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A Common Experience of Ageing: The Social Role of Ancestral Collective Land Tenure Systems in Rural Upland Areas

Olivier Chavanon
Traduction de Hayley Wood
Cet article est une traduction de :
Vieillir en commun : Le rôle social des systèmes fonciers collectifs ancestraux dans les territoires ruraux de montagne [fr]

Résumé

Collective landholdings (often referred to as ‘common land’) are ancestral land tenure systems that, although little recognised, have endured as institutions in upland areas in France. They play an important role in stimulating rural life, and many of the inhabitants in these areas retain a strong attachment to them. In both the Alps and the Massif Central, these very old systems are of interest today for the various functions they perform, in a not always highly visible but nonetheless very real way. Situated at the intersection of the issues of social cohesion, quality of life, a sensory relationship with the land and intergenerational solidarity, common land contributes to varying degrees, in various forms and under different names, to involving its members in the collective management of local resources. The ageing of common land rights holders is a significant phenomenon that forms part of a fundamental demographic shift. In rural areas, particularly those furthest from urban centres, there is a marked increase in the number of older adults, who make up an ever greater proportion of the general population. These areas are also characterised by the increasing scarcity of certain services and by signs of declining social ties, which often cause consternation and concern among older residents. The virtues of these systems continue to be widely recognised: they provide non-financial benefits that have proven to be useful in a period of inflation; they establish a longer temporal perspective that stands in sharp contrast to the modern culture of immediacy; and they foster relationships with others and with the group that counteract certain effects of isolation and the decline of solidarity and rural amenities. In this article, we aim to understand this attachment to collective landholdings by taking a genuine interest in the words of those who remain involved in passing on these land tenure systems. We explore how common land contributes to the social dynamic of rural areas in France, in particular by enabling older people to retain an active role as part of local life.

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Introduction: The Quiet Persistence of Age-old Sociocultural Systems

  • 1 In the sense that the people who hold these rights are less important than the continuity of the sy (...)

1Collective landholdings have survived better in upland areas than elsewhere – a characteristic that is poorly understood, particularly by government departments (Joye, 2021 and 2024). The shared enjoyment of the land and its resources that constitutes the hallmark of these ancestral systems has nevertheless profoundly shaped forms of social cooperation in most rural village communities since at least the Middle Ages. Even today, local sociological dynamics still owe a great deal to the various functions performed by this particular type of land tenure. The latter can be defined by the use rights attached to it, which are accompanied in turn by certain obligations incumbent on a group that is atemporal in nature.1

  • 2 See, in particular, ‘Autour d’Ostrom: communs, droits de propriété et institutionnalisme méthodolog (...)

2The ‘commons’ has attracted renewed interest in recent years, notably as a result of the work of Nobel Prize in Economics winner Elinor Ostrom.2 Her research has had a major influence on thinking about how to effectively manage resources based on local, participatory governance solutions, one aspect of which is to foster the involvement and responsibility of the members of a group.

3This article, which is based on extensive field research conducted in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France since 2018, aims to shed light on the sociological dynamics associated with the operation of common land in upland areas, and in particular on the involvement of older adults. As part of the multidisciplinary research projects COMON, and subsequently COMETE,3 which are now being further developed through the VALCOM research partnership,4 we have refined the legal classification of these systems, mapped them, and gathered qualitative data consisting of the accounts of rights holders regarding different types of collective landholdings. In the Alps, the main systems we have studied since 2018 are the consortage, bourgeoisie and section de commune systems (see the box on ‘Legal background’).

4This corpus of interviews has been supplemented by an action research programme5 funded by the Fondation de France, which included holding various local meetings.6 These meetings provided an opportunity for collective, participatory discussion of the questions of intergenerational transmission and social cohesion that we explore in this article.

5All of these interviews, whether individual or collective, were recorded, usually on video.7 The number of direct accounts (over a hundred), and the range of different systems they cover, make this a unique resource on ancestral common land.

