Cultural Initiatives of the Narbonnaise en Méditerranée Regional Nature Park: An Evaluative Analysis and Areas for Consideration in the Context of the Charter’s Revision

Interim Scientific Justification, March 30, 2022

Emmanuel Négrier

As part of the revision of its charter (2011–2022), the Narbonnaise en Méditerranée Regional Nature Park sought to collaborate with a research team to conduct a specific assessment of its cultural component. It identified the Center for Political and Social Studies (CEPEL) as the partner for this project, and CEPEL appointed Emmanuel Négrier, its director, to oversee this collaborative agreement. Négrier enlisted the expertise of two external partners to conduct an in-depth field study: Patricia Oudin and the research and consulting firm Doux Août.

The choice of CEPEL stems from the nature of the research on culture that has been conducted there for the past 20 years. The analysis of regional cultural policies is one of the laboratory’s major areas of research. In recent years, several areas of specialization have helped to expand our understanding of the links between cultural policies, regions, and social practices. Of particular note is research that has examined the role of culture in shifts 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 subject of comparative analysis at the European level (Négrier, Bonet, Guerrin, 2013), and finally as a “total” social and territorial phenomenon (Djakouane & Négrier, 2021).

CEPEL has also developed two new areas of research that examine culture from fresh perspectives.

The first is part of the many debates and controversies—professional, political, and civic—surrounding cultural policies related to participation. This new research focus is highlighted in an international book published in 2021, which examines 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 action research within a European network: BeSpectACTive!.

The second strand takes a more theoretical approach and is part of another European network, Uncharted, coordinated by the University of Barcelona. Its purpose is to measure the social value of culture, and it involves comparative, theoretical, and empirical research. Finally, it is worth mentioning the Stronger Peripheries network, which—still within the cultural sphere—seeks to take a specific look at the conditions under which cultural policies are implemented in “the” South, and to propose an alternative to the cultural policy frameworks that are (caught between market hegemony and public governance) often the preserve of the central countries of northern Europe.

To date, little research has been devoted to the issue of cultural policies implemented by organizations whose mission is not strictly tied to a specific discipline, field, or sector, but rather stems from the ambition of a regional initiative. Yet one might argue that this represents one of the contemporary contexts in which culture, as a legitimate focus of public action, is and will continue to be considered and recognized. Indeed, it is precisely the mission of Regional Natural Parks to work toward this new horizon in cultural policy. In this regard, the Narbonnaise en Méditerranée Regional Nature Park, as it reflects on the challenges associated with renewing its charter, provides a particularly interesting context for the development of CEPEL’s work on this issue (as we will see later in this document, the PNRNM has structured its cultural activities around an original initiative, the Archives du Sensible, which features a committee of experts of which Emmanuel Négrier was a member until April 2017). It is therefore logical that a collaboration agreement was established to formalize these two converging objectives: scientific development and reflective analysis of 10 years of cultural and artistic programming.

As will be seen later in this document, the PNRNM established itself in the cultural sphere through an innovative initiative, theArchives du Sensible, which has a committee of experts of which Emmanuel Négrier was a member until April 2017.

The National Research Program (PNR) and Cultural Initiatives: What They Are and Are Not, and What the Charter Says About Them

One point must be clarified from the outset regarding a Regional Nature Park’s (PNR) cultural project. It is not a cultural policy, in the sense that its responsibilities do not include managing facilities or establishing a general-purpose cultural department that oversees the entire sector, backed by the necessary legal authority and resources. A single example suffices to illustrate this: the park’s cultural activities, excluding salaries, amount to approximately 60,000 euros annually. By comparison, the cultural budget of the Greater Narbonne Urban Community stands at over 2 million euros (2.3 million in 2022). In France generally, few Regional Nature Parks (PNRs) deviate from this rule of conducting cultural activities without managing a specific institution or sector (examples include the Livradois-Forez Regional Nature Park, which manages a public library network, and the Brenne Regional Nature Park in the Berry region, which, among other things, organizes a cultural season).
On the other hand, a PNR’s cultural activities are less about pursuing cultural and artistic goals “in and of themselves”—as a specialized cultural administration would do—and more about situating its cultural and artistic activities within the context of a specific territory and other areas of intervention. This distinctive approach does not, however, make the park’s cultural activities subordinate to its other missions.

“I’ve never understood why some parks have a cultural policy that has nothing to do with the concept of territory. For me, this concept of territory is a gem. It’s not about being rooted in a place. It’s about territory—real, imaginary, or dreamt. 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 a Regional Nature Park are therefore characterized by three main features.

