Ce que la géographie fait au(x) monde(s)

• Main Author: Michel Lussault
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: ENS Éditions 2010-11-01
• Series: Tracés
• Subjects: geography; geologistics; space; spatial operators; spatiality; usefulness
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/traces/4854

The question “What’s the use of geography” should be reformulated in order to gain relevance. Rather than raising the question of geography’s usefulness, we should ask what purposes it serves and who it serves. This approach enables us to study what geography does when serving different social operators : how can this corpus of knowledge and skills that we call geography, when used by certain agents, build social realities ? This paper is an invitation to explore the spatial dimension of societies : space is no longer seen as the only basis for action, but as a role-playing agent in itself. Space’s role is considered in localized situations (ranging from good manners manuals, rules about how to use mobile phones in trains to the management of epidemics), which make this spatial dimension come into play.