L'action culturelle du PNR de la Narbonnaise en Méditerranée : Analyse évaluative et pistes de réflexion dans le cadre de la révision de la charte

Scientific milestone justification, March 30, 2022

Emmanuel Négrier

As part of the revision of its charter (2011-2022), the Parc Naturel Régional de la Narbonnaise en Méditerranée wanted to collaborate with a research team to carry out a specific evaluation of its cultural component. It identified the Centre d'Études Politiques Et sociaLes (CEPEL) as the partner for such a project, which appointed Emmanuel Négrier, Director of CEPEL, as head of this collaborative contract. He enlisted the expertise of two external partners to provide him with the means for an in-depth field survey: Patricia Oudin, and the research and consultancy firm Doux Août.

The choice of CEPEL is explained by the nature of the work on culture it has been developing over the past 20 years. Analysis of territorial cultural policies is one of the laboratory's main areas of research. Over the last few years, several lines of specialization have contributed to enriching our knowledge of the links between cultural policies, territories and social practices. These include work on the place of culture in changes in territorial scale (Négrier, Teillet 2008, 2021), and on festivals as a territorial dynamic (Négrier & Jourda, 2007), as a social practice (Négrier & Djakouane, 2010), as a comparative object on a European scale (Négrier, Bonet, Guerrin, 2013) and finally as a "total" social and territorial object (Djakouane & Négrier, 2021).

CEPEL has also developed two new lines of research focusing on culture from new angles.

The first is in line with the many debates and controversies (professional, political, civic) on cultural policies around participation. This new focus is reflected in an international publication, coordinated in 2021, on the rise of the issue of participation in cultural policies in Europe (Dupin-Meynard & Négrier 2021). It is the result of more than five years of research-action within a European network: BeSpectACTive!

The second axis takes a more theoretical approach, and is based on another European network, Uncharted, coordinated by the University of Barcelona. Its aim is to measure the social value of culture, through comparative, theoretical and empirical investigations. Finally, we should mention the Stronger Peripheries network, which aims, again in the cultural field, to take a specific look at the conditions under which cultural policies are implemented in "the" Souths, and propose an alternative to the cultural policy frames of reference that are (between market hegemony and public governance) often the prerogative of the central countries of more northerly Europe.

To date, little work has been devoted to the question of cultural policies conducted by organizations whose vocation is not strictly linked to a discipline, field or sector, but rather results from the ambition of a territorial project. And yet, this is one of the contemporary configurations within which culture, as a legitimate object of public action, is and will be considered and recognized. It is precisely the task of the Regional Nature Parks to work on this new horizon of cultural policies. In this respect, the Parc Naturel Régional de la Narbonnaise en Méditerranée, reflecting on the issues linked to the renewal of its charter, constitutes a particularly interesting field for the development of CEPEL's work on this point (As we shall see in the remainder of this document, the PNRNM has structured itself in the cultural field on the basis of an original mechanism, the Archives du Sensible, endowed with a committee of experts, of which Emmanuel Négrier was a member until April 2017). It is therefore logical that a collaboration agreement has been set up to seal these two converging aims: scientific development/reflective exercise over 10 years of cultural and artistic programming.

As we'll see in the rest of this document, the PNRNM is structured in the cultural field around an original mechanism, theArchives du Sensible, with a committee of experts, of which Emmanuel Négrier was a member until April 2017.

NRP and cultural action: what it is and isn't, and what the charter says about it

The cultural project of an NRP needs to be clarified from the outset. It is not a cultural policy, in the sense that its remit does not include the management of facilities, but rather the creation of a general cultural service, taking charge of a sector as a whole, backed up by legal skills and appropriate resources. Just one example: the park's cultural activities, excluding salaries, represent some 60,000 euros a year. In comparison, the cultural budget of the Grand Narbonne agglomeration community is over 2 million euros (2.3 million in 2022). In France as a whole, few NRPs depart from this rule of cultural action without managing an establishment or sector (for example, the Livradois Forez NRP manages a public reading network, while the Brenne NRP in the Berry region manages a cultural season).
On the other hand, an NRP's cultural action is less about pursuing cultural and artistic goals "in its own right", as would a specialized cultural administration, than about inscribing its cultural and artistic actions in reference to a territory and other fields of intervention. This singularity does not mean, however, that the park's cultural activities are the servant of its other missions.