6The purpose of this article, based on the accounts of rights holders collected over several years, mainly from people over 60 years old, is to reveal the nature and diversity of the ties that continue to be produced by the shared use of land – and its associated resources – in rural upland areas. As well as setting out the aspects of these systems that are useful and functional in economic terms (such as access to resources for heating and food), which are often understandably considered essential to maintaining a certain quality of life, we aim to highlight the relational and ethical modes that are made possible by this particular form of landholding, in which rights are generally accompanied by duties: a duty to the land (working to pass on the legacy to future generations, taking only what is necessary and performing jobs in return); and a duty to other members (helping to ensure that the principles of negotiation, cooperation and maintaining rules of reciprocity protect the continuity of the system). Based on these considerations, in this article we explore how ancestral land tenure systems, as spaces of active sociability, today assign older people a particular role.

Legal background:

The term ‘collective landholdings’ is used here as a broad term for ancestral collective land tenure systems (‘communaux’ or ‘bien communaux’ in French) that operate under a range of statuses and in different ways depending on the local context. While there are divergences between these systems (for example in their names or rules of transmission), they have a common denominator in the concept of ‘use rights’. In all their forms, they represent ‘assets whose enjoyment is shared by a certain number of rights holders who can be determined by their membership of a land community’ (Vern in Joyce, 2021, p. 299). Historically, these systems emerged from arrangements made between village communities and the holder of an ‘eminent domain’ (such as a lord or religious community) to enable everyone to coexist and subsist on a ‘utile domain’.

See:

  • 8 A ‘commune’ is the smallest administrative division in France, roughly equivalent to a civil parish (...)

Article 1 of the Law of 10 June 1793: ‘Common land is that to whose ownership or yield the inhabitants of one or more communes, or of a section of a commune, have a common right.’8

Article 542 of the Code Civil: ‘Common land is that to whose ownership or yield the inhabitants of one or more communes have a vested right.’

These systems, which existed prior to the establishment of the modern French state, now lie at least in part outside the contemporary legal and administrative nomenclatures for individual property. Broadly speaking, they fall into two main categories: either the community owns the land, and its members divide up its use based on rules decided by them locally, or the community has use rights to land belonging to another party (such as a commune, a section of a commune, or even a private owner). They operate on the basis of three interconnected elements: a resource (such as a forest, upland pasture or water source); collective, democratic management of this resource; and use rights held by rights holders, in exchange for the fulfilment of duties by these individuals.

Three of these systems are discussed in this article (though many others exist):
- Sections de commune: as per Article L. 2411-1 of the Code général des collectivités territoriales (French General Code for Regional and Local Authorities, CGCT), these are defined today as ‘any part of a commune that is the permanent, exclusive holder of assets or rights distinct from those of the commune’. Under current legislation, they are a legal entity in public law, separate from the commune. Their members enjoy use rights as long as they have a ‘real and fixed’ address in the section. We note that this form of common land is now subject to a rather unfavourable legal regime, following the adoption of legislation providing for these sections to be abolished. In particular, the Law of 27 May 2013 has increased the ways in which the assets of sections de commune can by ‘communalised’ (by transferring or selling their assets to the commune).
- Bourgeoisies (the term derives from the word for inhabitants of the bourg, or village) and consortages are two other, entirely ‘private’ forms of collective landholdings. In these systems, the rights holders pass on their use rights based not on a condition of residence, but on a hereditary basis (down through their families). Although these systems are little known and have little protection in French law, they present a number of advantages for local areas, including careful, sustainable management of resources, upkeep of the landscape and small elements of built heritage (such as communal ovens, ponds and assembly houses), the creation of social ties and the transmission of rural traditions and know-how, which form part of an intangible cultural heritage.

In practice, in order to circumvent the difficulties created by their lack of recognition by the public authorities (government departments, and local and regional authorities), these collective systems often have to be restructured, for the sake of the cause, into various private legal entities (such as a société civile immobilière [SCI, a non-commercial property company] or non-profit organisation) in a bid to make their voice heard and maintain their local role in managing resources (or in order to protect heritage, cultural or environmental aspects).

