Group WP4M "Methods"

Serge ORMAUX (ThéMA UFC-CNRS) with contributions of : J.P. Antoni, M.H. de Sède, J.C. Foltête, D. Joly, A. Moine, K. Ostir, C. Tannier, F.P. Tourneux,

Objectives of the group

The group is studying the quantitative methods and generic tools that are used by the researchers in social sciences to study territories.

-Firstly, we worked on two kinds of methods: the analysis methods (data treatment) and the simulation methods (spatial simulation).-Then, we worked on the information management, thanks to a GIS. -During the third step of our research action, we worked on a meta-method : the observation of territories, which is based on quantitative and computing methods, but which also implies specific constructions.

Specific results: about the territories observation-There can not be observation without actors, it refers to time and, in the specific framework of geography, it locates space in the concerns centre. -Observation can be defined as the glance on an item during a certain pace of time, a set of elements that interact.

The observation integrates the time and irreversibility notions ;

consequently the issue consists in observation during some time phenomena that are characterized by their ongoing character.

The system is described by a set of indicators that are shared by a community. This replaces the observation tools in the heart of the actors systems that are in tension, within a given territory, that is to say in the governance heart.

The indicators belong to different logics, which describe either the system state (diagnosis), or the impact of settlement policies (assessment), or the system possible evolutions (prospective).

Lastly, observation implies double information sharing, upstream so as to feed the observatory, and downstream so as to exploit it in a rational way.

Specific prospects

Two new methodological fields will be addressed in the next months, the data interpolation and the interactive cartography.

1: interpolation at the territorial intelligence service -In the field of territorial intelligence, the information that is available to made maps and spatial models often concern administrative units. -The cartography of such data does not pose any problem as it results from the crossing between statistical tables and vectorial images that archive the limits of the filled-in spatial units.

In other fields, it is not the case. In the environment field in particular, the information is only available in few measurement points (meteorological stations, contaminants measurement stations) that are far the ones from the others.

-The cartographic representation mode is the only valuable one; it consists in superimposing the measurements result on the precise place where they were registered.

-Nevertheless, with this kind of representations, we do not have any information on what is happening between the observation points.

Consequently, interpolation will try to make the spatial area restitution, what creates important difficulties.

2 : The interactive cartography

The cartography is a discipline that evolves simultaneously with the sciences it uses.

Nevertheless, some obstacles remained: the scale determination, the information selection, the visualisation from a particular point of view are choices that have to be made by the cartographer and that make a map a fixed ad hoc document.

Presently, the computer-science and the recent technologies offer new possibilities. They are mainly based on the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and on the experience of the Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) or of the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA).

Here, the choices do not devolve to the cartographer, that is to say the map designer ; they can be made by the map reader, the one who thinks about the geographic space he studies, and who constructs the map he needs as his research hypotheses become more precise and are confirmed.

The main characteristics of this cartography, which is necessarily multi-media and interactive, and the possibilities they offer can be presently broadly valorised in the collaborative and pluri-disciplinary studies that are linked to territorial intelligence, as a tool to help thinking and then making a decision.

WP4T

Territory and process of territorialization

INITIAL OBJECTIVES

WP4Thad at first two main objectives :

- To elaborate an CAENTI internal interdisciplinary definition of territory

- To elaborate an international state of art about territory

WP4 TERRITORY

FIRST SCIENTIFIC RESULTS

CAENTI INTERNAL STATE OF ART ABOUT TERRITORY (Aix-en-Provence > Alba Iulia)

- Territory is a human and social « construction »- Territory is an « appropried » space - Territory includes not obligatory only adjacent spaces- Territory is structured by social networks- Territory is a whole of resources- Territory comes from past (heritage) and looks for future

(project)- Territory knows tensions between « local » and « global »- Territory can generate multiple memberships- Territory can produce effects (« effects of territory »)

INTERDISCIPLINARY DEFINITION OF TERRITORY (Aix-en-Provence > Alba Iulia)

There is not territory, included immaterial territory, without collective projection of their actors on to a commun structuring future, which generate identitary and symbolic (CHAMPOLLION & PIPONNIER, 2005)

MAIN CURRENT QUESTIONS(Alba Iulia > Salerno)- From when, i.e. from what type of

organization and from what level of organization, a natural or human space becomes a territory, ie from when the process of site specification is developing?

- What kinds of connections can be developed between territories and countries, regional entirety as European Union and world all together?

FIRST OPERATIVE DEFINITION OF TERRITORY(from Liège)It seems necessary today to include in the

definition of the concept the next elements :

- Place and function of « local actors »- Function of social networks and connections- Impact of anterior history about present and

future territory- Slowness of territorialization’s process (« co-

construction »)

INTERNATIONAL STATE OF ART ABOUT TERRITORY(Salerno > Huelva) State of art « stricto sensu »

Inventory and location of the main laboratories which are working about territory in Europe

International bibliography (see deliverables)

1/ Geography and sociology

Systemic approaches and diagnostic evaluations

2/ ICS and science of education

Communication networks and publics policies of education

All subjects

+ de 200

- de 4

Laboratories working about territory

Number of laboratories

LABORATORIES

Most of laboratories which are working about territory are in the big european countries laboratories of geography and of sociology : in France there are in this case 59 geographic laboratories and 67 sociological laboratories against 41 in science of education and 45 in ICS

PERSPECTIVE AND PLANNING(after Salerno)

From when, i.e. from what type of organization and from what level of organization, a natural or human space becomes a territory, ie from when the process of site specification is developing?

- What kinds of connections can be developed between territories and countries, regional entirety as European Union and world all together?

NEXT DELIVERABLES

- International state of art about territory (ready)

- Listing of European research laboratories working about territory (ready)

- International and multidisciplinary bibliography about territory (ready)

- « Operative » definition of territory

INVITATION

COLLOQUE INTERNATIONALDIGNE / France

29 et 30 novembre 2007

EDUCATION ET TERRITOIRES

http://www.grenoble.iufm.fr/rural/