"I've never understood why some parks have a cultural policy that has nothing to do with the notion of territory. For me, this notion of territory is a nugget. It's not about putting down roots. Real territory, imaginary territory, dream territory. It inspires any artist. It's a sensitive approach to territory, which is in itself a singularity." (Interview with Marion Thiba, November 19, 2021)

The cultural activities of an NRP are therefore characterized by three main features.

On the one hand, it's an artistic action motivated by extrinsic objectives of general interest, in keeping with the other, broader aims of the NRP. In this case, culture is "at the service" of these goals, which are based on identifying the territory, creating a "shared culture", and extending, by its own means and criteria, the action of raising awareness of the environment, heritage (historical, tangible, intangible), biodiversity and so on.

In this respect, cultural and artistic action could be seen as somewhat instrumental, but that's where the nuance lies: cultural and artistic action intervenes with its own criteria, and does not place itself at the service of a sector by denying its autonomous artistic part: the artist is not an educationalist when he works in schools; he is not a whistle-blower or an environmental activist, or a scientist when he questions climatic risks; he is not a heritage curator when he questions the ancient traces of space; he is not a geographer when he thematizes the old frontier, nor an urban planner when he tackles the chalets of Gruissan. It is because of this artistic autonomy that the French Ministry of Culture decides whether or not to provide its own cultural support. The difficulty lies in qualifying the artist as a "mediator", something that is both recognized (in the name of the social use of art) and disputed by the artists themselves (in the name of the refusal of instrumentalization). The posture of mediator can only be assumed by recalling that it is based on the very foundations of creation, and not by transfiguring the artist into a "territorial mediator" (François Pouthier, "La présence artistique dans les Parcs Naturels Régionaux. Portrait de l'artiste en médiateur de territoire", in La géographie en action ou les territoires des géographes, Publications de la MSH Aquitaine, 2021).

Secondly, it's a project-based approach, sensitive to innovation and research, and therefore open to paradoxical successes but also to the risk of failure. Success or failure, NRP actions are not intended to be a permanent feature of park policy. It is the raison d'être of the Charter, which is regularly revised, to evaluate the merits of a given project in a given area at a given time. Such is the case with the "Paysages en chantier" (Landscapes under construction), an event which, in 2021, will have taken place in each of the park's communes, in close association with the municipalities, their residents, the Departmental Archives and artists, and which will have been a resounding success each time.

Thirdly, through this project logic, the NRP is less the holder of a policy than a committed mediator in the service of culture, complementing the cultural intervention of other public players in a territory. Just one figure: 15 of the 22 communes that will make up the NRP in 2022 are also members of the Grand Narbonne agglomeration community. As a result, the Park's contribution to the cultural life of its territory is logically part of the wider cultural interventions of the EPCI, but also of other services (e.g. the Departmental Archives), associations (e.g. Cinémaude for touring cinema programming) and agencies (e.g. Occitanie en Scène, Occitanie Livre et Lecture, Occitanie Film). This active intermediation function, which François Pouthier describes in his thesis on NRP cultural action as "assemblier", implies a cooperative atmosphere which, as we shall see, is very unevenly present.

It is against these three characteristics that we will assess the adequacy of the NRP's resources in implementing the commitments set out in the charter. To judge this, we must first interpret the nature of these commitments.

Since its inception in 2003, the NRP's cultural project has had a dual ambition, which is only imperfectly reflected in the titles of the 2001-2022 charter: 3.3.1. Know and reveal the cultural heritage of the Narbonnaise region; 3.3.2. Bring to life and share the heritage of the Narbonnaise region. A reading of these two main themes might suggest that the Park's cultural action is entirely oriented towards a heritage approach. This would not be incongruous, given that it is commonplace in most of France's RNPs. However, an examination of the proposed content of these two chapters shows that it is inaccurate on two counts.

