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The (s)elective Mountain

Spatial proximity and social distance around refuges
Pierre Mercklé, Delphine Moraldo, Caroline Datchary et Benoît Tudoux
Cet article est une traduction de :
La montagne (s)élective [fr]

Résumé

Are there social inequalities regarding access to the ‘nearby mountain’ - that is, mountain for day hikes or hikes lasting a few days with overnight stays in tents or refuges? Are they so strong that the hikers who meet on mountain paths and in and around mountain refuges share homogenous social profiles? Or does the ‘nearby mountain’ bring together people from different social backgrounds, with potentially antagonistic approaches and representations of the mountains? And what happens then? To answer these questions, the article draws on the results of a survey conducted between 2015 and 2017 mainly in and around two refuges accessible in a few hours from adjacent towns, one in the Pyrenees and the other in the Alps, using mixed methods (questionnaire, interview, observation, analysis of documentary corpus). The first two parts of the article explore the differentiation logics at work in the social space of recreational uses of the mountains, to show how they articulate in a complex way the tastes for performance (‘to sweat’), nature (‘to contemplate’) and sociability (‘to share’). The final section shows how the relations of domination that produce this particular social space are perceived through the tensions between users, whose discourses, structured by oppositions between ‘them’ and ‘us’, re-translate in the mountains social class relations developed in other social spheres and other spaces. Finally, the analysis shows that the domination of one type of user (belonging to the educated fractions of the privileged classes) and a distinctive type of use of the mountains (combining sporting asceticism, recharching one’s battery and cultivated sociability) means that the mountains are at once the site of opposition between socially differentiated uses, and the site of the maintenance of a dominant legitimate use that tends to overshadow the others.

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Introduction

  • 1 For an analysis of the system within which these adolescents are introduced to the mountain, and of (...)

1These mountains do seem very white…” — The incongruity of the situation is aptly summed up by the supervisor of a group of middle school students on their very first outing to the mountains we came across on one of the sites of our survey. The youths, almost all of immigrant and working-class origin, stand out in the refuge. Everything from their clothes (predominantly black tracksuits), to the way they hold themselves and speak to each other, the way they wake up at two in the morning to look for a snack during Ramadan, the excitement expressed on discovering in the morning that their school has been devastated by arson: all this stands in stark contrast to the couples and families who make up the refuge’s usual clientele1. The latter, white and bourgeois, are socially very far from them, “up and to the left” in the social space of social positions and lifestyles, as one interviewee (Marc, 42 years old, engineer, class 4) pointed out during an interview the same day. He had just discovered on Wikipedia La Distinction and its famous diagram (1979, pp. 140–141), in which Pierre Bourdieu had already, almost half a century ago, placed hiking among the intellectual fractions of the dominant classes.

  • 2 To avoid saying "medium-altitude mountain," whose classic definition based on altitude criteria, be (...)

2This illustrates the question of social inequalities in access to the “nearby mountains”2 this article deals with. Are these inequalities so strong that those who meet in and around the refuges are socially similar to the point that, in reality, encounters like the one described above remain exceptional? Or does the nearby mountain allow people from different backgrounds to come into contact with each other? And if so, to what effect?

  • 3 The term here refers to "mountain hiking," as included in the latest Injep survey under "mountain a (...)

3It is not easy to determine to what extent the democratisation (ie the reduction of the impact of social origin) of certain sports has affected mountain activities. Hiking3 has received little sociological attention, especially regarding the relationships between social groups. Due to its ambiguous status between physical activity and cultural practice, hiking receives only attention “in an oblique way” (in Hoggart’s sense, 1970), from “specialised” sociologists. Indeed, it does not involve equipments targeted by the intervention of cultural policies, nor does it fit the canonical definition of sport as “the set of motor situations codified in the form of competition and institutionalised” (Parlebas, 1999, p. 355). Its deficit in academic legitimacy may not be unrelated to its subordinate position in the hierarchy of mountain activities, which is largely based on the difficulty involved and the altitude reached (Moraldo, 2021).

  • 4 The study on "mountain hiking as a social activity" (REMAS) was conducted in 2016 and 2017, primari (...)

4The aim of this article is to determine to what extent, like the housing projects studied by Chamboredon and Lemaire in the 1960s, the nearby mountains have “the specificity of bringing together categories that usually coexist only in statistics” (1970, p. 5). The article also explores through fieldwork the modalities, stakes, and consequences of this coexistence. To address this question, the REMAS4 survey focused on refuges characteristic of such “nearby” mountains: trailheads are accessible by bus, and the time (two to three hours) and elevation gain (600 to 800 meters respectively) required to reach them are relatively modest. The two refuges also share similar accommodation capacities (50 and 75 beds) and surroundings (lakes suitable for other activities such as swimming and fishing).