See, in particular:

M. Bourjol, Les biens communaux. Voyage au centre de la propriété collective, LGDJ, 1989.

R. Couvert du Crest, Une vallée insolite, Chamonix, le Mont Blanc, la Savoie, t. II., 1971, published by the author with funding from the CNRS, p. 110.

P. Mouchet, ‘Une vieille société forestière. La Société bourgeoisiale de Saint-Gingolph’, Revue forestière française, no. 2-1958, pp. 106-108.

Common Land, Past and Present

Highly Resilient Systems

7In the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees and the Massif Central, groups of inhabitants have pooled the management of various resources and shared out the benefits associated with use of the land since at least the Middle Ages (Mériaudeau, 1983; Bourjol, 1989). Based on customary rights originally granted by the local seigneuries or ecclesiastical authorities, these communities organised themselves to determine rules governing access to pastures, forests, springs, foraging and hunting. In the past, these collaborative arrangements were designed to help the holders of these rights to ride out the ups and downs of food production inherent in the subsistence farming economy. For centuries, collective landholdings were thus the driving force behind commoning practices in rural societies. While the fortunes of common land have varied over time and in different contexts, today it represents an important component of tangible and intangible heritage, albeit one that is poorly understood by the French state. Once omnipresent, it has been undermined by the individuation of social relations, the growth of individual private property since the introduction of the Code Civil, and the demographic and sociological transformation of the agricultural sphere. Its demise has also been accelerated by more recent unfavourable legislation, which has notably made it easier to sell or transfer assets (see Joye, 2021 and 2024 and the box above).

  • 9 The data used are taken from the Direction générale des Finances publiques (French General Director (...)

Figure 1. Sections de commune in mainland France9

Figure 1. Sections de commune in mainland France9

8Despite their clear decline, collective landholdings still exist in various legal forms and under various names (including sections de communes, consortages, communaux cultifs, bourgeoisies and cayolars). For example, there are still 30,800 sections de commune in France, most of them in the Massif Central.

Figure 2. Sections de commune in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region

Figure 2. Sections de commune in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region

9In the Alps, over 50% of communes in Savoie and Haute-Savoie still include collective landholdings.

Figure 3. Collective landholdings in the Chamonix valley

Figure 3. Collective landholdings in the Chamonix valley

The Ageing Countryside

  • 10 This indicator typically includes 22 everyday public services and amenities.
  • 11 Analyses Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, no. 162, June 2023; Territoires ruraux: entre dynamisme démographiqu (...)

10In France, collective landholdings have primarily persisted in rural areas classified by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) population density index as being ‘autonomous and sparsely populated’ or ‘autonomous and very sparsely populated’. Their current presence in terms of quantity or surface area is likely down to rural depopulation and lower pressure on land. These categories of sparsely populated rural areas, which encompass a broad range of different realities on the ground, nevertheless share certain major characteristics, including a more marked trend towards an ageing population, and longer access times for the basket of ‘everyday services’.10 According to the 2018 census, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region has the most extensive upland area in France, with 36% of its population living in communes that are categorised as being fully or partly in upland areas. Changes in the age pyramid and income indicators in the isolated communes in which most of the common land remains (i.e., those outside the influence of urban centres) also reveal a higher proportion of people aged 65 years and over compared with peri-urban rural areas, and a higher proportion of households in the 60 years and over category living in precarity or poverty. In 2019, across the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region as a whole, one in eight inhabitants of non-peri-urban rural areas were living in poverty (12.3%), compared with one in thirteen (7.7%) in peri-urban rural areas, according to INSEE figures.11 In these areas, the growing proportion of the local population aged 60 years and over (population ageing), combined with the increase in their absolute numbers, represents a key background trend for the coming years.

  • 12 Insee Première, no. 1881, November 2021.

