La proximité comme perception de la distance. Le cas de la télémédecine

The various modes of proximity are frequently apprehended through objective measurement models. However, in their early works, scholars of the Proximity school also emphasized the subjective nature of proximity: this initial insight has progressively lost ground in recent research works. Our purpose in this paper is to revisit this subjective dimension, using a qualitative research. We have interviewed actors involved in five telemedicine projects developed in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes area. The main theoretical contribution of our research is to reveal how the subjective dimension of proximity shapes every of its modes, although in a dual and ambivalent manner. We evidenced that this subjective construct of proximity combined with the ambivalence of expressions generates the sense of a ?global? proximity. We therefore advocate for a redefinition of proximity as a global compounded notion contrary to previous views articulating multiple modes of proximities.