Map 1: Location Map

Map 1: Location Map

5In addition to serving as frequent rest or stopping points (whether for descending, staying overnight, or continuing onward), these refuges are also regulated and codified spaces. Their usage norms and symbolic references are unequally shared and thus likely to create tensions among socially diverse individuals. Indeed, while the use of the “nearby” mountains, as captured during the survey, remains a socially distinctive activity, it is far from being an entirely exclusive one. The practice brings together individuals and groups who not only belong to different social backgrounds but also approach the activity differently. Social distance in the mountains is thus characterised by distinct ways of hiking, more or less legitimate, more or less distinctive.

6Far from the idea of a classless mountain, the first part of the article compiles evidence of the existence of a “social space” of recreational mountain uses and explores its main structuring logics. The second part examines the socially situated practices which articulate in a complex way the taste for performance, nature and sociability. This brings to light tensions and discourses structured by oppositions between “them” and “us”, revealing a social distance, which retranslates—in the mountains—class relations developed in other social spheres and other spaces.

The Mountains as a Stratified Space: The Social Space of Recreational Uses of the “Nearby” Mountains

Hiking: A “Middle-Brow” Sport?

7At first glance, hiking appears to be accessible to everyone. It requires neither exceptional physical condition, which is unevenly distributed across society (Vandebroeck, 2015), nor special technical skills, as it the case in mountaineering, climbing—or even fishing. Nor does it require significant financial resources: there is no need for memberships, special equipment, or costly travel.

8In the areas surveyed, members of working-class groups sometimes live near hiking trailheads, as is the case with the refuge of La Pra, the access points of which are located just above two municipalities (Revel and Domène) that include neighborhoods with significant proportions of low-income households. This contributes to making hiking a free or virtually free activity—provided one does not have to pay for an overnight stay or make purchases at a refuge.

  • 5 One can only get an idea of the socio-demographic characteristics of hikers and their changes based (...)

9That being said, does this make hiking a democratic activity? The available national surveys5 in fact describe an activity that remains socially selective: in 2020, 48% of mountain hikers had a higher education qualification, compared to 29% of the population; and 31% of hikers were blue-collar workers, employees, or inactive, compared to 46% of the population (Lefèvre and Raffin, 2023). Our field data reveals even stronger social homogeneity (see Table 1). Firstly, it is more male-dominated, with men accounting for 62% of our sample (compared with 54% in the 2020 national survey). Above all, people are also more highly educated (80% of respondents have a higher education qualification), more likely to be managers (51%), less likely to be blue-collar workers or employees (12% and 5%), and very rarely unemployed (only 3%). Admittedly, the Ariège refuge is significantly more working class than the Isère refuge, which can be largely explained by the different social characteristics of the two departments: in 2020, the median monthly standard of living was €1,965 in Isère, compared with just €1,702 in Ariège, one of the poorest departments in France; and in 2014, 17.9% of Ariège residents were living below the poverty line, compared with just 11.3% of Isère residents.

Table 1: Socio-demographic Characteristics of Respondents, Hikers, and the Population of France

  • 6 As the French classification does not overlap with the European classification (European Socio econ (...)

Population of France (2020)

Mountain hikers (2020)

All respondents

Pyrenees

(Bassiès)

Alps

(La Pra)

Gender

Female

52%

46%

81 (38%)

22 (39%)

59 (38%)

Male

48%

54%

130 (62%)

34 (61%)

96 (62%)

Age

15–29years old

21%

25%

58 (27%)

10 (18%)

48 (31%)

30–49years old

31%

36%

85 (40%)

28 (50%)

57 (37%)

Above 50 years old

48%

39%

68 (32%)

18 (32%)

50 (32%)

Qualification

Below baccalauréat level

53%

33%

36 (17%)

15 (28%)

21 (14%)

Baccalauréat level

18%

19%

6 (3%)

2 (4%)

4 (3%)

Above baccalauréat level

29%

48%

164 (80%)

37 (69%)

127 (84%)

Socio-professional category of employed persons 6

Agriculture workers (employees or self-employed) and self-employed workers (either managerial or below)

7%

5%

6 (4%)

3 (7%)

3 (2%)

Managerial employees, Professionals

14%

23%

85 (51%)

15 (35%)

70 (56%)

Associated professionals, Clerks, Clerical and Army workers

21%

25%

47 (28%)

13 (30%)

34 (27%)

Employees

21%

15%

9 (5%)

3 (7%)

6 (5%)

Blue collar workers

15%

11%

20 (12%)

9 (21%)

11 (9%)

Reading: 39% of the respondents to the questionnaire at the Bassiès refuge are women.

