# Social Constructs of the Living Environment through Nature Sports Practice's Locations and Attitude of Public Authorities towards Peri-Urban Natures

Damien Féménias, Barbara Evrard, Olivier Sirost

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Damien Féménias, Barbara Evrard, Olivier Sirost. Social Constructs of the Living Environment through Nature Sports Practice's Locations and Attitude of Public Authorities towards Peri-Urban Natures. River Deltas Research - Further Recent Advances [Working Title], IntechOpen, 2025, 10.5772/intechopen.115460. [https://hal-04975085v1](https://hal.science/hal-04975085v1)

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# Social Constructs of the Living Environment through Nature Sports Practice's Locations and Attitude of Public Authorities towards Peri-Urban Natures

Damien Féménias, Barbara Evrard and Olivier Sirost

## Abstract

The aim of this research is to understand how the living environment is both constructed through nature sports practice's locations and attitude of public authorities towards peri-urban natures. The scale's observation is the Seine's estuary (1.5 million inhabitants), considered both as an ecosystem and as a system of cities. Results show that the logics of use refers to contrasting social roots, marks ecological inequalities and generates strong territorial appropriations and several typical experiences (secretly deviant, protester, submitted, established). Playgrounds or spots, far from always being consensual, are sometimes tolerated, sometimes obtained with great struggle, when they are not purely and simply poached. These experiences are social constructs as territorial mediations and can be explained by the relationships they maintain with the continuous process of development of the Seine estuary. Territories and the mediations they organize are both and just as much the product of uses as of public development policies. It is therefore necessary to examine both the points of view of the inhabitants and those of the technical or political personnel who represent and lead them. The synthetic re-presentation and discussion of results in the two stages of the discussion are formalized by two typologies that re-inscribe nature sports leisure in the territorial dynamics that shape them and that they structure in return.

**Keywords:** estuary of the Seine, nature, anthropization, nature sports, territorial mediations, public policies, sustainable development, ecosystem resources

## 1. Introduction

Deltas and estuaries are dynamic ecosystems, fluctuating and pressurized environments, which are home to a particular and varied biodiversity, in which the aquatic
element plays a central role. The context of the Seine's estuary illustrates the interactions between hydrological processes—the river flows generally come from the chalk aquifer—and human activities: (i) the quality of water resources is conditioned by human activities and (ii) land management requires knowledge of hydrological processes and the associated potential risks to property and people [1]. Inland water systems have long been used for fishing, water supply, agriculture, transport, energy production, industrial production, etc. The strategic importance of waterways has not escaped the attention of political leaders, who have placed them under the control (ownership, management, development) of the State [2, 3]. The developments have accumulated over the centuries and have strongly modified the morphology of the rivers, and therefore their functioning [4].

But waterways are also necessary for our mental and social balance. The modern condition develops a romantic vision of waterways, as well as a number of recreational activities (creative and playful) on and at the water's edge. Leisure activities have taken over the aquatic areas. People like to swim there and relax in front of the flowing water or the passing landscapes. Mills and dams became heritage objects that were restored and enhanced, and the towpaths were used for walking, running or cycling [5]. Nowadays, the entertainment of free time in metropolises owes a lot to the practice of sporting leisure activities. Anyone seeking to localize activities immediately notices the extent to which “green” spaces and bodies of water, whether urban or peri-urban, are taken into account attack, particularly on sunny days. The cultural revolution of free time [6] is thus part of a reinvention and an extension of the city: metropolitan residents, through their sporting leisure activities, bring out different sites, places and territories [7]. Having become mobile, they move the boundaries of the city [8].

The crowds that flock to the shores during the holiday periods testify to this attraction and encourage us to reflect on the need to take into account the role of social regulation played by waterways. However, the study and development of watercourses has mainly been the work of engineers concerned with managing physical water resources, including their excesses and shortages. Scientifically speaking, geologists and geographers were among the first to study waterways as morphologically structuring their valleys. Ecologists came late, because lakes were easier to study than rivers [4]. Sociologists are still few in number and have recently been looking into the social relations mediated by the “non-human” [9], even though the concerns inherent in sustainable development (as a horizon of meaning and as a form of governance) should make it one of the strong components of planning and reconquest policies.

Focused on the social and spatial distribution of sports leisure on the scale of a system of cities—the Seine's estuary, which is considered one of the most anthropized (developed, urbanized and industrialized) in Europe, this contribution studies the sporting uses of urban and peri-urban natural spaces, and seeks to understand how these activities contribute to the establishment of the living environment of urban populations. What are the territorial mediations at work, whose sports leisure are the crucible and which build the framework of contemporary urban life? This chapter re-inscribes sports leisure in the territorial dynamics that shape them and that they structure in return. This writing distinguishes spaces (spatial properties of practices and objects) and sites (delimited spaces) from territories, which “relate to a collective reading and meaning. [The territory] is at the same time more experienced, more extended and more extensive, less circumscribed, less limited and less closed, therefore more uncertain, but ultimately less imposed by institutions or by language than the place” [10]; the “indigenous” and historically recent terminology of “spot”
designates a delimited territory of practice(s) recognized as such by practitioners
(each practice thus has not only its reference “spots” or “high places” but also its
“secret spots”); the spot is part of a larger territory of practice, which is also called
a playground. These notions involve games of scale. But if the site is only a piece of
space, the question arises as to whether and in what forms the spot gives access (or
not) to a more global awareness of the territory(ies) in which it is located.

The first part of this chapter establishes the scale of observation and analysis, and presents the aim of the empirical investigations (methods and first results) on which the research is based. The Seine estuary is one of the most anthropized, that is to say, one of the most developed, the most urbanized, the most industrialized and the most polluted in Europe because it constitutes, between Paris and the sea, a coherent strategic axis on an economic level. The surveys [11–13] were sought to understand the experiences of the estuary that produce nature sports leisure activities, so as to provide an original and armed look at its social functions. The first part shows what activities the populations use in this space and how they deploy there. The first and main observation on the ground is that the estuary gives rise to a wide variety of activities, which generate authentic pleasures and strong territorial appropriations. It also quickly became apparent (second observation) that the estuary was a very vast space, very unevenly used and very discontinuous. Observations, interviews and documents reveal (third observation) several typical experiences (secretly deviant, protester, submitted, established) resulting from the development of the Seine estuary and which contribute to urban management. Finally, it appears that these experiences have to be questioned as territorialized and territorializing social constructions, that is to say, as territorial mediations.

Our hypothesis is that these experiences can be explained by the relationships
they maintain with the continuous process of development of the Seine estuary.
The second part of this chapter is a discussion, in order to understand how do
these experiences contribute to the territorial dynamics, and how the scales of the
inhabitants-practitioners and those of scientists and managers interfere. Territories
and the mediations they organize are both and just as much the product of uses as of
public development policies. To understand these products or “social constructs”, it is
therefore necessary to examine both the points of view of the inhabitants and those
of the technical or political personnel who represent and lead them. The synthetic
re-presentation of results in the two stages of the discussion is formalized by two
typologies (which distinguish “social worlds”, relationships to different realities and
not identities “in themselves” [14]).

