Esquisse d’une théorie humaniste du lieu

Abstract

How can one explain that a thing or a person is there and not elsewhere? Through History, this problem hasaroused many debates in geography. Recently, Augustin Berque has renewed this questioning, relying in parton Plato's Timaeus. Posing, like Plato, that everything on Earth is a body occupying a place, he has pointedout the difference between the chora and the topos. In his opinion, the chora is, at once, the state of the bodiesthat a place has generated, the set that the connection of these bodies constitutes, and the vector of theirbecoming, while the topos is only a geometrical element, a point or a figure that geodesic measurements aresufficient to establish. Even though the concept of chora is useful for understanding the natural determinantsof geographical conditions, it does not explain what in geography is fundamentally human. To remedy this,we sketch a theory of place taking into account the political foundation of humanity, a pillar on which manyhuman specificities are built, especially Law and Justice. It means considering the polis as an institution, initself different from the natural determinants of human settlements. This institution, which is responsible forthe identity and freedom of human beings, is the first condition of all forms of human self-determination.Without it, the possibility of succeeding in being human does not exist. Nor does the possibility of failing tobe human. Because the polis, though potentially liberating, is also generating its own determination. Thus,its potentialities are matched only by the constraints it generates. In short, human self-determination is notindeterminacy. This is why we envisage a theory of place focusing on the political determination of thehuman being in order to recognize the modulation of the potentialities and the constraints that structure it. Inour view, this modulation is related to the topological codetermination of the movements of social actorswhich defines, at the scale of the region, a geographical structure in equilibrium or in transition. In otherwords, each region as a structure specifically configured by the orientation and the regulation of themovements of social actors. With regard to the orientation, these movements are of four types: entry, exit,non-entry, non-exit. In terms of regulation, they are divided into two categories: either the movement isexoregulated, when the codetermination induces a constraint to movement; either it is endoregulated, whenthe codetermination facilitates it. It results from the crossing of the categories of orientation and those of theregulation eight types of movements: gathering (endoregulated entry), escape (endoregulated exit), avoidance(endoregulated non-entry), station (endoregulated non-exit), concentration (exoregulated entry), expulsion(exoregulated exit), repelling (exoregulated non-entry), and confinement (non-exoregulated exit). Thuslycombined, movements produce in each region a geographical dynamic that holds, apart from naturaldeterminants, a fundamental role in the experience of being human on Earth.