Sources: INSEE, 2020 demographic report; INJEP/MEDES, national survey of physical exercise and sport (ENPPS), 2020; REMAS survey, 2017.

10However, although socially distinctive, mountain hiking does not completely exclude the working classes. Blue-collar workers and employees are indeed largely underrepresented in and around refuges, but they are not totally absent. They make up 14% of the people surveyed at La Pra (Alps) and up to 28% of those surveyed at Bassiès (Pyrenees). They are more likely to be locals than hikers from more privileged classes: 55% of surveyed workers and employees reside in the department where the refuge is located, compared to only 40% of intermediate occupations (see French socio-economic classification) and 33% of managers.

The Social Space of Recreational Uses of the Mountains

11On the one hand, the hikers surveyed near the refuges present an average profile that corresponds well to a position “in the top left” of the social space (see Bourdieu, 1979). But on the other hand, one does also encounter members of the working classes. This does not abolish certain logics of separation and distinction, first and foremost spatial: 47% of those sleeping in tents belong to the working classes (employees and blue-collar workers), compared to only 14% of those sleeping in the refuge. The latter take possession of the inside, while the former don’t go indoors at all or only occasionally, like Arthur (car mechanic, 31 years old, class 4) who will only go inside “to get beers” and had previously “only” seen the inside of a refuge “in [the film] Les bronzés font du ski”. Therefore, in the mountains, there is a form of spatial segregation that replicates that observed in cities: the refuge itself is the city center, with its surrounding of tent suburbs. The barrier is clearly, and visibly, economic given the cost of half-board.

12In addition to the ways in which the refuge and its surroundings are occupied, we can more systematically identify the main factors that differentiate use by using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). The factorial decomposition described below is based on the introduction of active variables from the responses of 227 individuals surveyed through a questionnaire on several characteristics of the ongoing hike: duration of the hike, type of accommodation, companionship, equipment, and activities practiced (trail running, fishing, climbing, swimming, etc.). The surveyed hikers are further characterised by variables (gender, age, socio-professional categories) introduced as illustrative variables.

13The first structuring factor of this space of hiking practices, accounting for 23% of all the links between active variables in the analysis, contrasts -on the right—the day hikers, who often hike alone and some of whom practice trail running, and -on the left—the more occasional hikers who hike once or twice a year for several days with their families and sleep in refuges (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Space of Recreational Uses of the Mountains

Figure 1: The Space of Recreational Uses of the Mountains

Field: Respondents surveyed by questionnaire (N = 227).
Reading: Active variables are represented in colors, and illustrative variables in black. The size of the labels is proportional to the number of respondents. The indicated names are anonymised names of the respondents cited in the article (in black, those of the “paragons” of the four classes of hiking uses, see Table 2 below).

Source: REMAS 2017.

14The second structuring principle (represented on the vertical axis, accounting for 17% of the total inertia) allows us to distinguish (in the upper part) a third category, that of even more occasional users who prefer to sleep in tents and hike with friends. This category of users, more working-class, is also more masculine. However, it is not perfectly homogeneous: the third factor (15% of the total inertia, not represented above) highlights a clear opposition between fishermen (all male) and climbers (who are also those hikers most likely to swim in the lakes where the former fish). Although they are all young and share the mode of tent accommodation, the fishermen are recruited from the working classes while the climbers are more often from managerial backgrounds.

15The use of hierarchical ascending classification then makes it possible to identify different classes of mountains users, distinguished by the opposing logics highlighted by the factorial analysis. Conducted here based on the coordinates of the respondents on the first three axes of the previous MCA, it separates four classes (see Table 2): the class of family hikers over several days (class 1), those of hikers with friends over several days, either with tent accommodation (class 2) or refuge accommodation (class 3), and finally, day hikers, alone or in pairs.

Table 2: The Four Classes of Users

  • 7 The class paragon refers to the individual in a class who is closest to its centre, as determined h (...)

Number

Type of activity

Class Parangon7

1

N=93

Family hike over several days

Julien (civil engineer, 41 years old) is hiking with his wife and their two children, aged 7 and 9. The aim of the weekend’s hike was explicitly to pass on the knowledge: the father, who has been hiking since childhood and runs a hiking club, wanted to introduce his children to the sport: “It’s the first time we’re going to spend a night in a refuge. That’s the aim of today’s walk, to spend their first night in a refuge, so that they can discover this rather special place”. The verb “to pass” is pronounced in the same way as “to pass” the driving test or “to pass” the baccalaureate.