Using typologies in comprehensive sociology is already a way of interpreting scat-
tered results, of giving them meaning by re-inscribing them in a meaningful totality
(a social world) [15–19]. The production of a typology aims to describe a phenomenon
analytically by putting the materials in order. In the context of the research presented
here, the two typologies are placed in a perspective of discovery rather than verifica-
tion, because the surveys were not built on prior territorial hypotheses [20–28]. The
territorial issues dealt with here have emerged gradually, according to empirical
discoveries and with scientific experience (openness to new research questions) built
up in contact with geographer colleagues, with whom comparable research work has
been carried out in other fields during the same time (coastline and urban forests).
The hypothetico-deductive typologies are usually placed in a perspective of verifica-
tion and, most of the time, generally based on quantitative formalizations (clusters)
that are obtained with the assistance of computer tools [29, 30]. The data collected
could be reworked in order to arrive at cluster formalizations: the necessary human
resources are currently not available, and the result is not guaranteed because neither the interviews nor the questionnaires have been standardized around such hypotheses from the outset. The main concerns of the research revolved more around the perceptions of the environments than territorial appropriations. The typological approach presented here analytically describes a previously defined phenomenon by arranging materials in such a way as to make the phenomenon intelligible. It proceeds empirically to identify, by trial and error, the categorization criteria. The basic operations correspond to the principles of plausibility and resemblance, since it is first of all a question of condensing each interview, each observation or each document into a comprehensible memo and then proceeding to comparisons. This operation of comparison/confrontation leads to the constitution of “types” and is structured by constraints, both logical and practical, which impose limiting the number of types and differentiating them “radically” (differentiating between “pure” logics [14–30]).

The discussion proceeds in two stages. The first stage presents the territorial mediations in which the leisure experiences are part and that they generate. The territorial mediations at work can be better understood by using a first typology, which crosses two variables. The spots (Table 1: territorial mediations) can be distinguished by (i) the level of consensus, which defines them in their recreational function and, second, based on (ii) their location, depending on whether or not they encroach on spaces considered strategic for the economic development. Four constructs of the living environment through sports leisure activities emerge, which integrate all the cases observed and offer an interpretation of territorial mediations on the scale of a system

<table><caption>Table 1.</caption><thead><tr><td>Sports leisure</td><td>Nb. cit.</td><td>Fréq.</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Bathing, swimming</td><td>900</td><td>74,30%</td></tr><tr><td>Beach games</td><td>504</td><td>41,60%</td></tr><tr><td>Hiking</td><td>279</td><td>23,00%</td></tr><tr><td>Bike</td><td>199</td><td>16,40%</td></tr><tr><td>Running</td><td>162</td><td>13,40%</td></tr><tr><td>None</td><td>114</td><td>9,40%</td></tr><tr><td>Fishing</td><td>100</td><td>8,30%</td></tr><tr><td>Sailing</td><td>67</td><td>5,50%</td></tr><tr><td>Skate, BMX, roller</td><td>61</td><td>5,00%</td></tr><tr><td>Kite</td><td>57</td><td>4,70%</td></tr><tr><td>Horse riding</td><td>48</td><td>4,00%</td></tr><tr><td>Motorized water activities (jet-ski, motorboat, etc.)</td><td>42</td><td>3,50%</td></tr><tr><td>Scuba diving and freediving</td><td>34</td><td>2,80%</td></tr><tr><td>Rowing activities (canoeing, kayaking, stand up paddle, etc.)</td><td>26</td><td>2,20%</td></tr><tr><td>Gliding activities (surfing, body boarding, skim-boarding)</td><td>15</td><td>1,20%</td></tr><tr><td>13 other activities were reported (not shown here)</td><td>- de 15</td><td>- de 1%</td></tr><tr><td>TOTAL</td><td>1212</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Sports activities practiced by the respondents after recoding (n = 1212). The number of citations is higher than the number of respondents because of multiple possible answers.
of cities: spots or playgrounds, far from always being consensual (nature devices), are
sometimes tolerated (diverted interstitial natures), sometimes obtained with great
struggle (disputed natures), when they are not poached (poached natures—generally
degraded and forbidden natures).

The second part of the discussion completes the previous one by reversing the perspective adopted on the territories and by questioning the attitude of the public authorities towards the natures previously described and characterized on the basis of the levels of consensus relating to their destinations and uses. The second typology complements the previous one and builds on it: it is content to turn the perspective on these mediations, by no longer examining these mediations from the point of view of practices (and practitioners), but from the point of view of the public authorities that administer these territories. These territories relate to levels of consensus on the one hand and levels of intervention by public authorities on the other hand, which allow them to be observed in a new light. A second typology presents four typical attitudes of public authorities (planner, liberal-tolerant, negotiator, looks the other way).

## 2. Observation scale and empirical investigation

### 2.1 The estuary as an urban network and as a territorial system

The Seine estuary is defined (for the scientific community, which is still working on, in the Seine-Aval Public Interest Group's (GIPSA's) programs) by zone of influence of the dynamic tide on a watercourse; for the Seine, it currently finds its upstream limit at the Poses dam. The Seine estuary corresponds to the last 160 kilometers of the river: in its meanders, it accommodates a 93% urban population of around 800,000 inhabitants, concentrated in two main towns, Rouen (Rouen-Elbeuf-Austreberthe Community: 495,000 inhabitants) and Le Havre (Agglomeration Community of Le Havre: 250,000 inhabitants), which are home to two seaports of international importance. The Seine estuary presents itself as a system of towns, which has seen its population multiply by 4 over the last two centuries [31]. The territory considered here corresponds to the meanders of the river and the coastline. The Territorial Development Directive for the Seine Estuary (DTAES, BO of July 12, 2006), which works based on data from the 1999 census and defines a larger territory, estimates for its part at 1,550,000 the number of residents, two-thirds of whom live in urban areas (840,000 in the three urban areas of Caen, Rouen and Le Havre; 150,000 in the numerous medium-sized urban areas) [32].

This urban network of course has a history and, as in most European estuaries (Clyde, Elbe, Scheldt, Gironde, Loire, Severn, Solent, Weser...), the historic port city at the bottom of the estuary (Rouen) has retained its role as a regional metropolis, even if the majority of port activities now fall under a more recent town, located downstream: Le Havre [33]. The estuary has undergone the same migratory phenomena—rural exodus/urbanization then reurbanization—as those which have been observed elsewhere in France: the two metropolises have developed by spreading out, Rouen downstream, Le Havre upstream, while medium-sized towns have emerged between these two urban centers, notably under the effect of new industries (Communauté de Communes Caux Vallée de Seine: 68,000 inhabitants). Initially peri-urban, the phenomenon of rurbanization [34] is increasingly expanding in space. With the rise of urban areas, urban space is moving out of the city. The scale for understanding this sprawl takes the enlarged port areas as a reference. If the Seine
estuary is today one of the most developed and one of the most polluted in Europe, we understand that the living environment plays a determining role there, which generates a divide within the urban areas between low-valued industrial and worker sectors and residential or tertiary areas that are increasingly sought-after by households in a situation of upward mobility (Figure 1) [35].

