The cultural activities of the Narbonnaise en Méditerranée Regional Nature Park: Evaluative analysis and avenues for reflection in the context of the charter review

Scientific justification for the stage, March 30, 2022

Emmanuel Negrier

The Narbonnaise Regional Nature Park in the Mediterranean wanted to collaborate with a research team to carry out a specific assessment of its cultural component when revising its charter (2011-2022). 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 the person responsible for this collaboration contract. Négrier enlisted the expertise of two external partners in order to carry out an in-depth field study: Patricia Oudin and the research and consulting firm Doux Août.

The choice of CEPEL is explained by the nature of the work on culture that has been carried out within it for the past 20 years. The analysis of regional cultural policies is one of the main areas of research within the laboratory. In recent years, several areas of specialization have contributed to enriching knowledge about the links between cultural policies, regions, and social practices. In particular, we refer to work that has focused on the place of culture in territorial changes of 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 at the European level (Négrier, Bonet, Guerrin, 2013) and, finally, as a "total" social and territorial object (Djakouane & Négrier, 2021).

CEPEL has also developed two new areas of research focusing on culture from new perspectives.

The first is part of the numerous debates and controversies (professional, political, civic) on cultural policies surrounding participation. This new focus is enshrined in an international publication coordinated in 2021, which deals with 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 axis is more theoretical in nature 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, mention should be made of the Stronger Peripheries network, which, still in the cultural field, aims to take a specific look at the conditions for implementing cultural policies in "the" Souths, and to propose an alternative to the cultural policy frameworks that are (between commercial 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 linked to a particular discipline, field, or sector, but rather stems from the ambition of a regional project. However, it is reasonable to assume that this is one of the contemporary configurations in which culture, as a legitimate object of public action, is and will be considered and recognized. It is precisely the purpose of Regional Nature Parks to work on this new horizon of cultural policies. In this respect, the Narbonnaise en Méditerranée Regional Nature Park, which is considering issues related to the renewal of its charter, is a particularly interesting area for the development of CEPEL's work on this point (as will be seen later in this document, the PNRNM has structured itself in the cultural field around an original initiative, the Archives du Sensible, which has a committee of experts, of which Emmanuel Négrier was a member until April 2017). It is therefore logical that a collaboration agreement has been implemented to seal these two converging desires: scientific development and reflective practice over 10 years of cultural and artistic programming.

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

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

One thing must be made clear from the outset about the cultural project of a regional nature park. It is not a cultural policy, in the sense that its remit does not include the management of facilities or the establishment of a general cultural service covering the entire sector, backed by the necessary legal expertise and resources. One example suffices to illustrate this: the park's cultural activities, excluding salaries, represent approximately €60,000 per year. In contrast, the cultural budget of the Greater Narbonne urban community is over €2 million (€2.3 million in 2022). In France in general, few regional nature parks deviate from this rule of cultural activities without managing an establishment or sector (examples include the Livradois Forez Regional Nature Park, which manages a public reading network, and the Brenne Regional Nature Park in Berry, which is responsible for managing a cultural season, among other things).
Furthermore, the cultural activities of a PNR are less about pursuing cultural and artistic goals "in themselves," as a specialized cultural administration would do, than about integrating its cultural and artistic activities into a specific territory and other areas of intervention. However, this unique feature does not make the park's cultural activities secondary to its other missions.

"I have 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. It's about real, imaginary, dreamt-of territory. It inspires any artist. It's a sensitive approach to territory, which is in itself unique." (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 endeavor motivated by extrinsic objectives of general interest, which are part of the broader goals of the PNR. Culture here is "at the service" of these objectives, which are pursued by sectors involved in identifying the territory, creating a "common culture" there, and using their own means and criteria to raise awareness of the environment, heritage (historical, tangible, intangible), biodiversity, etc.

In this regard, cultural and artistic action in this context could be seen as somewhat instrumental, but that is where the nuance lies: cultural and artistic action operates according to its own criteria and does not serve a particular sector by denying its autonomous artistic role. Artists are therefore not educational facilitators when they work in schools; they are not whistleblowers or environmental activists, or scientists when they question climate risks; they are not heritage curators when they question the ancient traces of space; they are not geographers when they discuss the old border, nor urban planners when they address the chalets of Gruissan. It is because of this artistic autonomy that the Ministry of Culture decides whether or not to direct its own support to culture. This is the difficulty of describing the artist as a "mediator," which is both recognized (in the name of the social use of art) and debated by the artists themselves (in the name of refusing to be instrumentalized). The role of mediator can only be assumed by remembering that it is based on the very foundations of creation, and not by transforming the artist into a "territorial mediator" (François Pouthier, "La présence artistique dans les Parcs Naturels Régionaux. Portrait of the artist as a territorial mediator," in Geography in action or the territories of geographers, Publications of the MSH Aquitaine, 2021)

Secondly, it is an initiative that is part of a project perspective, sensitive to innovation and research, and for these reasons open to paradoxical successes but also to the risk of failure. Whether successful or not, the actions of the NRP are not intended to be a permanent part of the park's policy. The purpose of the Charter, which is regularly revised, is to assess the merits of a given project in a given space and at a given time. This is the case with the "Paysages en chantier" (Landscapes under construction) project, an event that took place in 2021 in each of the park's municipalities, in close collaboration with the local authorities, residents, departmental archives, and artists, and which was a resounding success on every occasion.

