Climbing sites as counter-sites ? Essay on neo-community forms and territorialisation processes at work in the practice of rock climbing

Abstract

Abstract : In his study of the territorialisation of a natural climbing site by a small group of climbers, E. de Léséleuc described the construction and operation of a community type of organisation that was particularly closed to other participants and anchored in a public space that the members of the « community » were tending to privatise. According to the author, this form of collective withdrawal, based on defensive territorialisation, is an essential component of so-called sports of the « great outdoors ». Drawing on two earlier unpublished studies on this question, the present article discusses the possible generalisation, in the field of rock climbing, of this social and spatial configuration. We identify the specific characteristics of this physical activity and the diversity and complexity of socio-spatial forms of organisation associated with it, enabling us to put into perspective the role of a « defensive communitarianism » that might be assumed to be dominant.