2

N=22

Hike with friends over several days, overnight in a tent

Cédric (worker in a fresh pasta factory, 47 years old) is married with two children, and is part of a group of friends who are workers like himself. They had come to fish, without spouses or children, and had set up camp for three nights in tents on the banks of a lake below the La Pra refuge. The group is very visible (and audible) from the refuge’s terrace, but keeps carefully to themselves, apart from a few forays to stock up on water.

3

N=34

Hike with friends over several days, overnight in a refuge

Vincent (retired primary school teacher, 62 years old) is married, which he sees as a “hindrance” to going into the mountains. So it was with a friend (a pharmacist, and single) that he set off on a four-day hike in the Belledonne massif, including three nights in a refuge. A member of his local Alpine Club, he has been hiking for a long time, and has more recently taken up climbing and caving. He values “respect for nature”, rather than “the pleasure of effort”: he describes himself as a “contemplative”, as opposed to “traileurs”, “people whose only desire is to run but who don’t want to discover the landscape”.

4

N=78

Day hike, alone or as a couple

Marie-France (customs inspector, 59 years old) came to Bassiès for the day with her husband, Jean-Pierre (former warehouse driver, 69 years old). The couple hike almost every weekend (including snowshoeing in winter), but their initiation was less precocious than others: she discovered the mountains during a previous job in Savoie, and he in the army, with the commandos. He prefers the physical dimension, seeking to hurt himself in the effort, without however evoking the idea of performance, while Marie-France emphasises her relationship with nature. When she mentions this aspect, her husband adds that he too loves nature and that if he can combine the two, all the better.

Uses of the Mountains Marked by the Possession of Cultural Capital: Contemplating, Unwinding, Sharing… but Not with Just Anyone

16The four categories of users of nearby mountains do not hike in the same ways or with the same people. We must also ask whether they have distinct representations of the mountains and their uses. This question arises because such distinctions are evident in numerous other sports, such as gymnastics (Bourdieu, 1979, p. 232), combat sports (Clément, 1981), rugby (Pociello, 1983), surfing (Sayeux, 2006), and others. Yet, judging by the many intellectuals who walk and write about walking since Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one might believe there is one single possible relationship to the mountains: the quasi-scholarly, aesthetic, and contemplative view typical of a very particular group of peripatetic writers whose works regularly feature in the small libraries of mountain refuges.

17According to interviewees, hiking is almost universally described as a break from daily life, its rhythms, activities, and relationships—thus also as a “disconnection” from digital social relations (Datchary et al., 2021). For some, it is about “unwinding” and “reconnecting with essentials” (Sandrine, corporate executive, 50 years old, Class 1) or “reconnecting with what is real” (Émilie, medical intern, 26 years old, Class 1). For others, it is about “breaking free” and “escaping” (Pierre, retired teacher, 66 years old, Class 3) or “stepping away from daily life” (Frédéric, engineer, 60 years old, Class 3), and so on.

18However, behind the common rhetoric of mountain “heterotopia” (Foucault, 2004), a systematic analysis of the lexical fields in interview transcripts reveals three distinct representations of mountain usages that re-situate it socially: the first emphasizes physical effort leading to performance (“sweating”), the second prioritises aesthetic experience (“contemplating”), and the third revolves around sociability (“sharing”). These three perspectives, far from being mutually exclusive, can be combined in various ways. However, the most frequent combination—a measured effort, the importance of “unwinding,” and cultivated sociability—is socially situated. It aligns with the practices and perceptions of the mountains held by privileged and educated classes, who are more numerous in the mountains and thus potentially capable of imposing their perspective as the most legitimate.

Sweating “to see beautiful landscapes”, contemplating to better “unwind”

19Given that hiking is institutionally framed as a physical activity and associated with specialised equipment outlets, one might expect interviewees to highlight physical effort or commitment. In reality, however, this aspect is mentioned by fewer than half (39%) of the interviewees, and none describe it as a central component of their relationship with the mountains. Patricia (special needs educator, 38 years old, Class 4) exclaims, “We’re not daredevils!” When physical effort is mentioned, it is almost always in a toned-down way, even in the single case encounterd of two hikers timing and comparing their ascent times. Jonathan and Kevin, high-level athletes and STAPS (Sports Sciences) students aged 21 and 22 (Class 3), admit that “it’s still an effort,” but describe it as a specific type of effort—slow, gentle, interspersed with breaks to “see the beautiful landscapes.” Physical effort is often connected to other usages and benefits of the activity. Nathalie (hospital physician, 39 years old, Class 1) expresses this as follows:

I enjoy walking, the beauty of the place, continuous physical effort, the ability to think about many things, to forget. It’s an effort I greatly appreciate—it’s a long effort, whether hiking or ski touring, in natural, preserved environments.

  • 8 For other mountain activities, see Aubel, 2005 or Moraldo, 2021.

