Paris Plage: "The City Is Ours"

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 595, S. 134-145

Abstract

In 2003, for the second year running, the Paris municipality entrusted a young theater designer with the transformation of one stretch of the banks of the Seine River -- normally congested with heavy traffic -- into an open space evocative of the seaside. Paris in August is therefore Paris by the seaside. The objective of our study is to examine the entire operation, from the moment the political decision was taken by the municipality to the many & varied activities of all those who participated. Through this study, we attempt to highlight the different forms of material & symbolic (re)creation of Paris being undertaken today. We show that in a situation such as this, a reflection on the fieldwork undertaken & the production of ethnographic knowledge is in fact the key factor in the analysis. 3 Figures, 13 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2004 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]