Toward microgeography?
Type: Virtual Paper
Day: 2/27/2022
Start Time: 8:00 AM
End Time: 9:20 AM
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Organizer(s):
Arthur OLDRA
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Chairs(s):
Arthur OLDRA, University of Lausanne (Institut of Geography and Sustainability)
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Description:
The notion of "microgeography" is more and more present in academic works and scientific articles in geography, but also in the other social sciences related to the discipline (philosophy, urbanism, architecture in particular). Sometimes presented as a terminological innovation, the contours that the use of this term covers remain most often vague. Most of the time, the term is used in the course of a sentence without being defined, as if it were self-evident because of what it would represent by its "nature": micro (the small) and geography (the space and its potential description). It also happens that the term is used as a synonym for other terms, notably when microgeography refers to the size of the space addressed, according to the usual concepts of researchers: place or local becomes micro-location or micro-local, territory becomes micro-territory, space becomes micro-space, etc.
In France, directly or indirectly, a few geographers has been interested in the meanings given to the term "microgeography" (Berthomière W., 2012 ; Guyonnard V., 2017 ; Petit E., 2012 ; Przybyl S., 2016). A brief state of the art has been carried out and parallels with other disciplines have been suggested with microstoria (Ginzburg C., 1980 ; Ginzburg C., Poni C.P., 1981 ; Revel J., 1996), microsociology (Joseph I., 1998, 2003), micropsychology (Moles A., Rohmer E., 1996) and others (Grosjean S., 2013).
So far, a few perspectives have emerged to qualify the term (Berthomière W., Hoyaux A-F., Oldra A., Petit E., 2020). In the first place, microgeography could be a micro-dimension: a scientific way of understanding a category of spaces insofar as these spaces produce ways of being and doing of the individuals within them (Holt L., 2004). In second, it could be a multiscalar approach which takes into account restricted spaces in order to grasp the complexity of social arrangements and spatial arrangements, which can also be found in other dimensions up to the global level. In third, microgeography could try to explain multiple regimes of visiblity and invisiblity according to the points of view and especially the scale used by the researcher (Elwood S. A., Martin D. G., 2000) or the actors. There would be relevant scales to better observe certain things and that it would be useless to infer them in other levels of scales. And finally, in fourth, microgeography could be a study on human beings which puts on stage and in narrative the individual in his singularity, in his own appropriation of himself through the meaning that he gives to himself and to others. This last perspective, in the current of a phenomenology that focuses on perception, would try to get as close as possible to the actors and the meaning they give to their reality, that they constitute of their reality.
In the end, however, the entry through these different perspectives does not completely resolve the following questions. Is microgeography a concept? A dimension of reality (of micro-spaces)? A methodological approach around ways of observing (spatial practices and interactions) and interviewing? A way of interpreting reality at the level of a human being with the highlighting of singularity rather than pursuing the goal of representativeness? Or a paradigm (in the sense of the indexical paradigm of microstoria or the interactionist paradigm of microsociology), a way of thinking about space in small? In a post-COVID19 context (of social distancing, quarantine and isolation), we suggest taking advantage of the annual AAG meeting to review works about microgeography.
REFERENCES
Berthomière W., 2012, En-quête de signes : Migrations, Places et Continuité(s). Retour d’expérience à partir du cas israélien, Habilitation à diriger des recherches, Vol.1, Université de Poitiers, 134p.
Elwood S. A., Martin D. G., 2000, « “Placing” Interviews: Location and Scales of Power in Qualitative Research », The Professional Geographer, 52, 4, pp.649-657
Ginzburg C., 1980, « Signes, traces, pistes. Racines d’un paradigme de l’indice », Le Débat, 6, pp.3 44.
Ginzburg C., Poni C.P., 1981, « La micro-histoire », Le Débat, 17, pp.133-136.
Grosjean S., 2013, « Une approche microethnographique et multi-située en organisation. Double mouvement de “zoom avant/arrière” sur l’activité d’arpentage », Revue internationale de psychosociologie et de gestion des comportements organisationnels, 48, pp.155-177.
Guyonnard V., 2017, Dimensions cachées et attentes spatiales dans un espace de pratique de tourisme et de loisir. Une analyse géographique de la plage en Charente-Maritime (France), Université de La Rochelle, Thèse de Géographie, 395p.
Holt L., 2004, « Children with Mind–Body Differences: Performing Disability in Primary School Classrooms », Children’s Geographies, 2, 2, pp.219–236,
Hoyaux A-F., Oldra A., Petit E., 2020, « Micro(-)géographie : Approches, Méthodes, Echelles ? », Texte scientifique introductif aux ateliers de microgéographie, UMR 5319 Passages [online: https://microgeo.hypotheses.org/positionnement-scientifique/]
Joseph I., 1998, La ville sans qualités, La Tour d’Aigues, Éditions de l’Aube, 209p.
Joseph I., 2003, Erving Goffman et la microsociologie, Paris, PUF, coll. Philosophies, 126p.
Moles A., Rohmer E., 1996, « Le cursus scientifique d’Abraham Moles », Bulletin de Micropsychologie, 28-29
Petit E., 2012, Matérialisations du souvenir en montagne. Les enjeux identitaires des places et des placements, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Thèse de Géographie, 455p.
Przybyl S., 2016, Territoires de la migration, territoires de la protection. Parcours et expériences des mineurs isolés étrangers accueillis en France, Université de Poitiers, Thèse de Géographie, 501p.
Revel J., 1996, Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience, Paris, Seuil-Gallimard, 243p.
Presentation(s), if applicable
Arthur OLDRA, ; Do familiarity breeds contempt? About the researcher's distance as microgeographical specificity. |
Teriitutea QUESNOT, ; Mapping the Nature-Culture Continuum through the Non-Aristotelian Approach of Cartography |
Fanny Di Tursi, ; Civilian security exercises: a qualitative approach to analyse crisis management through map tools |
Catherine DIDIER-FÈVRE, ; Golden and confined youth: When preparatory school students tell their stories. |
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Toward microgeography?
Description
Virtual Paper
Contact the Primary Organizer
Arthur OLDRA - arthur.oldra@gmail.com