Vincent Berdoulay

Eco-Frontier and Place-Making: The Unexpected Transformation of a Sustainable Settlement Project in the Amazon

An important issue today is the compatibility of agricultural frontiers, which are driven by economic objectives, with conservationist views. In the Amazon, family farmers are concerned with this issue since they are at the same time actors of the agricultural frontier and considered as potential actors of the preservation of the forest. Through the study of a highly symbolic settlement project in the State of Pará, this paper focuses on the role that family farmers can play in meeting sustainability goals. The central argument which is developed in this paper is that this objective may be achieved when projects do not presuppose social and spatial relationships; rather, it advocates an approach which is attentive to place-making processes.

Geography in France: Context, Practice, and Text

From eulogy in the history of geographical thought to partial oblivion in subdisciplinary assessments, a wide range of opinion has characterized international scholarly opinion on French geography. Obviously, contrasting views have also existed, and still exist, within France, including those held by geographers themselves. Laudatory, critical, or biased opinions, as well as scientific debates, have to be understood in relation to the necessity for this geography to get recognition in the national and international market of ideas. For achieving this status, it depends upon institutional support, which has largely been dependent on national context. It should be noticed, however, that this context is not something given that more or less determines the evolution of geographical thought. Of course, the context has a conditioning role, but it also results itself from the initiatives taken by geographers. In addition, detailed historical research easily demonstrates that geographers usually do not form a community—i. e., a unified group that is able to act collectively. The dominant situation is a competitive one, each group taking inspiration and support from non-geographers. Thus, the circulation and elaboration of ideas is best understood by focusing on “circles of affinity” that largely cut across disciplinary boundaries (Berdoulay 1995). They are part of the process of institutionalization, as they help to clarify the differential success achieved by various ways of geographical thought and practice. Most of all, they are the major mediations between text and context. Because of their relative stability, academic institutions, as well as teaching, research, and fieldwork practices, also play a significant mediating role. Less noticed, but equally important, discursive genres and rhetorical practices can bring an even longer stability in the mediation between text and context (Berdoulay 1988).

La irrupción de la geografía urbana en la génesis del urbanismo

RESUMEN El libro L’ecologie urbaine et l’urbanisme. Aux fondements des enjeux actuels reflexiona sobre la genesis del urbanismo y las soluciones que en su momento propuso, y expone una disfuncion entre las demandas cada vez mas urgentes y la falta de respuestas del urbanismo clasico, cuya cultura planificadora parece agotada. El objeto del libro es comprender las razones de esa incapacidad, y postular que se necesita mas atencion al lugar, al medio, al ambiente. RESUME L’irruption de la geographie urbaine dans la genese de l’urbanisme .- L’oeuvre L’ecologie urbaine et l’urbanisme. Aux fondements des enjeux actuels fait une reflexion sur la genese de l’urbanisme et les solutions qui ont ete alors proposees. On expose la dysfonction entre les demandes de plus en plus urgentes et la faute de reponses de la part de l’urbanisme classique, dont la culture versee a la planification s’avere epuisee. L’objet de l’oeuvre est la comprehension de cette incapacite, en opposant une attention plus aigue aux lieux, au milieu, a l’environnement. ABSTRACT The Urban Geography and the Genesis of Urbanism .- The work L’ecologie urbaine et l’urbanisme. Aux fondements des enjeux actuels considers the genesis of urbanism and the solutions which have been then proposed, underlining the malfunction of classic urbanism, since wile demands become more urgent, the less answers it proposes, in so far as its planning culture seems exhaust. The work aims to understand this inability, putting up a raised attention to places and environments. Palabras clave/Mots cle/Keywords Geografia urbana, urbanismo. Geographie urbaine, urbanisme. Urban Geography, Urbanism.