20Hiking is therefore presented by the interviewees as something more and something different from mere effort in the mountains, and it is in this difference (at least rhetorical8) that the distinction lies, rather than in sporting performance. Hiking is often portrayed as an artistic or spiritual activity rather than merely physical or athletic. A majority of interviewees (58%) primarily describe it as contemplative, emphasizing nature, tranquility, and often solitude, along with the beauty of the landscapes and the discovery of fauna and flora. A particular contrast arises between “nature” or “the mountains,” described as natural, clean, and calm places, and “the city,” seen as artificial, polluted, and noisy—a stark contrast for hikers who are mostly urbanites. This dimension is combined, as are the other two, with discourses on “disconnection”: “I don’t like the city”, sums up one interviewee (Sylvie, engineer, aged 50, class 1). Contemplation remains a rather “feminine” dimension: 82% of the women interviewed mentioned it, compared with only 49% of the men.

21This specific relationship with hiking leads to a whole series of ancillary practices linked to contemplation, which are socially divisive where they have an ecological tone (Coulangeon et al., 2023). Picking up litter left behind by careless hikers, or taking care to stay on the paths to avoid soil erosion, are all practices that “sports people” are suspected of neglecting:

What annoys me is that I see people walking past us and going up Mach 12 and they don’t pay any attention to that, whereas a white handkerchief is all you see (…) People like going up for sport, but they don’t pay any attention to the pollution, and that’s a bit disturbing. (Olivier, landscape gardener, aged 37, class 4)

22Among these hikers, the idea emerges that the precondition for contemplation is slowing down. From this point of view, the invocation of an aesthetic and contemplative approach to the mountains, and the relegation of a sporting or athletic approach, would appear to be a specificity shared by hikers and mountaineers (Datchary et al., 2021, p. 129–147) from, at is turns out, middle and upper classes with (more or less) high cultural capital. A “good” user of the mountains is thus a contemplative one, “beyond” physical effort.

Sharing, as long as one is in “good company”

23The third type of relationship to hiking (after “sweating” and “contemplating”) involves sharing and conviviality. This is the dominant discourse among 27% of interviewees. But these were particular interviewees: while the four classes of users put contemplative attitudes at the top of their list of concerns, some of the other expected benefits of going to the mountains are not shared by all. Interviewees of class 1, who hike with their families, mentioned sociability less frequently than those of the other classes. It is more of a concern for those who hike alone or as a couple without children (class 4), or those who hike with friends (classes 2 and 3), perhaps unsurprisingly. Among these classes, sociability was mentioned exclusively by male groups of friends, whereas a large majority of the women surveyed (82%) mentioned the contemplative option. It has to be said that, during our field trips, unisex groups of more than two people were almost exclusively male: we came across a single group of female hikers.

24This type of relationship with the mountains, which at first glance seems incompatible with the desire of most other hikers to cut themselves off from the world, is generally embodied in a form of affinity-based sociability, within a small group. Who does one go out with in the mountains? There were three types of groups in the population surveyed: families (parents and children), couples without children, and friends, who sometimes met in a club, but who were not out hiking on the days of the survey. For those who walk with friends, this activity is comparable to “cultural outings” (to the theatre, cinema or concert), providing a medium for elective relationships between people who are neither close friends nor relatives, or whose homes or workplaces are too far apart for them to get together (Choquet, 1988).

25As for the form this mountain sociability takes, for the interviewees it is first and foremost more “authentic”: relationships in the mountains are “easier” (Françoise, hospital nurse, 56 years old, class 3), less “artificial”, more “real”. Once again, this is a modality that is combined with the imperative of contemplation, with the underlying idea that “nature” fosters social relationships that are also “natural”, in other words more sincere, than the relationships in ordinary life. Reconciling sociability, contemplation and authenticity presupposes that an essential condition is met: you have to be in the mountains with “the right people”, i.e. already with those who have mastered “the de rigueur techniques of sociability that forbid these sports to the working classes” (Bourdieu, 1979, p. 240). It is of course the (socially) selective nature of mountain sociability, like the rest of sociability in general (Mercklé, 2016, p. 37–56), that makes this adjustment possible.

26So when the interviewees say they like the “atmosphere” (Valérie, laboratory manager, aged 55, class 1) or the “spirit” of the refuges (Françoise, hospital nurse, 56 years old, class 3), they are talking about a form of entre-soi, all the more subdued because the mountains are theoretically open to everyone. The mountains should be enjoyed “in good company”—which means carefully selecting your hiking partners. Éric (manager of a cinema, 41 years old, class 3) refuses to go with people with whom “he doesn’t get on”. A decisive criterion is a shared vision of the mountains in terms of legitimate modes of contemplation and rejuvenation. It is the sharing of these distinctive representations of the mountains that largely ensures that you go to the mountains with individuals who are culturally and socially close. “You select by affinity”, says Jean-Michel (hospital nurse, 38 years old, class 4), in other words, through acquaintances: “The mountain scene isn’t very big, well, I mean it’s not a big thing either, you see, it’s through acquaintances, who take you to others, and then that’s it”.

