Publicness process on suburban farmland : from the global scale to place construction
This thesis aims to theorize and operationalize the publicness process of suburban farmland. This notion, still uncommon in geography, means any process that transforms the nature of farmland under urban influence, making it public. This complex process is composed of debates on the future of agriculture and of suburban spatial practices that illustrate theirmultifunctionality (agricultural production, landscape, leisure…). The first part aims to theorize the concept and its definition by constructing a theoretical framework in five dimensions: legal, social, political, historical and economic. The second part describes the process by studying the debates surrounding a project of Local Agenda 21. The objective is to know if discussions that lead to actions can, in suburban areas, result in publicness of suburban farmland. This section showsthat the publicness process fluctuates over time and is materialized in agricultural places. In the third part, the publicness process is studied at territorial scale: the Pays de Lunel municipalities group. We analyze its political and associative projects which include the opening of agricultural areas to the public. Then we study the composition publicness process in six places of the municipalities group. We conclude that the publicness process is a multi-faceted phenomenon. So we create a typology of suburban farmland places according to the publicness process. Finally, in the publicness process, global and local scales overlap in the construction of places. This thesis provides several research perspectives to illuminate the transformations taking place in suburban farmland.