Le riverain, le citoyen et l’habitant : trois figures de la participation dans la turbulence éolienne

Neighbour, citizen and local inhabitant: three characters engaged in wind turbine turbulence.

Géographe, CEMAGREF, 33612 Cestas cedex, France

Auteur correspondant : sophie.le-floch@cemagref.fr

Reçu : 19 Février 2010
Accepté : 3 Février 2011

Résumé

La participation, aujourd’hui consensuelle, fait l’objet d’une abondante littérature scientifique. Celle-ci est toutefois peu diserte sur les catégories du « public » qui en sous-tendent les différentes modalités. L’article examine les figures des « participants » et les espaces qui leur sont associés du point de vue d’acteurs impliqués dans le développement éolien : le riverain, décliné diversement ; le citoyen, peu mobilisé ; l’habitant, en émergence. Il conclut sur les risques et les promesses liés à la figure de l’habitant, susceptible d’osciller entre droit à être laissé tranquille et droit à participer.

Abstract

Participation has become a consensual objective. It has been inscribed in different international and national regulatory texts – Rio Summit, Aarhus Convention, French 1995 Environmental Law – and generates a mass of academic work. Nonetheless, existing scientific literature deals little with the categories of “public” involved in the different modes of participation. This paper is based upon the assertion that improved participation requires greater in-depth definition of the targeted public. On the basis of empirical work dealing with social contestation about windfarms, the paper examines the different participating characters and their related spaces as perceived by public and private actors engaged in the development of wind energy production: the diversely defined neighbour – the neighbour as owner, the “oversensitive” neighbour; the (rarely mentioned) citizen; and the emerging local inhabitant. The promises and dangers of this emerging character are discussed: could there be a place in participation for the local inhabitant as a geographical human being – one whose experience of the environment matters, conceived as including both socio-political and sensitive dimensions –, in the current context where primacy is given to private spaces and where a new model of citizenship is created, based no longer on associative forms of interaction but on the right to be left alone and on the right to exclude (Mitchell, 2005)?