On the one hand, it is an artistic initiative driven by extrinsic objectives—in the public interest—that align with the PNR’s broader goals. Here, culture is “at the service” of these objectives, which are championed by sectors focused on defining the region’s identity, fostering a “shared culture,” and extending—through its own means and criteria—efforts to raise awareness about the environment, heritage (historical, tangible, and intangible), biodiversity, and so on.

In this regard, cultural and artistic initiatives in this context might seem somewhat instrumental, but that is precisely the nuance: cultural and artistic initiatives operate according to their own criteria and do not place themselves at the service of a particular sector by denying their autonomous artistic nature; thus, an artist is not an educational facilitator when working in a school setting; they are not a whistleblower or an environmental activist, nor a scientist when they examine climate risks; they are not a heritage curator when they explore ancient traces in a given space; they are not a geographer when they address the former border, nor an urban planner when they discuss the chalets in Gruissan. It is because of this artistic autonomy that the Ministry of Culture decides whether or not to direct its own funding toward cultural initiatives. This is precisely why it is so difficult to label the artist a “mediator”—a role that is both recognized (in the name of art’s social utility) and contested by the artists themselves (in the name of rejecting instrumentalization). The role of mediator can only be assumed by recognizing that it is grounded in the very foundations of creation, and not through the transformation of the artist into a “territorial mediator” (François Pouthier, “The Artistic Presence in Regional Nature Parks. Portrait of the Artist as Territorial Mediator,” in Geography in Action: The Territories of Geographers, Publications of the MSH Aquitaine, 2021)

Second, this initiative is part of a project-based approach that is open to innovation and research, and for these reasons is open to both unexpected successes and the risk of failure. Whether they succeed or fail, the PNR’s initiatives are therefore not intended to become permanent fixtures in the park’s policy. The purpose of the Charter, which is regularly revised, is to assess the merits of a given project within a specific space and at a specific time. This applies to the “Paysages en chantier” initiative, an event that, in 2021, took place in each of the park’s municipalities in close collaboration with local governments, residents, the Departmental Archives, and artists—and which proved to be a resounding success each time.

Third, based on this project logic, the PNR acts less as a policy maker and more as a committed mediator serving culture, complementing the cultural initiatives of other public actors in the region. Here’s a statistic: 15 of the 22 municipalities that make up the PNR in 2022 are also members of the Greater Narbonne Urban Community. Consequently, the park’s contribution to the cultural life of its territory logically fits within the broader framework of the EPCI’s cultural initiatives, as well as those of other services (e.g., the Departmental Archives), associations (e.g., Cinémaude for its traveling film programming), and agencies (e.g., Occitanie en Scène, Occitanie Livre et Lecture, Occitanie Film). This role of active intermediation—which François Pouthier, in his dissertation on the cultural activities of Regional Nature Parks (PNRs), describes as “assemblier”—implies a cooperative atmosphere that, as we shall see, is present to a highly uneven degree.

It is in light of these three characteristics that we will assess, in particular, whether the PNR’s resources are adequate for implementing the commitments set forth in the charter. To make this assessment, we must first understand the nature of those commitments.

Since its inception in 2003, the PNR’s cultural project has had a twofold goal that is only imperfectly reflected in the headings of the 2001–2022 charter: 3.3.1. To understand and showcase the cultural heritage of the Narbonnaise region; 3.3.2. Bringing the cultural heritage of the Narbonnaise region to life and sharing it. A reading of these two main pillars might suggest that the park’s cultural activities are entirely focused on a heritage-based approach. This would not be out of place, given how widespread such an approach is in most Regional Nature Parks (PNRs) in France. However, an examination of the content proposed under these two chapters shows that this assumption is inaccurate on two counts.