27The rejection of “chatterboxes” is also a crucial mechanism in this operation of social selection. Silence, a condition for contemplation, is required during the walk. This is the main criterion mentioned by the interviewees when asked who they would refuse to go mountain walking with. Sylvie (engineer, 50 years old, class 1) refused to hike with “people who talk all the time”; Sébastien (engineer, 46 years old, class 4) avoided “talkative people, people who make too much noise, people who aren’t quiet, people who don’t appreciate it”; Pierre (retired teacher, 66 years old, class 3) and his friends each remain “in their own bubble”, refusing the company of “talkative people”. Conversely, Jean-Pierre (former warehouse driver, 69 years old, class 4) knows that his “informal” sociability is not necessarily the norm: “We’re very open, we have a fairly open culture in that respect, we ask everyone questions. We might be a bit of a nerd culture, but we’re open to it all the same”. Even in the more boisterous groups of friends in the refuge, the taste for quiet sociability is still valued: when asked what he’s looking for in the mountains, Emmanuel (electrician, 41 years old, class 4) has an answer that makes his friends laugh, but which they approve of: “to get away from people, not to talk”.

28So it’s a cultivated form of “contemplative” sociability that can be observed around the refuges, revealing an original combination of relationships with the mountains. When asked about the people with whom they would refuse to go hiking, the interviewees generally replied that it wasn’t even necessary to sort out the recommendable hikers from the undesirables: the selection, as it were, happens by itself, as if by magic. As this extract from the interview with Catherine (military, 53 years old, class 3) and Brigitte (local authority officer, 53 years old, class 3), two friends, shows, the mountains are a guarantee of “good company”:

Catherine: I’ve never come across people… You see, what I mean is that in the mountains you feel something, so um… so you get a bit of the same view of people…
Brigitte: Yeah, we all have a bit in common.
Catherine: The same profile.
Brigitte: Then there are some who are a bit on the edge (…) I wouldn’t go off with strangers, you know, like a forum on a community website, I wouldn’t do that. I like being in the mountains, having fun and being in good company…

29One hiker even remarked that there seems to be a kind of physical law linking the degree of understanding and the speed of walking:

What I said to Laetitia, I said it’s incredible because… I said to her, you see the rhythms, the walking, you connect, you’re at the same rhythm as the people you get on with! (…) On a physical level, in other words, you walk at the same pace as people you get on well with! It’s weird (Cédric, manager in a large pharmaceutical company, 50 years old, grade 4).

30The magic created by hiking is such that even encounters in the mountains no longer seem to be based on social proximity, or even psychological affinities, but on pairings regulated by the very nature of the activity, to the point of obscuring the fact that the prerequisites that this “magic” presupposes remain clearly correlated with social proximity.

Maintaining A Threatened “Entre-soi”

31The mountains, insofar as they are characterised by a relative social mixity, are nevertheless likely to be the scene of disagreements over the “proper” and legitimate ways of hiking. This gives rise to tensions reminiscent of those observed in other public recreational spaces, such as the beach (Champagne, 1975; Bruno and Salle, 2017; Claeys, 2017). For some of its users, the possible democratisation of access to the mountains is not without raising reticence, as in the case of Émilie (medical intern, 26 years old) and her mother Sandrine (company executive, 50 years old, class 1). The former, whose social and professional ethos nevertheless leads her to welcome this opening up (“It’s better to think that French society has started to adopt a certain healthy lifestyle”) is nevertheless concerned about the possible ecological consequences, which echo the contemporary logic of the ecological conversion of distinction (Grossetête, 2019):

What bothers me about all this is looking after nature, because I think that if everyone joins in, it’s all very well, we can only encourage it […] but let’s face it, when hiking, short hiking or intermediate hiking, there are a lot more people than there used to be, and nature, well…

32His mother’s nostalgia for the bourgeois mountain entre-soi of her childhood is much less disguised, as she deplores the fact that you now have to climb “to a refuge at 4,000 metres” to be able to “break away”. A break from what? The phrase she uses is revealing: “It’s true that it looks like society is going into the mountains”, she seems to lament, and in so doing remobilises the classic theme of “encumbrance”, characteristic of bourgeois discourse (Boltanski, 1976).

