Digressions based on reading "Confiscated Land: A Critique of
Territorial Development" by Jean-Marc Ghitti, published by La Lenteur,
2025, 155 pages, 15 euros: "Where the land has become ugly, where all
poetry has vanished from the landscape, imaginations wither, minds are
impoverished, routine and servility seize souls and predispose them to
torpor and death." "----
Élysée Reclus, geographer and libertarian ---- Beyond the apparent
obviousness of the title of this review, we will see the need to defuse
a number of assumptions (the general interest, Progress, etc.) that
activate and endorse the planning agenda of the technocracy: for under
its sway, inhabited places disappear in favor of a homogeneous notion,
the territory and without regard for its inhabitants, who are merely
expected to adapt or relocate suitable to be managed, shaped, and developed.
Beyond the succession of political regimes since the Ancien Régime, via
the Napoleonic states, a certain state administrative network takes
shape and establishes its sovereignty, whether for fiscal, military, or
economic-political reasons (support for industrial development)." From
Vauban to Haussmann, the state's planning arm took possession of places
to make them its territory: military fortifications or the leveling of
working-class Parisian neighborhoods prone to uprisings... Later, the
consensus of "Reconstruction" after 1945 expelled the mountain farmers
of Tignes for the construction of a hydroelectric dam. The precedent of
the desperate resistance of the farmers of Canjuers (in the Var
highlands) in the late 1960s against a proposed military camp would
later serve the farmers of the Larzac plateau in attracting the sympathy
and solidarity that the post-1968 wave offered them on a silver platter.
Because, already in the 1960s, in the wake of the Gaullist creation of
the DATAR (Delegation for Territorial Development and Regional Action),
technocratic jargon and its profusion of acronyms proliferated, marking
its growing influence: ZUP, priority development zone, which gave rise
to the flagships of urban sprawl (Sarcelles in the Paris region, Les
Minguettes in the Lyon region, among others); ZAC, coordinated
development zone (between decision-making elites, but not with the
population); ZAD, deferred development zone, through which the
anticipation of long-term projects allows for the preemption of land in
advance; and more recently, among others, SCOT, territorial coherence
scheme. This shows how unilaterally planning aims to advance its vision
of life in society and its relationship to nature. In contrast, the
opposition to the airport project 25 km from Nantes reversed the acronym
ZAD, transforming it into "zone to defend," especially since no land
consolidation investments had been undertaken in anticipation of the
project, and the remaining bocage landscape was a jewel of the
combination of agricultural activity and biodiversity.
The main framework of this modernizing development was the expansion of
the motorway network, fueled by the consensual ideology of the car. And
to superficially challenge its hegemony, the existing railway lines were
doubled by the creation of high-speed lines, all captured by the
construction industry and its major players (Bouygues, Vinci, Eiffage,
etc.). The industrial scale of the road construction sector was revealed
to us in Nelo Magalhaes' book, "Accumulating Concrete, Drawing Roads."
The sleight of hand of planning rhetoric is to advance by pretending
only to address existing dysfunctions (traffic jams, lack of housing,
etc.), while its aim is to resolutely shape the future: increasing
freight traffic on the road, or turning city centers, once emptied of
their population, into museums populated with tourist residences, for
example. Technocracy, with its rational boasting, acts as a merciless
prosecutor against conspiracy theories, while it itself ceaselessly
devises plans and schemes, unbeknownst to the public, to intensify the
"value chain" (profitability), as it calls it...
To say that the concept of territory marks a pivotal shift in the
hegemony of public power (behind which commercial and entrepreneurial
interests operate) is to remember that public power has granted itself
the right, in defiance of the ironclad law of private property, to
expropriate!
The great strength of Jean-Marc Ghitti's book lies in its challenge to
these planning assumptions by deciphering their historical
underpinnings. Far from claiming to be a pioneer in this field, since he
recalls and documents his writing based on analyses of previous incisive
critiques (G. Debord, B. Charbonneau, the Frankfurt School) - but
omitting, for example, H. Lefebvre, author of the monumental "Production
of Space" - our current author usefully extends their critique of
dehumanizing rationality by dismantling the all-too-common concept of
"territory," a veritable Trojan horse, found in the mouths of both
cunning decision-makers and their fiercest opponents.