The first is that the heritage approach is both comprehensive in terms of the territory and limited in terms of public action. Among the traditional aspects of heritage policy, it is primarily promotion activities that form part of the La Narbonnaise project. Other public entities—including the national government, the Regional Council, and the Greater Narbonne authority—exercise their responsibilities in this area through protection and conservation efforts. For example, the building rehabilitation program in certain municipalities relies on regional funding channeled through the Greater Narbonne authority. The PNR, for its part, incorporates these heritage functions only to a limited extent. Moreover, it lacks both the investment funds that would enable it to act in this capacity and the legitimacy that would be conferred upon it in this area by the municipalities, on the one hand, and the supra-municipal authorities, on the other. That said, the PNR’s role in promoting heritage involves a variety of initiatives that demonstrate that, in its own way, it is a major player in a certain process of heritage preservation. In a region characterized by significant flows—tourism, suburbanization, and transportation networks—it directs attention toward cultures rooted in memory, traditions, and the enduring cultural life experienced within this area. Publications on the former border, cultural actors, trades, and social circles are not merely expressions of resistance—opposing flows with stocks, or change with continuity. For, as these heritage studies demonstrate, what is taking place is a different perspective on contemporary transformations, viewed through the lens of the changes that shaped the region in earlier times. In a sense, this shift in perspective applies not only to the traces of the past but also to the imprints left by modernity, critically situating them within a broader context of global transformation. This is the very essence of the work on *La vie de chaletain à Gruissan* (Life as a Chalet Owner in Gruissan), by Christian James Jacquelin and Sylvie Goussopoulos, published in 2015 as Park Notebook No. 16. It traces the origins of this way of life, the evolution of its practices, and the conflicts they have engendered. In this sense, the “heritage” addressed by the park is part of a cumulative and controversial history, straddling the boundaries of institutional objects, sites, monuments, and social practices—an ethnology of space. It is this policy of recognizing heritage—which can be extended to traditional trades, from saltworks to ship carpentry—that does not always present itself as such—what the charter identifies as its apparent “modesty”—that bridges the past and the present (“ “La storia apre le porte al futuro,” proclaims the new Polo del 900 in Turin, which brings together in a single location all the heritage associations linked to the city’s history, from its thinkers and artifacts to its working-class and political memory), but also the social bond between new residents and natives, 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 is about taking a closer look at where we live…” (Interview with Jacques Michaud, February 17, 2022).

The second point is that, alongside and in conjunction with its heritage initiatives, the Regional Nature Park (PNR) is committed to the performing arts. Naturally, the way heritage is viewed can be likened to a living artistic endeavor, particularly in that it calls for a contemporary perspective and reinterpretation. But the park’s cultural activities also involve artistic creation—which is more detached from a strictly heritage-based approach than one might assume upon reading the charter, though it remains firmly rooted in a territorial dimension. Numerous initiatives, particularly artist residencies, aim to place contemporary art within the triptych referenced in Marion Thiba’s quote: territory, the real, the imagined, and the dreamed. In the period preceding the one covered by our evaluation, the PNR organized a festival calledLes Identi’terres. An examination of the program shows that while the “territorial” question is at the heart of the artistic endeavor, it is in no way subject to a heritage-based framework. The same is true of the artist residencies, the commissions carried out by the ANPU (National Agency for Urban Psychoanalysis) and its artistic representation of rising sea levels and ponds, on the occasion ofthe “La Mer Monte” scientific conference on November 19, 2021; or the performance *Allez Allez Allez*, directed by Fabien Bergès, about the passion for rugby. The same applies to the photographic work *Les Traversées*, created by Kristof Guez, Marc Medevielle, and Juergen Schilling, exhibited at the Maison des Arts in Bages, which aims precisely to shift our perspective on elements within this space that, at first glance, are not typically considered “landscape” or “heritage” in common perceptions (scrubland, a railroad track, industrial infrastructure).

In the park’s cultural initiatives, heritage and the performing arts thus converge around the concept of “territory.” The question is to what extent these initiatives have the necessary conditions to live up to the commitments made in 2011.

Method

The research team adopted a three-pronged approach. The first involves reviewing the general literature on PNRs and the various cultural initiatives they represent. Among the many sources—in addition to our own studies on the subject in the Rhône-Alpes region—is the recent dissertation by François Pouthier, with whom we conducted an in-depth interview.

Next, as is customary, she devoted herself to reviewing the numerous statistical reports detailing the PNR’s achievements in this area. Throughout the document, we report on this quantitative aspect of the assessment of the PNR’s cultural activities, without, however, treating the figures as an end in themselves.

The qualitative approach, for its part, involved a series of interviews that we sought to make as extensive and diverse as possible, in order to gather multiple perspectives on the content of this initiative, as well as the context in which it takes place and finds its meaning. The list of interviews is included in the appendix to this document. It comprises some sixty interviewees, whom we thank for their time and for the clarity of their insights into the issues raised by the PNR’s cultural initiative. The interview technique used was semi-structured with a non-directive approach, which—while based on a set of questions identified as requiring answers—allowed the interviewee the greatest possible freedom to address the topics and present their arguments as they saw fit. The interviews varied in length, ranging from 60 to 360 minutes. Several individuals were interviewed on multiple occasions. We therefore have verbatim transcripts corresponding to approximately 1,000 hours of interviews. In addition to these interviews, we also conducted field observations during visits to villages, cultural venues, and sites.