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Facchinetti-Mannone,Valérie.

of appropriation which have been identified. Indeed, if the measures implemented by the
political sphere to strenghten the territorial integration of railway stations weigh on the way
in which passengers and economic players use HSR, these strategies depend on the various
forms of appropriation that have preceded or accompanied them, insofar as territorial planning
takes into account, to some degree, the forms of appropriation revealed by the companies’
expectations and users’ representations.
Appropriation appears in two ways: first through the strategies, practices and uses generated
by the new transportation supply, and then through high-speed rail representations and actors’
expectations. Practices and behaviours, which refer to the real life experience of the territorial
actors, are numerous. The appropriation of high-speed rail can be analyzed through people’s
travel practices and companies’, in relation with their use of stations, and more generally by
the way they integrate the new transportation supply into their daily life or in the functioning
of their firms. Similarly, the strategies for enhancing the railroad sites and territorial projects
linked to high-speed rail reveal the logic of appropriation supported by political and institutional
actors (see Figure 1).
If the various studies dedicated to appropriation have emphasized social players’ actions, these
acts cannot be separated from the representations that gave birth to them. Practices and
representations are always linked (Gumuchian, 1991) and constitute two facets of a complex
process that closely mingles collective representations, individual perceptions and response
and adaptation mechanisms (Taddei and Staii, 2008). The representations led by the renewal of
railway accessibility constitute an essential factor in understanding the practices and strategies
which induce territorial changes in connection with the implementation of a new high-speed
line. Thus, my analysis emphasizes the representations of the different territorial actors and
describes the various interactions that bind them in order to confront these representations
with the practices and strategies from which they are derived and that they constantly change
(see Figure 1).

3. A dynamic perspective on the appropriation of high-speed rail

The analysis of the territorialization of high-speed rail in terms of appropriation encourages
researchers to highlight the temporal depth of the process. Indeed, appropriation is a long-term
evolutionary process which has started long before the implementation of the new transport
infrastructure and has continued even after the trivialization of its uses (de Vaujany, 2003).
Therefore, if the choice of location and the opening of stations are highlights of territorialization
process, insofar as they confer a tangible reality to the HSR project, their appropriation has
taken shape since the first reflections on the emergence of the high-speed line project. Then it
has gradually developed and changed during the various stages of the project implementation.
Taking this diachronic dimension into account is fundamental. On the one hand, it allows me
to understand how the appropriation modes of the project have influenced the choice of the
location of stations and the strategies developed to promote the territorial integration of high-
speed rail. On the other hand, it enables me to specify how these strategies may modify the
stakeholders’ practices and representations in return.

3.1 An approach adapted to the temporality of high-speed line projects

Several authors have attempted to deconstruct the chronology of the appropriation process.
Among them, Brunel and Roux, inspired by Sartre's work on desire and possession, have
constructed a comprehensive analytical grid of appropriative acts in the field of marketing
(see Tab.1). The intention of their study was to grasp the dialogical and conflictual relationship
between demand and supply in order to understand how the purchase and the consumption of
any product participate in the individual’s identity building. Thus, they have identified four

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