This urbanized system includes natural areas, some of which are precisely protected “from” the city (Boucles de la Seine Normande Regional Natural Park, Estuary Nature Reserve, etc.). The Boucles de la Seine Normande Regional Natural Park, formerly Brotonne Regional Natural Park, was created on May 17, 1974; it extends over 80,000 hectares and concerns 72 municipalities, including two port cities (Rouen, Le Havre).

The Seine estuary constitutes a territorial system whose complexity takes multiple forms and which is due to two main fault lines: the economic and political domination of the upstream (Île-de-France) over the downstream (two regions of Normandy subjected to Parisian interests) adds a social and cultural divide between the right bank (industrial and proletarian) and the left bank, agricultural and recreational, for Paris. What is at stake here is “the confrontation of local interests and Parisian influence, the large industrial conurbation and high-end tourist areas. It is the coexistence of the main French petrochemical platform and natural areas of ecological interest at European level” (Figure 2) [36].

## 2.2 The estuary of practices: Survey methodology, first results

The surveys [11–13] were sought to understand the experiences of the estuary that produce nature sports leisure activities, so as to provide an original and armed look

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1.**
*Urban and industrial land use in the Seine's estuary.*</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2.</figcaption></figure>

Model map of the Seine estuary adapted from the model developed by Brocard and Lecoquierre [36].

at its social functions. The aim of identifying social uses and perceptions through empirical surveys was to provide scientific knowledge (multidisciplinary, sometimes interdisciplinary and for the first time in the program from sociology) of the ecological state of the estuary and its evolutions. The two scientific questions “how is the estuary?” and “how is the estuary evolving?” were intended to enlighten the decision-makers-managers, the funders of the program [gathered in the Seine-Aval Public Interest Group (GIPSA)], responsible for answering the (political) question “what estuary do we want?”. The data were produced by surveys (4153 questionnaires, 80 interviews) that were carried out on nature sports and nature leisure in the Seine’s estuary. The purpose of each of the surveys was to question the perceptions generated by the uses of each fragment of the Seine’s estuary (riverbed, beaches at the mouth, banks, related bodies of water).

The approach adopted in these surveys multiplies the empirical insights into the subject, cross-references data that are different in nature (constructed by questionnaires, interviews, ethnographic observations, document analyses, etc.), multiplies the interlocutors (elected officials, public services, associations, users, companies), in order to put mediations (historical, social, cultural, spatial, “natural”) into perspective, and to multiply comparisons by using the typological approach [14, 30]. The results presented relate to the sporting practices that take place at the water’s edge, whether it be the river (the Seine) and its tributaries, its mouth and its coastal beaches (Côte Fleurie and Côte d’Albâtre) or its closed bodies of water, equipped with Outdoor and Leisure Bases (BPALs).

Each data collection campaign mobilized, in addition to the authors (two statutory teacher-researchers responsible for the projects), between four and six contractual survey managers, recruited over periods of two to three months. During the surveys on nautical practices (2007), on recreational sports on the banks (2009) and on the 24 hours of motorboating in Rouen (2011), the respondents were selected from the insights (This term, initially proposed by Maurice Halbwachs to characterize the forms of relationship to space, finds its extension in Augustin Berque, who sees in the oecumène a dynamic of reciprocal connections) that they developed, through
their practical experiences, on the river. The sampling technique consisted of search-
ing, activity by activity, for practicing populations active on the Seine or on the banks
of the Seine. For the riverbank survey (2009), we sought a compromise between two
contradictory poles, since on the one hand, it was necessary to work on the entire
length of the estuary (its two banks, its places and landscapes) and to understand
how the managers and users of these spaces identified them (24 sites, located between
Poses and Tancarville, were surveyed), and on the other hand to deal with resources
that are by definition limited. We therefore identified the moments and places of
gathering (the “events”) to have a substantial body of questionnaires, and we favored
an ethnographic approach on “withdrawal” practices and on the most confidential
sites. The last phase of the program (2010) focused on six sites located at the mouth
of the estuary, between Le Havre and Houlgate, and the three main BPALs, located in
Léry-Poses, Bedanne and Jumièges. On the bases as well as on the coastal beaches, we
proceeded by coring (among all those present) and from a prior identification of the
practice areas. A total of 4153 questionnaires were collected during these various sur-
veys and made it possible to cover most of the recreational areas of the estuary. The
questionnaires were used exclusively with active athletes. The choice of delivery areas
is first subject to an identification and inventory of the sites, practices, audiences and
events taking place there.

Nearly 40 sites were surveyed, spread across the entire downstream part of the estuary (between Poses upstream and Le Havre/Houlgate downstream). This mapping is already a way of thinking about the sample of athletes and its characteristics. It fairly faithfully accounts for the liveliness and very heterogeneous use of the river's length, and reveals that a large part of its banks (which remains to be measured, but which is estimated at 50%) is inaccessible. It also shows that sports gatherings take place in the most densely populated areas, and that the least urbanized areas of the estuary (left bank of the Boucles de la Seine Normande Regional Natural Park (PNRBSN), Vernier marshes, Estuary Nature Reserve) have been studied exclusively qualitatively. Overall, the surveys were carried out in spring and summer during social times conducive to leisure (evenings, weekends, vacations and public holidays).

The 80 interviews collected, qualified by convention as “semi-directive”, con-
stitute an additional source of information, essential for understanding the mean-
ing that planners, managers, elected officials, athletes, etc., give to their estuary
practices. An observation of the different sites was carried out and each spot was
the subject of photography campaigns [37]. The questionnaire survey sessions
were also an opportunity to take notes on the weather, the atmosphere felt, the
individuals present and the activities in which they engaged as well as on the
arrangement of the facilities (heavy or light) on the different spaces. Locations
are systematically identified with a view not only to qualifying the organization
and uses of the estuary, but also to better situate them in their interrelation with
other sites and other practices. Each of the investigations was also the subject
of a collection of documents produced by the actors (stakeholders’ information
documents, number of members or those registered for an event, promotional
documents, etc.). Working on documents produced by stakeholders first requires
knowing the author. For some, like town planning documents, the source is
easily identifiable (the municipality). Second, when it comes to producing a
report on a project, it becomes important to know the data production methods
used. The quality of the data collected may actually vary and interest us directly
or not depending on whether the report is carried out at national, regional or
departmental level, for example. Finally, it may also be necessary to know the
target audience in order to place the document produced in its context.

The questionnaire survey carried out in 2007 on nautical uses of the river surveyed
43.7% of licensed sportsmen. These uses are overwhelmingly (75.9%) the work of
educated men (42.6% of higher education graduates), among whom executives are
overrepresented and workers absent. Licensed athletes, more frequently and more
regularly active on the Seine than others, provide access to the benchmarks that shape
experiences of the river, which institutions transmit. The majority of nautical experi-
ences on the river involve gentle, instrumented and slow gliding activities.

When we ask the respondents what water activities they practice in the Seine, we
discover that they indulge in multiple leisure activities on the river, which appears to
be an authentic playground.

A second survey, carried out specifically among the teams (pilots and mechanics) of the 24 hours of motorboating in Rouen, reveals a minority of enthusiasts, fans of motorized speed. These handymen are again overwhelmingly men, among whom employees and craftsmen/business leaders are overrepresented: their experiences of the river are both diverse and motorized.

