Page 349 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

A methodological approach to analyze the territorial appropriation of high-speed rail from interactions
between actions and representations of local actors

Ultimately, the issue must be seen from another angle. Instead of inquiring into the "effects"
of the new transport supply on spatial organization, it is better to start from the territory as
a whole in order to analyze how it has generated the infrastructure, has adjusted to the new
conditions of accessibility and has appropriated the new transport supply. As C. Chaplain has
shown in her PhD dissertation on the Channel Tunnel and the French Northern high-speed line,
the understanding of the actors’ behaviours and practices that accompanied the infrastructure
project, from conception to completion, is essential for analyzing territorial dynamics (Chaplain,
1994). As F. Plassard has written concerning the relations between transport and territory, the
commissioning of a new transport infrastructure « renvoie au fonctionnement global de la
société qui, par cette construction, s’approprie son espace et transforme progressivement son
territoire conformément au système de valeurs qui lui donne sa cohérence globale » (Plassard,
1
2003).
Prolonging these works, my research on the HSR stations has shown that, according to
geographical and historical contexts, the process of territorialization of high speed rail has
encountered a number of territorial inertia which is due as much to “the effects of place” as
to the appropriation modes of the new transport supply by territorial actors. The degree of
appropriation of the potentials of high-speed rail has been a major factor of the involvement of
local actors in the decision-making process leading to the choice of the location of HSR stations,
and in the implementation of coherent and coordinated strategies improving the territorial
integration of high-speed rail. When local actors anticipated the opportunities presented by the
connection to the HSR network, not only did they widely get involved in obtaining a location of
the station in compliance with their territorial development project but also in implementing
measures to strengthen the territorial integration of the high-speed rail service. Focusing on the
locations of stations, these analyses suggest the existence of different modes of appropriation
which vary according to the degree of centrality of railway stations, the mobilization of local
actors confronted with the transport operators’ supra-territorial logic and the temporal context
of the HSR project implementation (Facchinetti-Mannone and Bavoux, 2010; Facchinetti-
Mannone, 2012). These different elements result in highly diversified territorial dynamics which
can be highlighted by an analysis of the appropriation of high-speed rail.
2.2 Appropriation : a multifaceted notion

In geography, the concept of territory is used in conjunction with the notion of appropriation
which is a many-sided notion and a cross-disciplinary one which refers to a dual process within
the usual meaning of the term. First, the term ‘appropriation’ means "to adapt something to
specific uses, needs or expectations". Secondly, it may be defined as the action of assigning
oneself the ownership of something, taking possession of an object or a place, or acquiring
experience or knowledge. It involves the exercise of a form of power, the preparation of a
strategy and the construction of an identity.

In a heuristic perspective, this dual meaning and the numerous definitions of the notion of
appropriation have led me to examine the scientific works dealing with the appropriation of
public spaces and that of innovation. The purpose is to specify how the various disciplines which
have studied these topics define and mobilize the concept in order to provide a theoretical
and methodological framework to improve the comprehension of the appropriation process.
A first review of the French scientific literature has shown several common characteristics
particularly fruitful to analyze the process of appropriation of high-speed rail. Based on « la
confrontation de deux potentialités, la potentialité d’un monde présentant de l’appropriable
à un individu et la potentialité de ce même individu à s’approprier les objets et espaces dans

1 [Translation: the commissioning of a new transport infrastructure “refers to the overall social functioning which, through this
construction, appropriates its space and gradually transforms its territory, in accordance with the system of values that gives it
its overall coherence”]

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 347