Research topic 1 : Processes of regional integration

This topic, which is well defined while remaining sufficiently broad, unites the work of many of the researchers in axis 1. Several of them are considering the processes of reconstruction and the development of new areas, economic, political or social poles or territories. The reorganisation of production systems and new international relationships, linked to globalisation and liberalisation processes, result in reconstruction at regional, national or local scales. Emphasis is laid on reconstruction at different scales, on problems of polarisation, on exclusion / inclusion problems and on a study of words or actions by actors who come forward in response to these processes, in these new areas or regional markets.

Research topic 2 : Local rural-urban development. Social innovations and new forms of governance

The question of social and political innovation is addressed at various territorial levels. The term is used here to describe and analyse adaptation phenomena but also to the resistance of actors in the face of change – including the regionalisation process – driven by world economic development. The latter certainly creates vulnerability, but may also be stimulating, both in industrialised and under-developed countries. Innovation is used here mainly in a social sense : the subject analysed concerns the collective action of discredited individuals, marginalised by dominant processes, like the European fringes could become, and who are thus looking for economic or social stimulation. This could be in the form of a reorganisation of production within a domestic unit, inclusion in a network or knowledge sharing, or the creation of specific associations or institutions. The scale of analysis varies from the family group to a production unit, to a community (the region or the State), and to groups at the macro-scale. These variations are central to actors’ strategies which combine several inter-personal levels borrowed from several territorial levels.