The socialist C. Delga, president of the Occitanie Regional Council,
recently boasted that "territories are at the heart of the country's
rearmament." On the other side of the spectrum, the magazine "Socialter"
titled its summer 2025 special issue "Territories in Resistance: From
Struggle to Victory." The age-old controversy resurfaces: whether we are
mistaken in using the same words as the opposing side, even though, in
theory, we do not assign them the same meaning. The labor movement
already, in a way, accepted the dominance of the economy by contesting
only the calculation of value distribution and thus exploitation that
is, the unpaid portion (surplus value) of the sale of labor power to the
employer while the intrinsic alienation of being subordinated to a
productive content, this metabolism decided by others (armament, mass
production of automobiles, agribusiness, etc.), contributes to its
deadly consequences. Through a shortcut of so-called critical
efficiency, radical ecology, too, reduces the diversity of living
spaces, along with their remaining autonomous vernacular practices, to
the abstraction of territory, thereby disembodying them instead of
uniting them. But it would be too simplistic to claim that the
development project will destroy what we cherish, and political ecology,
in this matter, is deeply divided, wanting to align itself with the
progressive movement, which is by definition non-conservative.
Our author, Jean-Marc Ghitti, doesn't offer a detached, scholarly
analysis of situations experienced by others; he himself is actively
involved in the opposition to the widening of the RN 88 to a dual
carriageway between Le Puy-en-Velay and Yssingeaux in the vulnerable
area of St-Hostien and the Col du Pertuis pass. The author achieves the
remarkable feat of wielding sharp barbs ("the fabrication of official
public utility," p. 78, "territory is space minus inhabitants," p. 114),
like so many concise and dynamic pronouncements, while also engaging in
scholarly developments that offer enriching insights, including "the
theologico-political genesis of public power," beginning on page 119.
At a time when numerous challenges to road projects have coalesced in
"The Rout of Roads," J.-M. Ghitti's essay provides it with the tools of
relevance and historical perspective.
Tristan Vebens, August 30, 2025
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4541
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Territorial Development" by Jean-Marc Ghitti, published by La Lenteur,
2025, 155 pages, 15 euros: "Where the land has become ugly, where all
poetry has vanished from the landscape, imaginations wither, minds are
impoverished, routine and servility seize souls and predispose them to
torpor and death." "----
Élysée Reclus, geographer and libertarian ---- Beyond the apparent
obviousness of the title of this review, we will see the need to defuse
a number of assumptions (the general interest, Progress, etc.) that
activate and endorse the planning agenda of the technocracy: for under
its sway, inhabited places disappear in favor of a homogeneous notion,
the territory and without regard for its inhabitants, who are merely
expected to adapt or relocate suitable to be managed, shaped, and developed.
Beyond the succession of political regimes since the Ancien Régime, via
the Napoleonic states, a certain state administrative network takes
shape and establishes its sovereignty, whether for fiscal, military, or
economic-political reasons (support for industrial development)." From
Vauban to Haussmann, the state's planning arm took possession of places
to make them its territory: military fortifications or the leveling of
working-class Parisian neighborhoods prone to uprisings... Later, the
consensus of "Reconstruction" after 1945 expelled the mountain farmers
of Tignes for the construction of a hydroelectric dam. The precedent of
the desperate resistance of the farmers of Canjuers (in the Var
highlands) in the late 1960s against a proposed military camp would
later serve the farmers of the Larzac plateau in attracting the sympathy
and solidarity that the post-1968 wave offered them on a silver platter.
Because, already in the 1960s, in the wake of the Gaullist creation of
the DATAR (Delegation for Territorial Development and Regional Action),
technocratic jargon and its profusion of acronyms proliferated, marking
its growing influence: ZUP, priority development zone, which gave rise
to the flagships of urban sprawl (Sarcelles in the Paris region, Les
Minguettes in the Lyon region, among others); ZAC, coordinated
development zone (between decision-making elites, but not with the
population); ZAD, deferred development zone, through which the
anticipation of long-term projects allows for the preemption of land in
advance; and more recently, among others, SCOT, territorial coherence
scheme. This shows how unilaterally planning aims to advance its vision
of life in society and its relationship to nature. In contrast, the
opposition to the airport project 25 km from Nantes reversed the acronym
ZAD, transforming it into "zone to defend," especially since no land
consolidation investments had been undertaken in anticipation of the
project, and the remaining bocage landscape was a jewel of the
combination of agricultural activity and biodiversity.