Thirdly, according to this project logic, the PNR is less the holder of a policy than a committed mediator, serving culture and complementing the cultural activities of other public actors in the region. One figure: 15 of the 22 municipalities that make up the PNR in 2022 are also members of the Greater Narbonne urban community. As a result, the park's contribution to the cultural life of its territory logically fits into the broader scope of cultural interventions by the EPCI, but also by other services (e.g., the departmental archives), associations (e.g., Cinémaude for traveling film programming), and agencies (e.g., Occitanie en Scène, Occitanie Livre et Lecture, Occitanie Film). This active intermediary role, which François Pouthier, in his thesis on the cultural activities of regional nature parks, describes as "assembler," requires a cooperative atmosphere which, as we shall see, is very unevenly present.

It is in light of these three characteristics that we will assess the adequacy of the PNR's resources for 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 PNR's cultural project has had a dual ambition that is only imperfectly reflected in the titles of the 2001-2022 charter: 3.3.1. To learn about and reveal the cultural heritage of the Narbonnaise region; 3.3.2. Bringing the heritage of the Narbonnaise region to life and sharing it. Reading these two main areas of focus might lead one to believe that the park's cultural activities are entirely geared towards heritage. This would not be incongruous, given how widespread this approach is in most regional nature parks in France. However, an examination of the content proposed in these two chapters shows that this is inaccurate in two respects.

The first is that the heritage approach is both comprehensive in terms of territory and partial in terms of public action. Among the classic registers of heritage policy, it is mainly promotion activities that are part of the La Narbonnaise project. Other public authorities, including the State, the Regional Council, and Greater Narbonne, exercise their responsibilities in this territory through protection and conservation operations. For example, the building rehabilitation program in certain municipalities is funded by regional financing that passes through Greater Narbonne. The PNR, for its part, only marginally integrates these heritage functions. It does not have the investment funds that would enable it to intervene in this capacity, nor the legitimacy that would be conferred on it in this area by the municipalities on the one hand and the supra-municipal authorities on the other. That said, the PNR's involvement in promoting heritage takes the form of a variety of actions that show that, in its own way, it is a major player in a certain kind of heritage preservation. In a region marked by the importance of flows (tourism, suburbanization, transport networks), it directs attention towards cultures belonging to memory, traditions, and the cultural permanence experienced in this space. Publications on the former border, cultural actors, trades, and environments are not just resistance to flows by stocks, or to change by permanence. As this heritage work shows, it offers a different perspective on contemporary changes, measured against the changes that shaped the area in other times. In a way, this shift in perspective is not limited to the traces of the past. It also applies to the marks left by modernity, critically placing it within a global transformation. This is the whole point of the work carried out 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 recounts the origins of this way of life, the evolution of practices, but also the conflicts to which they gave rise. In this sense, the "heritage" dealt with by the park is part of a cumulative and controversial history, at the boundaries of institutional objects, sites, monuments, and social practices, of an ethnology of space. It is this policy of recognition (which can be extended to traditional trades, from salt works to ship carpentry) of heritage that does not always present itself as such—what the charter identifies as its apparent "modesty"—that links the past and the present (" La storia apre le porte al futuro," claims 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 objects to its working-class and political memory), but also the social link between new inhabitants and natives, between different generations and between different ways of inhabiting the territory.

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

The second aspect is that, alongside and in conjunction with its heritage activities, the PNR is also committed to the performing arts. Naturally, the way in which heritage is viewed can be likened to a living art form, particularly in that it calls for a contemporary perspective and reinterpretation. But the park's cultural activities also involve artistic creation—more detached than one might think when reading the charter's real heritage dimension—although always rooted in a territorial dimension. Many activities, particularly artistic residencies, aim to bring contemporary art into the triptych mentioned in Marion Thiba's quote: territory, reality, imagination, dreams. In the period preceding the one covered by 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 challenge, it is in no way subject to a heritage dimension. The same is true of the artistic residencies, the commissions made to the ANPU (Agence Nationale de Psychanalyse Urbaine) and its artistic representation of rising sea levels and ponds, on the occasion ofthe scientific meetingsLa Mer Monte, on November 19, 2021; or the show Allez Allez Allez directed by Fabien Bergès on the passion for rugby. The same applies to the photographic work Les Traversées, produced by Kristof Guez, Marc Medevielle, and Juergen Schilling, exhibited at the Maison des Arts in Bages, which aims to change the way we look at what, in this space, is not a priori considered a "landscape" or "heritage" in common representations (scrubland, a railway line, industrial infrastructure).

In terms of the park's cultural activities, heritage and performing arts come together around the concept of territory. The aim is to see how these activities can benefit from the conditions necessary to live up to the commitments made in 2011.

Method

The research team opted for a three-pronged approach. The first consists of reviewing the general literature on PNRs and the various cultural initiatives they represent. 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.

Next, as is customary, she examined 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 considering the figures as an end in themselves.

The qualitative approach involved a series of interviews, which we sought to make as comprehensive and diverse as possible in order to gather a wide range of perspectives on the content of this initiative, the context in which it takes place, and its meaning. The list of interviews is included in the appendix to this document. It includes around 60 interviewees, whom we would like to thank for their availability and the insight they provided on the issues raised by the PNR's cultural action. The interview technique used was semi-structured with a non-directive approach, which—based on a set of questions identified as requiring answers—gave the interviewees the greatest possible freedom to discuss the topics and argue their case as they saw fit. The interviews varied in length from 60 to 360 minutes. Several people were interviewed on multiple occasions. We therefore have transcripts corresponding to approximately 1,000 hours of interviews. In addition to these meetings, we also made observations in the field during visits to villages, cultural venues, and sites.