Setting mountain regions apart: the labeling process

Since the 2000s, mountain territories have been caught up in paradoxical competitive dynamics of distinction based on the identification of local singularities and multiscalar territorial construction. At the same time, these singularities are tending to dissolve into larger territorialities: large massifs, large regions, large metropolises. Paradoxically, by competing for multiple labels and brands, territories tend to be part of the competitive dynamic of the globalized world, while at the same time seeking their own way of existing. These trends are particularly threatening to territories whose status as protected areas (such as regional nature parks or national park areas) is contractual in nature and built on a voluntary basis by local authorities.

The current race for distinction follows several decades of social and institutional construction of mountain areas on the basis of economic, socio-cultural and/or environmental characterizations, now in the process of being reformulated. The labeling movement is thus accompanied by calls for territorial institutional innovation.

At the same time, these processes are also part of social innovation, involving a wide range of players. In this approach, social innovation implies transcending purely economic objectives with new values that respond particularly to the imperative of sustainability.

The project addresses these processes through three main questions:

• How does a territory become distinctive?
• What tensions or conflicts does this quest for distinction generate?
• What are the markers of “mountain specificity”?

It applies a variety of research approaches to the different fields of study, with a particular focus on the hybridization of research and action.