For the population of athletes interviewed on the banks, the most declared sport-
ing practices (as main activity) correspond fairly closely to the results presented by
the national surveys. The banks of the river once again constitute a real and appreci-
ated playground, which we explore in multiple ways, with multiple activities.

Let us also note that the declared activities are ambulatory or traveling and have a
discreet presence of traditional activities driven by the land.

A total of 1212 respondents make up the coastal beach sample, including 60.2% women and almost a quarter of students. The respondents come from the middle and upper social classes, and 43.6% hold a diploma higher than baccalauréat (bac +2). As many as 90.6% of those questioned on the beaches said they practiced a sporting activity on the Normandy coast (0.3% no response and 9.4% "no sporting leisure" responses). **Table 1** gives an overview of the diversity of activities carried out on these sites.

The sample of those interviewed on the leisure centers presents very specific char-
acteristics if we compare it to the populations of other surveys carried out in the estu-
ary: if the bases seem to attract, like the coastal beaches, more women (57.5%) and the
youngest, they also welcome more inactive people (40%), more employees (38.6% of
active workers present) and workers (22.6% of active workers present), which clearly
positions them like the popular practice territories of the estuary. If locally elected
officials today tend to consider the bases as a product with tourist appeal, the survey
shows that they provide a social function, in accordance with their original vocation,
and are presented above all as local recreational spaces (87.7% of respondents come
from neighboring towns).

However, when we cross-reference the socio-professional categories with the
activities carried out on the different survey sites, we see that the two variables are not
independent: the unemployed and the inactive are either under-represented on the
practical spots, or over-represented in activities such as swimming and napping/tan-
ning, on coastal or BPAL beaches. The working classes benefit from the development
of the body of water when it is located nearby, but benefit, including in the BPAL,
rather less than the others from the peri-urban nature available; the most athletic are
also the most mobile, the most senior, from higher categories. Everything suggests
that those who are active in the natural landscapes of the estuary, who travel and
survey them, are culturally equipped to do so.
Finally, we note that the practitioners interviewed by questionnaires in the Seine estuary are city dwellers who live in the large towns of the watershed, a maximum of 250 kilometers away. **Figures 3 and 4** also show that the presence of Parisians is especially evident on the coast (mainly lower Normandy).

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.**
Main residence of the respondents on the beaches of the mouth.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.**
Main residence of the practitioners throughout the program.</figcaption></figure>
Questioning this map allows us to learn many lessons, which cannot be explained in detail here. Let us say that those who gather in the estuary for sporting events mainly live nearby, in the large towns of Rouen and Le Havre; the activities produce migrations that are essentially oriented and magnetized to the west: the Roueners are more numerous to participate in the sporting events that take place along the river. Everything happens as if the sea keeps the sportsmen closer to the coastline, and as if the Parisians cross the estuary more than they travel along it. Basically, the data acquired by questionnaire mainly tell us about athletes who frequent nearby peri-urban areas but do not live there.

The first part shows what activities the populations use in this space and how they deploy there. The results reveal a wide variety of practices. The first and main observation on the ground is that the estuary gives rise to a wide variety of activities, which generate authentic pleasures and strong territorial appropriations (attachments to places). We have already shown in Ref. [38] that the driving logic specific to each practice generates specific perceptions and appropriations of the estuarine ecosystem, and that the activities gave access to fragmentary forms of social awareness of the estuarine environment (ecosystem and even anthroposystem). In order to account for these “lived worlds”, we speak of fragmentary perceptions of the ecosystem: the whole of the estuary is revealed in each of its parts, in each of the habitats. There is ordinary estuarine awareness on the part of the practitioners, who are sensitive to the changing conditions of the environment they frequent.

It also quickly became apparent (second observation) that the estuary was a space that was both very vast, very unevenly used and very discontinuous. The estuarine scale as such is only very rarely mobilized by practitioners and inhabitants (third observation), who speak instead of bodies of water, courses and loops (meanders), which are all functional landmarks on the scale of their specific practices. Although they perceive the estuary by its manifestations (tides, winds, precipitation, flora, fauna, etc.), inhabitants and practitioners do not use common sense reasoning on the estuarine scale.

Observations, interviews and documents reveal (fourth observation) several typical experiences (secretly deviant, protester, submitted, established), which will attract our attention here. Our hypothesis is that these experiences result from the development of the Seine estuary and contribute to urban management. People sometimes say they are satisfied with the areas of practice they frequent for walking, running, cycling, sailing, camping or fishing, which seem to them to be of good quality overall, and above all designed and adapted to the uses they make of them. We will qualify these experiences as established. This attitude is opposed to the protest behavior of those who make their voices heard and openly challenge the developments or development projects that the public authorities impose on them. Practitioners sometimes say they are hindered, embarrassed in their practices, which they develop legally and under the control of the authorities, with discretion, in territories that are devoted to other uses, priority over their own: we call this experience submitted. Long and careful observation, the most successful exploration, finally makes it possible to discover very discreet if not secret practices. Long and careful observation, the most accomplished exploration, finally makes it possible to discover very discreet if not secret practices, clandestine and secretly deviant practices, certainly rare but very real, which consist of acting outside the legal framework, or which openly (consciously) transgress the regulatory framework (Table 2).

In short, it appears that these experiences, in order to be explained, have to be questioned as territorialized and territorializing social constructions, that is to say, as
<table><caption>**Table 2.**
Leisure experiences (territorial experiences) observed.</caption><thead><tr><th>Leisure experiences</th><th>Secretly deviant</th><th>Protester</th><th>Submitted</th><th>Established</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Swimming</td><td>All along the river</td><td>Saint Jouin<br>Bruneval<br>(Antifer)</td><td></td><td>Leisure quays,<br>seaside resorts,<br>open-air centres</td></tr><tr><td>Cycling</td><td>towpaths, wasteland and<br>industrial-port wasteland</td><td></td><td></td><td>Leisure quays,<br>seaside resorts,<br>open-air centres</td></tr><tr><td>Walking and<br>Running</td><td>towpaths, wasteland and<br>industrial-port wasteland</td><td></td><td></td><td>Leisure quays,<br>seaside resorts,<br>open-air centres</td></tr><tr><td>Sailings and rowings</td><td></td><td></td><td>All along the<br>river</td><td>On the river and<br>on the sea, under<br>pressure</td></tr><tr><td>Camping</td><td>industrial-port<br>wasteland: Octeville cabins</td><td></td><td></td><td>Seaside or riverside<br>resorts, open-air<br>centres</td></tr><tr><td>Fishings, hunting or<br>animal conservatories</td><td>Port's areas, Octeville,<br>temporary dispositions</td><td>Saint Jouin<br>Bruneval<br>(Antifer)<br>Natural<br>Reserve of the<br>Estuary<br>Animal Parc of<br>Roumare<br>PNRBSN</td><td></td><td>Leisure quays,<br>seaside resorts,<br>open-air centres</td></tr></tbody></table>

territorial mediations. The objective of the discussion to follow will be to relate these experiences to the relationship they have with the ongoing process of development of the Seine estuary and management of this large-scale development.

