Conflit et territorialisation

A lot of conflicts that are observed in rural areas can be qualified as environmental conflicts. The question is whether environmental arguments mobilised by social actors are to be considered as a sort of rhetoric with some hidden interests or if there is a specifcity or a novelty in these environmental discourses around nature, pollution or landscape and biodiversity. This paper defends the second assumption. Current analysis consider conflicts around rural territories as conflicts between social groups that are competing to use space according their own social or economic priorities. But when we describe environmental conflicts, we can see other stakes that emerge from the social dynamics of conflict. Thus this contribution suggests to analyse these conflicts as framing conflicts that aim at redefining these objects. Then our analysis tries to describe the social dynamics, the specifc processes of social alliances and oppositions that lead to draw up new framings. These processes imply a new norms, new knowledges or techniques, and transformed identities in order to rebuild territories. Beyond the concrete objects that are at stake, this paper propose a new grid to analyse territories by borrowing concepts to the deleuzian philosophy.