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

2.3 A multi-pronged problematic approach of the appropriation of high-speed rail

Addressing the issue of the territorialization process of high-speed rail through the prism of
appropriation offers the advantage of focussing the analysis on territorial actors. As pointed out
by Ripoll and Veschambres, “reasoning in terms of appropriation has the major methodological
and theoretical interest to emphasize the spatial dimension of society, rather than the space
itself, considered as something distinct, autonomous and external from society " (Ripoll et
Veschambres, 2005). Among the numerous stakeholders involved in the territorialization process
of the HSR stations, three categories of territorial actors have more particularly attracted my
attention (see figure 1): the railway customers, the economic players and the local political and
institutional actors.
Differentiated by their practices, relations to places and expectations raised by the
new transportation supply, these three groups of actors have a very different role in the
territorialization process of high-speed rail. Even if railway users and economic players only
have a limited decision-making power over HSR lines and location of stations, their spatial
distribution, characteristics and travel practices are widely taken into account during the
negotiations concerning the location of stations and the definition of the railway service. Their
travel practices and their ways of using HSR stations, which affect the profitability of projects,
are also taken into consideration in the design, equipment and layout of these places. Lastly,
the way they integrate the station and the new transportation supply into their daily lives has
spatial repercussions that influence the territorialization process of the new transportation
system. The political and institutional sphere, which has more prerogatives than ever before
to negotiate the location and rail service of the stations, has had an unequal influence
depending on the geographical and temporal contexts of the implementation of the projects.
Whether these political actors have obtained or not a location of a HSR station and services
corresponding to their expectations, they have supported the accompanying strategies and
territorial development plans set up to improve the territorial integration of the high-speed
rail network.

Fig. 1: the appropriation of HSR: a collective construction process

While the forms and mechanisms of appropriation differ according to the types of actors, they
are nevertheless interdependent. Thus, after specifying how each of them has appropriated the
renewal of transport supply, it will be necessary to analyse the relations which exist between
these different modes of appropriation. This interactional approach, which reveals the actors’
interactions involved in the territorialization of the infrastructure, considers appropriation as
a collective construction process resulting from mutual adjustments between the various forms

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