### 3. From practice frameworks to living environment: Leisure and territorial mediations

The leisure estuary brings together very diverse activities in an area that is both very vast, very unevenly used and very discontinuous. Is this fragmentation conducive to or does it shield an awareness of the estuarine anthroposystem? How do the practice spots interfere with the visions and developments of the estuary? Do they make these developments acceptable and do they participate in their design or in their contestation?

The survey shows a diversity of territorial mediations at work, which can be accounted for using a typology, by crossing two variables. We can first differentiate the practice spots based on the level of consensus, which defines them in their recreational function and, second, based on their location, depending on whether or not they encroach on spaces considered strategic for the economic development. Four forms of construction of the living environment through sports leisure activities emerge, which integrate all the cases observed and offer an interpretation of territorial mediations on the scale of a system of cities (Table 3).
<table><caption>**Table 3.**
*Territorial mediations, social constructs of living environment carried out by sports leisure activities.*</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Territorial mediations, building forms of living environment carried out by sports leisure activities</th><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="2">Location/position of practice spots</th></tr><tr><th>On the fringes of the economic corridor</th><th>Encroachment on the economic corridor</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Attitudes towards developments</td><td>Consensus or consent of practicing populations</td><td>Resorts, Quays, Cycle routes<br/>1. Natural devices equipped and promoted for the leisure of urban dwellers</td><td>Nautical uses, swimming in the Seine<br/>2. Interstitial natures: sacrificed but diversions tolerated</td></tr><tr><td>Resistances of practitioners to development projects and their consequences/impacts</td><td>Octeville cabins, fishing mountain biking on land waves<br/>4. Degraded and poached nature, "secret" uses</td><td>Antifer; PNRBSN; Estuary Natural Reserve, Animal Parc of Roumare<br/>3. Disputed natures, snatched away by compensatory measures</td></tr></tbody></table>

## 3.1 Nature devices equipped and promoted for the leisure of urban dwellers

Beyond the historical, social and cultural heritages that differentiate them, there are playgrounds defined and delimited as such. Seaside resorts refer to the advent of leisure [39], which saw in the nineteenth century a “leisure class” 1. Nature devices equipped and promoted for the leisure of urban dwellers [40] appropriate spaces left vacant (the sea, “territory of the void”) [41] and reinvent, particularly through sports, ways of creating an elite and creating a society. From this point of view, Deauville offers, unlike Dieppe or Trouville that existed before their emergence as “stations”, the example of a city created ex nihilo in 1859, as an outlet from the marshes [42]. No prior popular establishment risks stopping worldly success: the conditions of self-confidence are met, allowing high society to consider extended stays in this homogeneous collective group [43]. Generally speaking, the resorts offer a natural setting to contemplate, and a new setting for socialites to deploy. Sea bathing also renews the benchmarks of attention to oneself—the hygiene of the origins becoming more esthetic with the rise of a playful imperative, such as those of the view of nature, which very early on must be protected in order to be exposed to it [44, 45]. The sea becomes a value and a setting, a perspective of oneself in nature, which architects arrange and developers make profitable.

The Outdoor and Leisure Bases have been part of development plans, which, close to towns, have been part of the circular of January 20, 1964, which provides recreational spaces open to all. These versatile and scalable sports complexes primarily benefit cities that have built up significant land reserves in peri-urban areas [46]. In the Seine estuary, this equipment is part of the plans carried out by the Basse Seine Development Mission, which in 1968 became the Basse Seine Public Establishment (EPBS). This pioneering establishment has succeeded in sustaining its action, despite an administrative history made up of fratricidal struggles [47]. At the time, the EPBS prepared the lower valley to “welcome Paris without suffering it”, developed a culture of land anticipation in communities and supported them in their projects. Located in counterpoint to new towns (Le Vaudreuil for that of Léry-Poses) and on the outskirts of dense housing areas (Rouen for that of Jumièges, Elbeuf for that of Bedanne), the
BPALs structure the leisure policy [48] and function as laboratories for equipment engineers, who recover and transform industrial exploitation sites (sand pits, quarries, landfills). These rehabilitations serve today as a model and concrete illustrations for the engineering of sustainable development in the production of public space [49].

Communities are currently seeking to enhance the surroundings of rivers and watercourses: the structures are aging, and the nature and cost of the interventions are questioned. In this context, municipalities pool their experiences (for example: www.seineenpartage.com) and the EPBS supports the economical management of land in large cities by allowing them to “rebuild the city within the city.” Described as “reconquest”, this recycling engineering reabsorbs industrial and port wastelands by producing public recreational spaces. The western districts of Rouen, the Caen peninsula and the southern districts of Le Havre are part of the same momentum, which seeks to reconcile these cities with their maritime environment [50]. The ports, by moving away from historic centers, free up space for town planning (reconversion of docks and quays) as well as entertainment (Voiles de la Liberté which became Armada, local variations of Paris Plage (Paris “on the beach”), departures of the Transat in place of transatlantic connections). Linear or “surface”, these urban interfaces offer joggers, skaters and others an adapted materiality (treatment of surfaces) and an original theatricality (near the port while being in the city), which suit them [51]. Beyond the largest towns, the entire length of the river is planned to be reconverted into a greenway, in order to better weave the network of cities.

Overall, we can clearly see that these leisure systems are all the more consensual as they do not or no longer encroach on territories considered strategic for the development of the economy. They fully participate in the reasoned ordering and sharing of the anthropized spaces of the estuary, present natural esthetic and hygienic to the inhabitants of cities, and in this sense create the city by “gardening nature”.

## 3.2 Diverted interstitial natures: Discreet uses, tolerated leisure activities

There are also practices that encroach on the economic corridor: the clubs offer nautical uses (rowing, canoeing, kayaking, dinghy sailing, motorboating, water skiing) of the estuary, which are only tolerated. The meanders shelter bodies of water that maritime and port authorities subject to the pressure of dense and imposing commercial traffic: the trajectories of barges and cargo ships are on those of sports associations with absolute priority. In fact, the associations fear repression and accept a domination, which marginalizes them: they submit and discreetly divert the flows of their commercial function. Three main nautical sites stand out, concentrated around the Rouen meander: Hénouville, in the heart of the Regional Natural Park (downstream), Rouen, from Lacroix Island, and finally Belbeuf and Elbeuf, upstream, which open onto the Seine of the islands. From the sea to Rouen, the dikes have transformed a winding river, made up of a multitude of islands and channels, into a “pipe”. Maritime Affairs discourages seeing it as a playground and limits access to the river to sail and motorboats. The descent and ascent of the Seine downstream of Rouen are “strongly discouraged” for boaters, the stops necessary for these journeys are very insufficiently equipped, and the creation of a winter port for pleasure boaters in Rouen, inaugurated in 2008, has been long delayed. The 250 “pranksters” who venture there despite everything in habitable conditions (count of passages in 2007) remain “annoying tourists” for the Seine pilots, who maneuver cargo ships in a channel that they consider narrow. From Rouen to Poses, although largely reworked, the Seine is still dotted with islands, forming numerous secondary or dead arms. Voies
Navigables de France (VNF), more welcoming, opens the river area to leisure activi-
ties, with the exception of windsurfing (prohibited), and relegates practices to the
backwaters of the river or on its tributaries.