33Does “society” extend into the refuges? At first glance, refuges appear to be places of peaceful, polite sociability, where those with relatively homogeneous profiles can socialise. Like Éric (manager of a cinema, 41 years old, class 3), interviewees often emphasise the greater “quality” of encounters in a refuge, where people “talk to each other more than in real life”. So most of the time, the refuge is not a theatre of class conflict, perhaps simply because you have to be able to afford to sleep there. But a closer look reveals that a whole series of more or less subtle reminders are needed to explain the “good manners” in the refuge, to discipline interactions and to settle conflicts of use that show that the agreement of dispositions and tastes, even among individuals who are socially close, is never total. As in the survey by Chamboredon and Lemaire (1970, p. 19), conflicts first arose over noise: at Bassiès, a sign told “jerks” to keep quiet in the evening. Signs (and the manifest disapproval of other users) reminded people that shoes and bags had to be left at the entrance. In another refuge visited during the exploratory phase of the survey (Valmasque, in the Mercantour), a poster entitled “Refuges, a user guide” began with the words: “No, this is not a high-altitude hotel”, and invited users to “push back the artificial barriers that threaten urban society”.

34From this point of view, the “guest books” (livre d’or) of refuges are a mine of information on the legitimate (and socially situated) uses of these places. Of course, they are primarily collections of panegyrics. As one hiker put it, “this is what a refuge guest’ book is all about… a few friendly lines in which people pay tribute to others, known and unknown, and take the measure of humility in the face of the majesty of the natural places that surround them in all simplicity” (Valmasque, Mercantour, 2004). But in the midst of the words of thanks and odes to nature, there are sometimes less friendly messages. Particularly in the middle of the summer season, when visitor numbers are at their most socially mixed, there are more and more conflicts about noise, hygiene, overcrowding and, more generally, different conceptions of the mountains. Those who ignore the codes of bourgeois sociability, the “noisy” and the “shameless” are castigated for not being “true” hikers.

35“Mountain people aren’t what they used to be” (Bassiès, Pyrenees, 2008), complains one user who had his IGN map stolen, only to find it again once he was back in the valley and send a letter to the keeper, which is scrupulously taped in the guest book following the entry. Behind the variety of incidents, what is being denounced is ignorance of the legitimate uses of the mountains and refuges. The defence of self-interest can then be brutal, in terms that poorly disguise social contempt:

A place with sailors and waitresses who make a mess until 1:30 in the morning, I wouldn’t call that a refuge but a whore house. (Valmasque, Mercantour, 2015)
I would like to thank Mr G. and his fishing colleagues for reminding us that refuge guests are not always pleasant, friendly, discreet, polite, nature-loving and respectful… It’s a shame that such people are allowed out of their homes. (Valmasque, Mercantour, 2001).

36In the margin of this last word, the keeper added: “I confirm and approve. The KEEPER”. Another hiker added on the same page: “A high mountain refuge is not a tourist hotel on the Côte d’Azur, (…) nor a hunting reserve, nor a trophy cache”. Behind this incident, we cannot fail to note that what “real” hikers and refuge keepers are up against together, is a use of the mountains organised around the social activities of the local youth and activities, such as fishing, more common in the local working classes than in the privileged urban classes. More generally, the refuges and their surroundings also appear to be marked by inequalities, tensions and conflicts of legitimacy, the mechanisms of which are in part similar to those observed by Cécilia Claeys in the Camargue and in the Parc des Calanques between locals and environmentalists (Claeys and Nicolas, 1999; Claeys et al. , 2016) or on the beaches of the Guadeloupean coast between Creoles and metropolitan inhabitants (Claeys, 2017), and which are reflected here by the maintenance of the ability of members of the most highly educated fraction of the privileged classes to express, write and impose their conception of the uses of the mountains.

Figure 2: Excerpt from the guestbook of the Valmasque refuge (Mercantour), 2001

Figure 2: Excerpt from the guestbook of the Valmasque refuge (Mercantour), 2001

Figure 3: Excerpt from the guestbook of the Valmasque refuge (Mercantour), 2015

Figure 3: Excerpt from the guestbook of the Valmasque refuge (Mercantour), 2015

Conclusion

37Hiking certainly has all the characteristics of a socially democratised activity: relatively easy to partake in (provided you live close to the mountains), inexpensive and requiring no special sporting skills. The “nearby” mountains appears to have the making of a place of social mixity. However, barriers, primarily cultural and symbolic, make it a socially selective activity, despite a tendency towards a democratisation of outdoor activities. Thus, this survey has shown that, although the social space occupied by hikers reveals several poles, our terrain was characterised by social homogeneity without however being able to speak of a total entre-soi. Similarly, while multiple uses of the mountains, combined in complex ways, exist that make it possible to play with the traditional modalities and “expectations” surrounding hiking, there is nevertheless one dominant and distinctive way of engaging in the activity: “contemplation”. This relation to the mountains both conditions other possible uses and invisibilises and stifles alternative uses.

