicts mobilized landscapes and terroirs? What part must we allow to divergent analyses on the practicalities of spaces (productive, environmental, and recreational)? What is the part of collective logics and of individual strategies in the game of actors? Is the question of habitability of territories at the heart of problems? In metropolitan areas the preservation of agricultural activities happens to be problematic in front of the pressure of urbanization. Are specific procedures of protection as the ZAP (Protected Agricultural zones) really efficient? Are new adapted tools conceivable when there’s a high pressure concerning land-property? How does local governance work in front of such a tension linked to the big issues of land-property?

At the same time, urban societies are in search of a local agriculture, the result is the appearance of associations like AMAP, and at the same time people realize how important agriculture is in urban plans. What sort of plans appear in the field of a agriculture and town planning? Are they likely to change the nature of relationships between town and country?

Focus 2. North-South transfer of approaches concerning Terroir, Patrimony and Landscape

New public policies dedicated to the development of “difficult” hinterland, “marginal” zones, mountains, oasis, etc…) have been put into action for several years in numerous regions in the world, especially on the Mediterranean shores (pillar II of the PAC, Pillar II of the “Green Morocco plan”). These territorial policies are based on the economic development of “local specialties” in the framework of international or regional plans for local and sustainable development. They favor notions of terroir, patrimony and landscape, relying on an increasing demand, at international and national level, for typical products or products with a great potential of ethic values (Fair Trade) and ecological ones (organic labels, etc…). They also rely on green tourism and eco-tourism. The issue is to mobilize specific territorial resources which can be increased in value on different markets in the context of open competition between territories and standardization of products. For this reason the links to the place of origin, to history, to identity but also to quality and innovation appear as the essential driving forces behind the competitiveness of territories.

Can a concept developed in a particular socio-historical and political context be used by some categories of actors for their own purposes? Does it become a catalyst or an obstacle to a collective and efficient action for a particular territory? Have those conceptual transfers an impact on policies, on development schemes presented by NGOs, and on rural societies themselves? Does the rhetoric of speeches around concepts make sense for the different actors involved in the field?

Focus 3: Sensitive approaches and management of landscapes and terroirs

The first studies on landscaped representations appeared several decades ago. What can we think of what was achieved? Can we speak of an excess of the perceptive in some studies made in social sciences, and more particularly in rural areas? On the contrary must we consider it’s a major scientific knowledge applied to landscapes. The development of procedures of patrimonialization and a requalification of landscapes is one of the consequences of the interest for some exceptional landscapes. What about landscapes which aren’t “looked at” in some parts of the world?

Some great emblematic agrarian landscapes have long been used for marketing purposes by institutional and agricultural actors. However, are the representations which are built around the products of terroirs and typical landscapes always compatible with the modernization of agricultural practices and agrarian structures? The management of agricultural productions under sign of quality resulted in landscaped charters. Are all terroirs suitable for such operations? What other forms of economic development of landscapes can we observe on the ground? What participation of agricultural actors can we expect? What constraints? Has the development of regulations in favor of landscapes and environment impact on rural territories? Are the policies in favor of green belts, corridors, ecological continuity compatible with the management of terroirs?

Focus 4: Changes in landscapes and in the building of terroirs in the long run

The agricultural revolution in the territories either precocious or late often erased the diversity of landscapes and the complementarities of terroirs on a town or village area. The movement of populations from rural areas cleared out the country of laborers who maintained terrace cultivation, drystone walls, and quickset hedges. The changes in structures of production led to restructuring parcels and to desert the terroirs which couldn’t be exploited with machines, to the redevelopment of forests on steep slopes, and led fallow land to multiply.

It follows a sort of homogenization of landscapes and even sometimes a real trivialization. Can we review all the changes in landscapes in the long run? What are the mechanisms at work when there is a disruption between a landscape and a productive system? At the same time the rapid growth of agricultural productions under the sign of quality and more particularly the development of PDO, (Protected Designation of Origin), a process which can spread over several decades: achievement of awareness, adaptation to local know-how, to modernity is the maintenance of traditional habits of production in specifications a factor which favors the maintenance of a landscaped diversity? Can the increase of value of agricultural products under the sign of quality (PDO, organic, Fair Trade) maintain exceptional agricultural landscapes which haven’t yet been subjected to the modernization of structures of production?

Suggestions apart from the four proposed lines of work

The scientific board will take in consideration all proposals of communications which don’t come under the four main themes proposed but which answers to the general set of problems raised by the conference: methodological approaches concerning the landscape and terroirs in an interdisciplinary framework. Reflection about the connection of scales, finalized studies at a fine scale mobilizing databases and SIG; approach of graphic modeling or simulation of modeling in the more specific field of spatial analysis.

Submissions

The proposals of communications mustn’t exceed 4000 characters, spaces included. Admitted languages: English, Spanish, and French. They will have to be sent to the following address: paul.minvielle@univ-amu.fr

before January 30th 2013


Date(s)

  • mercredi, janvier 30, 2013

Keywords

  • paysages, terroirs, urbanisme, aménagement, géographie rurale, développement

Contact(s)

  • Paul Minvielle
    courriel : paul [dot] minvielle [at] univ-provence [dot] fr

Information source

  • Paul Minvielle
    courriel : paul [dot] minvielle [at] univ-provence [dot] fr

To cite this announcement

« Landscapes and terroirs », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on mercredi, novembre 14, 2012, https://calenda-formation.labocleo.org/227179

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