Aux intersections de la géographie sociale et de la géohistoire. Dimensions sociales, spatiales et temporelles

AT THE CROSSROADS BETWEEN SOCIAL-GEOGRAPHY AND GEO-HISTORY. SOCIAL, SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS. – Beyond the general title, this contribution offers work hypotheses to tackle the question of the indissociable nature of those three dimensions. It examines three notions, important to geography : space, border, scale. Far from being incompatible or contrary, the two approaches seem more complementary : to go thoroughly into space analyses in social-geography and to pay more attention to scale interactions in geo-history. The geo-historical approach takes into the temporal thickness greater account whereas temporal immediacy is more typical to social-geography. Different research purposes? Different methodology? Certainly, however this does not mean that those differences must be seen as obstacles. The basic idea is not to juxtapose the two approaches but on the contrary to combine them for the build up of the research purpose and above all in the analyses process. Examining the historical evolution of socio-spatial phenomena would allow, on one hand to distinguish structural and circumstances elements and on the other hand, to try to explain how and why those phenomena had various evolution in various territories. In other words, it is important to pay more attention to those various, unequal and formed into a hierarchy socio-spatial expressions, considering the functional aspects of everyday life (living, working, etc…) and the interactions that act on them. Geography, as a social science, expresses the evolutionary organisation of the space, as the result of “natural” dynamics, socio-economical dynamics, successive political ideologies, but above all of tensions and contrasts, generated at multi-scalar or trans-scalar levels (taking into consideration the indissociable nature of spatial, social and temporal dimensions).