38Because of the dominance of one type of user profile and one type of use of the mountain, the refuge is both a place of opposition between socially differentiated uses, and a place where a dominant legitimate use tends to overshadow others. This is all the more true inside the refuge because of the economic barriers that continue to restrict access in the evening and at night, i.e. for eating or sleeping, to those who have the necessary economic resources. Far from being the “public” place it appears to be, the mountains appear to be a “chosen” or “reserved” place, which remains the primary condition of possibility for its contemplative uses and enchanted discourses on the authentic character of the social relationships that flourish there.

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Notes

1 For an analysis of the system within which these adolescents are introduced to the mountain, and of the social relations, particularly the ethnic and racial relations, in which these experiences are situated, see the works of Léa Sallenave (2019; 2022).

2 To avoid saying "medium-altitude mountain," whose classic definition based on altitude criteria, between 1,000 and 2,000 meters (Chardon, 1984), is debatable. The "nearby" mountain refers to those that can be reached by car or bus from adjacent cities for day trips.

3 The term here refers to "mountain hiking," as included in the latest Injep survey under "mountain activities," alongside skiing, climbing, and other winter sports. The term does not, therefore, refer to non-mountain hiking (such as coastal walking) or "walking" activities (e.g., Nordic walking, power walking, etc.).

4 The study on "mountain hiking as a social activity" (REMAS) was conducted in 2016 and 2017, primarily in and around two refuges: one in the Pyrenees (the Bassiès refuge in Ariège) and the other in the Alps (the La Pra refuge in Isère). The study employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches, combining quantified observation of refuge users (N = 374), questionnaires (N = 227), individual or group interviews (N = 65), and analyses of documentary corpora (photos, posters, regulations, guest books, etc.). This research was supported by the MSH Toulouse and the LABEX SMS (reference ANR‑11‑LABX‑0066) and received funding from the French government through the National Research Agency under the "Investments for the Future" program (reference ANR‑11‑IDEX‑0002‑02). It would not have been possible without the contributions of those who accompanied and welcomed us in the field, whom we would like to thank here: Marie-Pierre Bès, Antoine Larribeau, Annick Valette, and the refuge wardens.

5 One can only get an idea of the socio-demographic characteristics of hikers and their changes based on the "Cultural Practices of the French" surveys conducted by the Ministry of Culture, and especially the surveys by the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP) conducted in 1985, 2000, 2010 (Aubel and Lefèvre, 2015) and 2020 (Lefèvre and Raffin, 2023).

6 As the French classification does not overlap with the European classification (European Socio economic Groups- ESeG), we indicate here the equivalents in the European classification of the French groups, even if they are taken from different categories of this european classification.

7 The class paragon refers to the individual in a class who is closest to its centre, as determined here by the averages of the coordinates of all its members on the first three axes of the MCA.

8 For other mountain activities, see Aubel, 2005 or Moraldo, 2021.

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Table des illustrations

Titre Map 1: Location Map
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13702/img-1.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 191k
Titre Figure 1: The Space of Recreational Uses of the Mountains
Légende Field: Respondents surveyed by questionnaire (N = 227). Reading: Active variables are represented in colors, and illustrative variables in black. The size of the labels is proportional to the number of respondents. The indicated names are anonymised names of the respondents cited in the article (in black, those of the “paragons” of the four classes of hiking uses, see Table 2 below).
Crédits Source: REMAS 2017.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13702/img-2.png
Fichier image/png, 457k
Titre Figure 2: Excerpt from the guestbook of the Valmasque refuge (Mercantour), 2001
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13702/img-3.png
Fichier image/png, 4,4M
Titre Figure 3: Excerpt from the guestbook of the Valmasque refuge (Mercantour), 2015
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/13702/img-4.png
Fichier image/png, 4,5M
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Pierre Mercklé, Delphine Moraldo, Caroline Datchary et Benoît Tudoux, « The (s)elective Mountain »Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine [En ligne], 112-3 | 2024, mis en ligne le 31 janvier 2024, consulté le 24 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/13702 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/139ty

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Auteurs

Pierre Mercklé

Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble - UGA*, Pacte, 38000 Grenoble, France
* School of Political Studies Univ. Grenoble Alpes

Delphine Moraldo

Centre Max Weber

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Caroline Datchary

Université Toulouse Jean-Jaurès, Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires (LISST

Benoît Tudoux

CNRS, Institut des sciences sociales du politique (ISP)

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