The difficulties encountered by the organizers of the 24 hours of motorboating in Rouen support this reading. Since 1964, the race has followed a circuit that circles Lacroix Island, making the river a speed ring and the city center quays into stands and stands (paddocks). But a fatal accident in 2009 highlights the limits of a voluntary organization, which, despite the local audience and the succession of editions, did not obtain from the authorities the suspension of commercial traffic during the event. On a material level, the event is still based on a diversion of port equipment and does not have any specific equipment. Responsible for the issue of risks and pollution caused by the event, the organizers are trying to mobilize public opinion (in the media, through petitions); this tension, not very threatening for the public authorities (no recourse to the courts, effective mobilization of opinion not very obvious), makes evident the asymmetry of positions: not being in a position to change the rules of the game, organizers and practitioners struggle to save what in their eyes constitutes the essential—the holding of the test and submit to the conditions imposed on them.

The investigation revealed that, against all expectations, informal bathing prac-
tices exist in the Seine. Even if the numbers concerned are in the minority, including
among those who are regularly active on the river (less than 20% of the 523 surveyed
in 2007), it appears that they depend on the complicity in the aquatic element that the
practices seal.

Immersions, opportunistic and hedonistic, are the work of “sailors” and kayakers who, accustomed to falling into the “turbid” waters of the river (the quality of which they nevertheless judge severely: 90% of respondents declare the Seine “very polluted” [52]), are not very suspicious of them. Swimming is a diversion to the extent that, without being formally prohibited, it is ignored by public authorities (the sites are not secure, and the quality of the water is far from being certified). Estuarine flows open up, at the heart of a system of cities, multiple possibilities for diversion: nature, even interstitial, remains associated with retreat and alternatives [53]. There are other forms of tactical adjustments [54–56] to the influence of cities, which spring from leisure: protest on the one hand, and dissident reserve on the other hand, indifferent to the injunctions of power, outside of his game. Let us now examine the concrete forms they take in the Seine estuary. If those practicing the Seine “du Parc”, like those of the Seine “des Iles” also swim more than the others, it is because the spots bring into play other sensory landmarks than the city, and are similar to interstitial natures [57] gained from the city (Elbeuf, Belbeuf) or preserved from the city (Hénouville, Léry). The bases shelter elective affinities built on an elementary contact with nature [58]: we camp there, we eat there, we play there together. Each installation, even rudimentary, is valuable for its ability to function as a cabin, and welcomes their families around the sporting activity of members, offering everyone multiple possible recreation options. Interviews and observations show the attachment to places and what links the game and the playground(s).

3.3 Disputed natures, snatched away by compensatory measures

In what way and how is the industrial-port orientation of the estuary contested,
negotiated or changed today through leisure activities? Tensions sometimes crystal-
lize through acts of commitment, which, implementing credible threats [59], take the
form of conflicts. The latter lend themselves easily to observation, to the extent that
“problems” and power relations are constituted as such in the public space [60]. This type of territorial mediation—conflictual and contestatory—has manifested itself in multiple zones of the estuary [wetlands, valley, coastal zone]: the history of the conflict around the Antifer site shows how sports leisure activities can be registered in such forms of resistance. An oil terminal and sports leisure spot, Antifer allows us to understand to what extent users of the estuary are attached to the fragments of nature that remain available and which they convert into playgrounds. The story of the site and the report of the public debate published online by the Special Commission for Public Debate (CPDP), as well as the actors’ notebooks, the written contributions of the participants, the testimonies published in the press and interviews have already been made subject of an in-depth study [61], which we will simply mention here in order to illustrate a general case.

Antifer beach is originally (photographs of the original site and its transformations are available on Source: www.saint-jouin-bruneval.fr) a narrow strip of pebbles located at the bottom of a valley, in the town of Saint-Jouin-Bruneval: you access it by a dirt road and with the help of a rope to descend a precarious staircase in the cliff. The fishing resource is abundant in the area.

Specialized since the 1930s in the reception of petroleum products [62], the Autonomous Port of Le Havre (PAH) had to find a new site after the war to accommodate ever-larger tankers: the decision to build a terminal at Antifer was taken in 1969. This equipment will require ten years of studies and work and an investment of one billion francs [63]. Deprived of access to the sea, users contest, and a compromise was found in 1976, which granted leisure activities the possibility of developing on this industrial project.

Antifer indeed has many advantages, which make it an exceptionally versatile spot. At low tide, it has become one of the rare sandy beaches on the Alabaster Coast. It is the only site outside the city easily accessible between Étretat and Le Havre, and the vast reservation located at the foot of the cliff offers parking with a capacity of around 900 vehicles. There we find the only launching slipway between Le Havre and Fécamp, with a dedicated parking lot that makes it very functional. Well exposed, the spot is ideal for many activities (motorboat, jet-ski, swimming, fishing, dinghy sailing, windsurfing, kite-surfing, diving, spearfishing, beach games, etc.). Isolated from the town, the site is secure (supervised beach) and welcoming: it has sanitary facilities, games for children, a chip shop and the beach turns its back on the sea wall and the tanks. On the parking side, the “free ride” descents (on rollers, skateboards, longboards, sleds, etc.) of the bends of the access road humanize—by diverting it— the monumental scale of the equipment.

This precarious balance was recently called into question by the PAH which, wishing to make the equipment profitable, wanted to add an liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to it: Poweo responded to the call for tenders, and the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) was contacted in 2007, in order to promote consultation and gain public support and consent [64]. The protests are numerous and public participation is strong: supporters and opponents of the project confront each other. The desire to preserve a living environment already tainted by what they consider to be a “wart” disrupts public debate. Here, it is not simply a question of NIMBY (Not In My Backyard), it is different visions of society and the coast which confront each other.

For the purposes of the presentation, we will only retain here in a very summary manner the arguments developed by the opponents of the project. The reasons presented introduce debates on the public scene on the appropriateness of the project, on the acceptability of nuisances and on the relationships between the different uses
of space [65]. Counterproposals have been constructed: all play the card of sustain-
able development, and for some also that of leisure and green tourism. The conflict
clearly concerns the exercise of control over space. The reactions all go in the direc-
tion of a form of territorial appropriation, which is expressed by marking (graffiti,
panels, mascot; on these productions see Ref. [66]) and by use. The mobilized protest
collective literally occupies the land, the beach, and animates it (notably through fish-
ing on foot [67]): its omnipresence symbolizes its attachment and its determination,
and allows it to exist in the social space [68]. Tools for publicizing the protest, these
symbols also produce a discourse and representations on space, the issue at stake in
the conflict [69].