The main framework of this modernizing development was the expansion of
the motorway network, fueled by the consensual ideology of the car. And
to superficially challenge its hegemony, the existing railway lines were
doubled by the creation of high-speed lines, all captured by the
construction industry and its major players (Bouygues, Vinci, Eiffage,
etc.). The industrial scale of the road construction sector was revealed
to us in Nelo Magalhaes' book, "Accumulating Concrete, Drawing Roads."
The sleight of hand of planning rhetoric is to advance by pretending
only to address existing dysfunctions (traffic jams, lack of housing,
etc.), while its aim is to resolutely shape the future: increasing
freight traffic on the road, or turning city centers, once emptied of
their population, into museums populated with tourist residences, for
example. Technocracy, with its rational boasting, acts as a merciless
prosecutor against conspiracy theories, while it itself ceaselessly
devises plans and schemes, unbeknownst to the public, to intensify the
"value chain" (profitability), as it calls it...
To say that the concept of territory marks a pivotal shift in the
hegemony of public power (behind which commercial and entrepreneurial
interests operate) is to remember that public power has granted itself
the right, in defiance of the ironclad law of private property, to
expropriate!
The great strength of Jean-Marc Ghitti's book lies in its challenge to
these planning assumptions by deciphering their historical
underpinnings. Far from claiming to be a pioneer in this field, since he
recalls and documents his writing based on analyses of previous incisive
critiques (G. Debord, B. Charbonneau, the Frankfurt School) - but
omitting, for example, H. Lefebvre, author of the monumental "Production
of Space" - our current author usefully extends their critique of
dehumanizing rationality by dismantling the all-too-common concept of
"territory," a veritable Trojan horse, found in the mouths of both
cunning decision-makers and their fiercest opponents.
The socialist C. Delga, president of the Occitanie Regional Council,
recently boasted that "territories are at the heart of the country's
rearmament." On the other side of the spectrum, the magazine "Socialter"
titled its summer 2025 special issue "Territories in Resistance: From
Struggle to Victory." The age-old controversy resurfaces: whether we are
mistaken in using the same words as the opposing side, even though, in
theory, we do not assign them the same meaning. The labor movement
already, in a way, accepted the dominance of the economy by contesting
only the calculation of value distribution and thus exploitation that
is, the unpaid portion (surplus value) of the sale of labor power to the
employer while the intrinsic alienation of being subordinated to a
productive content, this metabolism decided by others (armament, mass
production of automobiles, agribusiness, etc.), contributes to its
deadly consequences. Through a shortcut of so-called critical
efficiency, radical ecology, too, reduces the diversity of living
spaces, along with their remaining autonomous vernacular practices, to
the abstraction of territory, thereby disembodying them instead of
uniting them. But it would be too simplistic to claim that the
development project will destroy what we cherish, and political ecology,
in this matter, is deeply divided, wanting to align itself with the
progressive movement, which is by definition non-conservative.
Our author, Jean-Marc Ghitti, doesn't offer a detached, scholarly
analysis of situations experienced by others; he himself is actively
involved in the opposition to the widening of the RN 88 to a dual
carriageway between Le Puy-en-Velay and Yssingeaux in the vulnerable
area of St-Hostien and the Col du Pertuis pass. The author achieves the
remarkable feat of wielding sharp barbs ("the fabrication of official
public utility," p. 78, "territory is space minus inhabitants," p. 114),
like so many concise and dynamic pronouncements, while also engaging in
scholarly developments that offer enriching insights, including "the
theologico-political genesis of public power," beginning on page 119.
At a time when numerous challenges to road projects have coalesced in
"The Rout of Roads," J.-M. Ghitti's essay provides it with the tools of
relevance and historical perspective.
Tristan Vebens, August 30, 2025
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4541
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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