Inondations des villes, inondations des champs: Norme et territoire dans la prévention des inondations sur l'île de la Barthelasse (Avignon).

Based on an ethnographical approach set on Barthelasse, an island on the river Rhone across from Avignon, our paper analyses how the issue of flooding is at the root of tensions between local interests and general policies. The island is still an agricultural area despite the influence of Avignon urban growth. Barthelasse Island has always been maintained as a floodable area to protect the low-lying city of Avignon. Such a context highlights the complexity of the relations, consisting simultaneously of solidarity and conflict, between the island farmers and the urban inhabitants of Avignon. Moreover, the river Rhone was altered in the 1970's to produce hydroelectricity. Nowadays it is no longer natural but artificial. Some areas like Barthelasse are still liable to flooding whereas others have got a better deal. The study investigates the relations between inhabitants who demand the building of new dykes and stakeholders who try to maintain a general plan for the area. Finally, the survey focuses on the people living in these risk prone areas and analyses the way they live with the risk. Confrontation between technical rationalities and the practices of inhabitants, the local and general scale of the issue and the former natural and present artificial state of the river question the idea of a "risk culture". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]