Antifer is only one case, which ended in 2010 with the temporary abandon-
ment of the industrial project. Other disputes arise from leisure activities, in
the Seine estuary, and are part of the general form of the conflict. The Estuary
Nature Reserve (RNE) and the Boucles de la Seine Normande Regional Natural
Park (PNRBSN) are two institutions resulting from similar protests, again relat-
ing to territories whose urban developments have strongly disrupted ecosystems:
urban sprawl in the loops of the Seine—and threats to forests, construction of the
Normandy bridge and extension of the port of Le Havre (Port 2000)—and threats
to wetlands and mudflats. These struggles have each time been led by collectives
who have been able to bring together actors who usually oppose each other (farm-
ers, hunters, ornithologists, professional fishermen, for example, in the case of
wetlands [67]). These struggles, which bring the environment into the political
game, have often found at the European level (supranational level) the legal levers
necessary to lead to (1) the obtaining of measures to protect part of the estuary,
(2) on nature governance institutions (RNE, PNRBSN, global estuary management
plan, etc.) and (3) on compensatory measures. Whether it is the forests and land-
scapes of the loops of the Seine (PNRBSN), wetlands (RNE) or the coast (Antifer),
we see that these natures torn from the city, which we can call “natures compensa-
tion”, entered into politics for the role they play in the dynamics of biodiversity, are
also each time defined as recreational and productive natures (reed beds, agricul-
ture/fishing, forestry).

3.4 Degraded and poached nature: Secret uses

The land area of ports and industries is considerable in the Seine estuary. The
displacement of production leaves vacant spaces and industrial wastelands which
constitute, as long as their recycling is not envisaged or carried out, as much waste
land, access to which is more or less explicitly prohibited, which is in any case aban-
doned and without supervision, without clearly established limits. Many of these
areas are “despite everything” frequented and give rise to opportunistic leisure uses:
hiking (hiking or mountain biking), fishing (angling, fishing, on foot, etc.), garden-
ing, camping, DIY (do it yourself)... The strategic separation of social functions
projected onto the estuary does not alone explain the closure of certain sites to leisure
uses. This is particularly the case for a small number of sites at the outlet of the estu-
ary, which are experiencing significant cliff erosion (Cap de la Hève, Octeville). In
“closed” theory, these spaces also correspond to nature degraded by the externalities
of the urban and economic corridor: the zone thus includes an industrial wasteland
(former NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) oil reserve), a boat cemetery,
serves (in principle for large) discharge for contaminated sludge, dredged in ports or
in the Seine channel.
Fishing on foot thus appears, at the exit of the estuary, as a popular and traditional activity of elderly people, which produces and stems from a strong attachment of users to their living environment. It constitutes for them a way of feeling “alive” as much as a way of feeling “from here”. For the most part, they ignore the prohibitions on practicing and only pay “oblique attention” to their meaning, characteristic of many popular uses [70]. When the fishermen are questioned, they openly declare their intention to continue their practice, even if it were to be banned. It is in this sense that they resist the urban conditions in which they live: the fishing zones, however contaminated they are, function as territories, their own.

A village of cabins is nestled near Le Havre, in the Octeville cliff. This environment shelters, as much as it exposes and destroys, concrete and wooden sheds, the materials of which were transported on the backs of men. These leisure shelters refer to ancient occupation forms of the coast, which today seem to be disappearing: a feeling of precariousness and a scent of prohibition unite the residents against all these “others” (prefecture, town hall, media, scientists, etc.) who would like them to dislodge. A multitude of seaside leisure activities have for several generations weaved original and marginal sociabilities at the heart of this peripheral nature, as contaminated as it is abundant in terms of fisheries.

We will not dwell here on all the uses of poaching, which would require significant developments, and many of which are still the subject of investigation. We will simply refer to works now published, having as their subject fishing on foot at the outlet of the estuary [71], and simply mention the practices of extension and fencing of residential gardens on the paths of river haulage (privatization of the banks), fishing practices on prohibited sites (by line, trap or on foot: in the river, in ports, as well as at the estuary outlet) or transgressive forms of hunting (numerous). All reveal uses and users who remain indifferent to the prohibitions and injunctions of the authorities. It is nevertheless important to mention them to highlight the operational nature of the constructed typology.

Generally speaking, the wastelands of sports and leisure reveal tactical adjustments to everyday conditions, “poached” forms [54–56] of appropriation of the living environment. The clandestine practices that take place there often escape observers, either because they are unaware of them or because they neglect them and forget to take them into account [71]. These leisure activities are not spoken about or displayed: their users form “secret” communities [72]. These wastelands are moving away from the centers of our cities today as the urban becomes more widespread: these peri-urban natures, “degraded” or “limited” for those who adopt the wilderness as their normative reference point, nevertheless bear witness to our landmarks, which have become vague, as to the limits of the city.

### 3.5 Reversing the perspective: What about the public authorities’ attitudes?

The Seine estuary constitutes a privileged terrain for observing contemporary redefinitions of nature, which are all markers of the generalization of our urban condition. The river’s flows cross and shape a system of cities, integrating into changing uses and definitions of the living environment that evolve with the expectations of populations that have become urban. Differentiated based on the level of consensus which defines them in their recreational function and, on the other hand, based on their location vis-à-vis the economic corridor, the territories of practices reveal four typical forms of territorial mediations on the scale of a system of cities.
The sporting leisure activities of urban dwellers must not only be considered based on the demands for escape into nature to which they respond, but also on the basis of the territorial mediations in which these practices participate. To put it another way, the sporting leisure activities of urban dwellers construct the natural environments that they invest in, and must be differentiated according to whether they contribute to the equipment of nature (sporty by destination, and therefore secure), to its diversion, its redefinition (dispute) or its poaching.

We see that leisure sports practices in fact recompose not only the sharing of nature, but also the horizon of their definition. What the public does in nature questions, by feedback effect, the way in which public policies, which today find in the regulatory idea of sustainable development a horizon of meaning and a form of governance, seize these territorial mediations. These territories relate to levels of consensus on the one hand, and levels of intervention by public authorities on the other hand, which allow them to be observed in a new light (Table 4).

There are currently active public policies that think and act strongly on peri-urban natural spaces in their recreational dimension. The State now has three major tools for action and management in this territory [73]. The Territorial Development Directive for the Seine Estuary shows by its existence (there are only 7 in France, and this one dates from 2006) the strategic importance of this area in the eyes of the State: this document of a new type of town planning allows the State to express its position and impose it on communities, while proposing support policies. The EPBS, which has allocated tax resources, constitutes the tool for land control and long-term planning. What we called “nature devices”, which recycle wasteland into recreational nature (BPAL, banks, quays and docks), in fact fully constitute gardened environments, built and managed with communities, for the needs of city residents. These devices are part of an ideal of dynamic environmental management. Part of this philosophy, the Estuary Global Management Plan (3rd tool, new in 2002), appears both as one more compensatory measure, snatched by protesting groups, and as an alternative to simple protection measures, which tend to pile up without defining an overall vision, to sanctify (sanctuary) without being fully satisfactory and to no longer be able to be discussed. Both restored nature and protected nature respond to nature sacrificed

<table><caption>**Table 4.**
Attitude of public authorities towards peri-urban nature.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Attitude of public authorities towards the peri-urban leisure activities</th><th rowspan="2">Level of intervention</th><th rowspan="2"></th></tr><tr><th>Strong “Managed” natures</th><th>Weak (definition of prohibitions) “Abandoned” natures</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Type of construction</td><td>Consensual</td><td>Natural devices: recycling - requalification<br>Resorts, Quays, Cycle roads<br><strong>Direct management and territorial reconversions</strong></td><td>Interstitial natures: sacrificed but diversions tolerated<br>Nautical uses, swimming in the Seine<br><strong>Liberal accountability of users</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Conflictual</td><td>Disputed natures, snatched away by compensatory measures<br>Antifer, PNRBSN, Estuary Natural Reserve, Animal Parc of Roumare<br><strong>Governance of the nature, accountability of public authorities by activist associations</strong></td><td>Degraded and poached nature, “secret” uses<br>Octeville cabins, fishing mountain biking on land waves<br><strong>Ostrich policy / loks the other way: no assistance to people in danger?</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>
for the needs of ports and industry, and largely explain the fragmentation of prac-
tice spots; in the long-term management of ecosystems, these restoration measures
require actors to question not only the natures they wish to construct, the stakeholder
interactions that these public problems mobilize, but also their symbolic dimensions,
their economic cost, etc.

