under the editorship of by Anne-Marie Green and Antigone Mouchtouris Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993. -236 p. ; 21cm. ISBN 2-7384-2370-1
Statistics from the largest survey on cultural practices allow us to know how many “rural” people read (or listen to music, or go to the cinema …), but these data themselves lead us to believe that rural space is a homogeneous space, with similar readership. practices, and where the difference observed between town and country would be only due to differences in age and socio-professional categories that exist between the two populations, as well as due to insufficient cultural offer in the countryside …
As for the suburbs, general data is harder to collect and we have a terrible tendency to see them through mediated images that leave it in the sense of a cultural desert, even as spaces where only problems and tensions rule. Paradoxically close to the city, the suburbs are seen only in terms of social and cultural distance.
The two papers in question here, therefore, derive from these observations, and from surveys commissioned to go beyond these clichés or obscure knowledge.
The first is the result of an order from the Direction du livre et de la lecture to the team from the Strates Laboratory of the University of Paris I, a team of associates of sociologists, anthropologists, geographers and cartographers. The research focused on very different regions: two groups of villages in Ionian, municipalities in Pays de Co, others in Dromo, a vineyard village in Eros, a locality in Brittany, in Pays Biguden. The fieldwork combined closed questionnaires (about 500) and in-depth interviews with about fifty people, complemented by other interviews with local book professionals and local government officials.
At the end of the survey there is a very contrasting situation: of course there are some constants, but this space is not standardized and we can say that there are as many socio-cultural situations as there are “countries”
Constants and singularities
On the side of constants, we find low enthusiasm of young people for reading: it is no longer enough to keep up, and the valorization of technical or sports culture prevails over literary qualities. Only girls escape this model, which, moreover, is not specifically rural … Another similarity: the fact that reading for many represented a close social relationship, as well as a certain sense of guilt. Reading was not encouraged, its usefulness did not seem obvious to the group. An attitude that is, in fact, very close to that found in popular city circles …
But local features quickly qualify and correct this very general fact: if the village of Languedoc is characterized by sports and holiday socializing that leaves little room for reading, the Drom sites in the Baronni region are characterized by many great readers and good – established and very old taste for reading. to date back to before the revolution. If the Kaushoi have no idea to cross a few kilometers that separate them from a bookstore or library, reading is developing in our Tonerro villages, thanks to the presence of an active and enthusiastic cultural mediator, who opened a small library. and undertook tours to distribute books and readings.
Geographical inequalities in the development of reading are therefore a function of a set of variables that set each space apart, and we cannot conclude about a privileged factor that would only explain this. Sometimes the presence of a facilitator, more precisely a leader, is enough to change attitudes, but conversely, in another region, the cultural offer does not necessarily mean an increase in practice … Here, too, supply and demand are complex. a game whose results are often very diverse.
“Micro-investigation”
As for the other work, it stems from the order of the municipality of Nanterre, through the director of the library, students and teachers of the DESS “cultural consultant” of the University of Paris X, and corresponded to the desire to evaluate library activities.
If the survey and its methodology are interesting, we can still regret that the results are submitted to us in the form of a report, or if you want a master’s thesis, with all its intricacies and details, in short, for publication, this book is not transcribed …
The results are therefore a little scattered, and their interpretation delicate. Let’s say, however, that the library does not appear as a unique and defined space: it is built through dynamics, the dynamics of social actors and their exchange with the object. Therefore, we identify the young population, 14-19 years old, for whom the library is only an extension of the CES or high school, a place of group work; middle-aged population, 30-54 years old, coming only to borrow; and the elderly population who, on the other hand, borrow, read on the spot, participate in events … We also learn that the design of the library for its users would be between the past and the present because on the one hand its space is built. on the assumptions of the sixties of the last century, encouraging individual reading, and on the other hand, young users would dream of automatic book distributors, ie faster and more modern distribution technologies …
How are these findings specific to the suburbs? Couldn’t they be done in a media library in a big city, or in a small library located in the heart of a rural area? The fact remains that the residents of Nanterre are attached to their municipal library, that it is part of their urban pride, even if they use it little or not at all …
After a time of great global research, it seems that we are coming to research in certain areas, to micro-research whose results both confirm and annul general courts. Let’s be patient: even if their theoretical progress seems weak, we really understand the complexity of reality here, and new, more general questions will arise.