Gilles Raveneau & Olivier Sirost, ” The camping or the best of republics. Ethnographic survey in the island of Noirmoutier “, Ethnologie française, 2001
A small air of holidays with this week’s article. Through the example of the land of the island of Noirmoutier in the Vendée, the authors highlight the mechanisms of transmission and learning, which are the families and individuals to retain the camping as a way to stay
“A camping trip is based on a break of space and time that leads to a setting aside of items concerning typically the daily life. From this point of view, a campground is an enclave, an island of its own social to a form of specific experience that promotes a reversal of the polarities of daily life. The fact that most of the campgrounds of Noirmoutier is located by the sea feeds the imaginary register of the robinsonnade. The very fact of being located in an island-induced isolation and withdrawal. The sea, the sand and the dunes to the ends of the lands, the cutting of inlets, the work of the trees, all these elements are involved in the development of an end of the world. ”
This rupture of space and time, and the new provisions it requires to promote a state of weightlessness social. Feel in a place that provides a change of scenery, experience new social relationships…these are the stakes of the experience.
The site must therefore be the locus of a change of scenery, his “beautiful landscapes” allow for the feeling of breaking with the universe that has been left behind. However, this change of scenery is paradoxical since many of the campers stay on land and close enough geographically to their home and often from year to year returning to the same campsite. The desire for a change of scenery is the added sake of being in the know “, so when ” her ” place in the camping is available, campers are even asking if it is reasonable to go on a vacation. “The goal is less to commit to far-away destinations where the scenery is combines with the unexpected to be able to anticipate the course of the stay and to protect themselves from hazards. The familiarity with the place and the people is the sign of a relationship at the time controlled vacation. The relations contracted in the previous years generating habits and rituals aimed at warding off the risks of the unpredictable. ”
Revealing the mechanisms of learning are specific to the experience of camping, the authors also reveal a need for simplicity social. Under the pine trees, it smells good usability and the abandonment of hierarchies.