We also see that there are, by contrast, nature areas in which the public authorities
still intervene very little, at least in their recreational dimension: we can qualify these
peri-urban nature areas as abandoned, to the extent that users are left to their own
devices. The priority given to maritime and river traffic costs nothing economically, at
the same time as it subjects and makes nautical associations responsible by relegating
them to the interstitial natures that continue to exist. However, there is potential for
development, which would easily fit into the symbolic momentum and contemporary
reinterpretation of local maritime heritage driven by communities. The degraded
nature, and in particular the contaminated waters of the estuary, reveal real ecologi-
cal inequalities and reflect a mutual incomprehension of public authorities and users.
Managers simply prohibit access to sites or the practice itself, without implementing
a prevention, information or education policy aimed at the general public. We can
wonder if these territorial units and these marginal practices, which expose vulner-
able populations, who tinker in a contingent way with the natures that they find in
their immediate environment, do not contain the seeds of the protests to come, and
perhaps call for be new forms of governance.

4. Conclusion: Between fragmentary awareness to fragmented territory

Focused on the social and spatial distribution of sports leisure on the scale of a
system of cities—the Seine’s estuary, which is considered one of the most anthropized
(developed, urbanized and industrialized) in Europe, this contribution studies the
sporting uses of urban and peri-urban natural spaces, and seeks to understand how
these activities contribute to the establishment of the living environment of urban
populations. What are the territorial mediations at work, whose sports leisure are the
crucible and which build the framework of contemporary urban life?

This chapter re-inscribes sports leisure in the territorial dynamics that shape them
and that they structure in return. The surveys were sought to understand the experi-
ences of the estuary that produce nature sports leisure activities, so as to provide an
original and armed look at its social functions. The aim of identifying social uses and
perceptions through empirical surveys was to provide scientific knowledge (multi-
disciplinary, sometimes interdisciplinary and for the first time in the program from
sociology) of the ecological state of the estuary and its evolutions. The two scientific
questions “how is the estuary?” and “how is the estuary evolving?” were intended to
enlighten the decision-makers-managers, the funders of the program [gathered in the
Seine-Aval Public Interest Group (GIPSA)], responsible for answering the (political)
question “what estuary do we want?”. The data were produced by surveys (4153 ques-
tionnaires, 80 interviews) that were carried out on nature sports and nature leisure in
the Seine’s estuary. The purpose of each of the surveys was to question the perceptions
generated by the uses of each fragment of the Seine’s estuary (riverbed, beaches at the
mouth, banks, related bodies of water).

The first and main observation on the ground is that the estuary gives rise to a
wide variety of activities, which generate authentic pleasures and strong territorial
appropriations. It also quickly became apparent (second observation) that the estuary
was a very vast space, very unevenly used and very discontinuous. Observations,
interviews and documents reveal (third observation) several typical experiences
(secretly deviant, protester, submitted, established) resulting from the development
of the Seine estuary and which contribute to urban management. Finally, it appears
that these experiences have to be questioned as territorialized and territorializing
social constructions, that is to say, as territorial mediations.

Our hypothesis is that these experiences can be explained by the relationships
they maintain with the continuous process of development of the Seine estuary.
The second part of this chapter is a discussion, in order to understand how do
these experiences contribute to the territorial dynamics, and how the scales of the
inhabitants-practitioners and those of scientists and managers interfere. Territories
and the mediations they organize are both and just as much the product of uses as of
public development policies. To understand these products or “social constructs”, it is
therefore necessary to examine both the points of view of the inhabitants and those
of the technical or political personnel who represent and lead them. The synthetic
re-presentation of results in the two stages of the discussion is formalized by two
typologies (which distinguish “social worlds”, relationships to different realities and
not identities “in themselves”).

The discussion proceeds in two stages. The first stage presents the territorial
mediations in which the leisure experiences are part and that they generate. The ter-
ritorial mediations at work can be better understood by using a first typology, which
crosses two variables. The spots (Table 1: territorial mediations) can be distinguished
by (i) the level of consensus which defines them in their recreational function and,
second, based on (ii) their location, depending on whether or not they encroach on
spaces considered strategic for the economic development. Four constructs of the liv-
ing environment through sports leisure activities emerge, which integrate all the cases
observed and offer an interpretation of territorial mediations on the scale of a system
of cities: spots or playgrounds, far from always being consensual (nature devices), are
sometimes tolerated (diverted interstitial natures), sometimes obtained with great
struggle (disputed natures), when they are not poached (poached natures—generally
degraded and forbidden natures).

The second part of the discussion completes the previous one by reversing the
perspective adopted on the territories, and by questioning the attitude of the public
authorities towards the natures previously described and characterized on the basis
of the levels of consensus relating to their destinations and uses. The second typology
complements the previous one and builds on it: it is content to turn the perspective on
these mediations, by no longer examining these mediations from the point of view of
practices (and practitioners), but from the point of view of the public authorities that
administer these territories. These territories relate to levels of consensus on the one
hand, and levels of intervention by public authorities on the other hand, which allow
them to be observed in a new light. A second typology presents four typical attitudes
of public authorities (planner, liberal-tolerant, negotiator, looks the other way).

The physical transformations of the estuary's territories are of course part of a sym-
bolic reality: the horizon of generalized mobility, which makes the contemporary indi-
vidual a nomad, caught up in multiple loyalties, which affiliate him with territories and
groups via practices and esthetics. However, the surveys reveal contrasting social roots
and marked ecological inequalities: the natures we use and within which we play have
little connection with each other. In fact, this is a way to question these different forms of
nature that our cities produce with regard to the public policies that today constitute sus-
tainable development as a regulatory idea (horizon of meaning and form of governance).
## Acknowledgements

The survey data on which this synthetic contribution is based were constructed and obtained thanks to research programs funded by the Seine-Aval Public Interest Group (GIPSA) between 2007 and 2011. https://www.seine-aval.fr/.

## Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## Author details

Damien Féménias*, Barbara Evrard and Olivier Sirost
Normandie University, University of Rouen Normandie, Rouen, France

*Address all correspondence to: damien.femenias@univ-rouen.fr

## IntechOpen

© 2025 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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BY

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