The first is that the heritage approach is both global in terms of territory and partial in terms of public action. Among the classic registers of a heritage policy, it is essentially enhancement activities that form part of the Narbonnaise project. Other public authorities, including the State, the Conseil Régional and the Grand Narbonne, exercise their responsibilities on this territory, through protection and conservation operations. In some communes, for example, the building rehabilitation program depends on regional funding, which is channeled through the Grand Narbonne. The NRP, on the other hand, integrates these heritage functions only marginally. Moreover, it does not have the investment funds that would enable it to intervene in this area, nor the legitimacy conferred on it by the communes on the one hand, and the supra-communal authorities on the other. That said, the NRP's involvement in heritage enhancement takes the form of a wide range of actions, demonstrating that in its own way, it is a major player in a certain type of heritage development. In an area marked by the importance of flows (tourism, peri-urbanization, transport networks), it directs the gaze towards cultures belonging to the memory, traditions and cultural permanence experienced in this area. Publications on the old frontier, on cultural players, on professions and milieus, are not just resistance to flows by stocks, to change by permanence. For, as these heritage works show, it's another way of looking at contemporary mutations, in the light of the changes that have shaped space in other times, that is taking place. In a way, this change of perspective applies not only to traces of the past. It applies to the marks made by modernity, critically inscribing it within a global transformation. This is the point of the work on La vie de chaletain à Gruissan, by Christian James Jacquelin and Sylvie Goussopoulos, published in 2015 as carnet du parc n°16. It reconstructs the origins of this life, the evolution of practices, but also the conflicts to which they gave rise. In this sense, the "heritage" that the park deals with is part of a cumulative and controversial history, on the borders of institutional objects, sites and monuments, and social practices, an ethnology of space. It is this policy of recognition (which can be extended to traditional trades, from saltworks to marine carpentry) of heritages that do not always present themselves as such - which the charter identifies as its apparent "modesty" - that makes the link between the past and the contemporary ("La storia apre le porte al futuro", claims the new Polo del 900, in Turin, which brings together in a single place all the heritage associations linked to the city's history, from its thinkers and objects to its working-class and political memory), but also the social link between new and native inhabitants, between distinct generations and between different ways of inhabiting the territory.

"What justifies a regional nature park, an idea I think is great, is culture. Culture means looking at where you live..." (Interview with Jacques Michaud, February 17, 2022).

Secondly, alongside and in tandem with our heritage activities, the NRP is committed to the living arts. Naturally, the way in which heritage is considered can be similar to a living artistic work, particularly in that it calls for a contemporary viewpoint, a reinterpretation. But the park's cultural action also involves artistic creation - more detached from the real heritage dimension than one might think from a reading of the charter - though still rooted in a territorial dimension. Numerous initiatives, notably artistic residencies, are designed to bring contemporary art into line with the triptych recalled in Marion Thiba's quotation: territory, real, imagined, dreamt. In the period preceding the one offered for our evaluation, the PNR organized a festival, Les Identi'terres. An examination of the program shows that, while the "territorial" question is at the heart of the artistic stakes, it is in no way subject to a heritage dimension. The same is true of artistic residencies, commissions from ANPU (Agence Nationale de Psychanalyse Urbaine) and its artistic representation of rising sea levels and ponds, on the occasion of the Rencontres scientifiquesLaMer Monte, on November 19, 2021; or the show Allez Allez Allez directed by Fabien Bergès on the passion of rugby. The same applies to the photographic work, Les Traversées, by Kristof Guez, Marc Medevielle and Juergen Schilling, exhibited at the Maison des Arts de Bages, whose aim is precisely to change the way we look at what, in this area, is not a priori either a "landscape" or a "heritage" in common representations (a scrubland, a train track, industrial infrastructures).

In the concrete terms of the park's cultural action, the heritage and performing arts approaches come together around the notion of territory. The aim is to see how these initiatives are meeting the conditions necessary to live up to the commitments made in 2011.

Method

The research team opted for a three-pronged approach. The first is to draw on the general literature on NRPs and the various experiences of cultural action to which they bear witness. Among the many sources - apart from our own studies on the subject in the Rhône-Alpes region - is the recent thesis by François Pouthier, with whom we conducted an in-depth interview.

Secondly, in the usual way, it has invested itself in examining the numerous quantitative reports on the NRP's achievements in this field. Throughout this document, we report on this quantitative dimension of the assessment of the NRP's cultural action, without considering figures as an end in themselves.

The qualitative approach involved a series of interviews, which we wanted to be as comprehensive and diverse as possible, in order to provide a wide range of perspectives on the content of this action, and the context in which it takes place and makes sense. The list of interviews is appended to this document. We would like to thank all our interviewees for their availability and their insight into the issues raised by the NRP's cultural action. The interview technique used was semi-directive with a non-directive tendency, allowing the interviewee - on the basis of a block of questions identified as requiring a response - the greatest possible freedom to evoke the themes and argue in the direction that suits him or her. Interviews varied in length: from 60 minutes to 360 minutes. Several people were interviewed on different occasions. We therefore have a verbatim record corresponding to around 1,000 hours of interviews. In addition to these meetings, we also made observations in the field, visiting villages, cultural sites and other sites.