11It is impossible to provide accurate figures for either the number or sociological characteristics of common land rights holders, since there are no data on this subject: there is no comprehensive national database of collective landholdings in France, their geographical location or their members. However, based on the qualitative and quantitative research we have conducted since 2018, we estimate that two-thirds of common land is located in small communes with fewer than 500 inhabitants. Those with use rights tend to be older. In the sections de commune, 80% of members are over 50 years old (Joye, 2021, p. 725). And from a socio-occupational perspective, the members include an outsized proportion (over a third) of farmers (working or retired). For the other types of commons, we hypothesise that farmers are less over-represented, although we are unable to provide robust data to support this. Upland rural common land thus finds itself at the heart of questions of intergenerational cohabitation, solidarity and interdependence.12

The Sections de Commune

Access to Resources with Perceived Value

12In most cases, these shared land tenure systems derive their financial income from the sale of timber and from leasing land to farmers. A wide range of situations do however exist depending on the type of asset managed (upland pasture, forests, water, etc.), local factors, and opportunities for leveraging the resources concerned. The latter may also sometimes be leased to third parties, such as hunting associations, mountain pasture associations or private companies. The income generated by leasing cannot be used by members on an individual basis, but is used for the sole benefit of the group constituted by the common land. In other words, the main purpose of the income is to enable the land to be maintained over the long term, preserving its value for the benefit the community, in both the present and future.

13In the sections de communes, however, members are able to access direct benefits. As the law prevents them from receiving revenue in cash, this mainly consists of the practice of affouage (gathering wood) from communal forests. Nearly half of the people interviewed as part of our research reported personally and practically enjoying this right, which enables them to make considerable savings, particularly in a period of rising energy costs.

  • 13 Agricultural land owned by the section is assigned under a bail rural lease or a multi-year farming (...)

14Farmers also stressed the long-standing importance of the sections in the agricultural sphere, since they provide an opportunity to rent land13 at a relatively low cost. Nearly 40% of the rights holders we interviewed in the Massif Central reported having increased the area of their farm through this land allocation mechanism.

A Shared Sense of Being Disregarded

15These broad trends might suggest that, at the family level, the benefits of the commons are modest in strictly economic terms. However, our interviews revealed the importance attached to these benefits, in particular in symbolic and emotional terms. They cannot therefore be measured solely by the utilitarian yardstick of their material value. The environment in which collective landholdings emerged has undergone huge transformation as rural life has moved away from agriculture, and new residents and other forms of activity (such as recreational, tourism and cultural activities) have developed. Common land thus no longer performs the essential economic function it did in the past.

16To understand the nature of this attachment, it is important to take into account the sense of being left behind in both geographical (country versus city) and sociological (working-class versus elites) terms, which often came up in our interviews. Many members see the rights associated with common land as being useful, or even necessary. They are also described as being consubstantial with a certain rural identity, as emphasised by one female retiree (75 years old in 2020) in a small commune in the Haute-Loire, who had attempted to oppose the transfer of the section in which she was a rights holder:

Of course it might not seem like much from the outside, but for some families it’s very important. And since it’s always been there, the old people are very attached to it in our countryside. They don’t understand why they’re being attacked as if they were privileged... That’s why people were so angry when we found out they wanted to get rid of our section. They were outraged, because it was yet another way of us being disregarded. On top of that, politicians say they’re all about participatory democracy, but at the end of the day they don’t take us into account at all!

  • 14 In recent years, the number of sections de commune has declined, largely as a result of communalisa (...)

17Moves by the public authorities to cut back or undermine the integrity of the rights related to the sections are seen as a reflection of their condescension. Our interviewees revealed this perceived asymmetrical relationship in their references to ‘they’, ‘them’ or ‘from above’: ‘They see it from a distance. Because they don’t understand what the sections are, they want to get rid of them, claiming that will simplify everything and that there’s no longer any need for them’, declared another female retiree (74 years old in 2021) who, along with others, opposed a land transfer procedure in her village in Puy-de-Dôme.14

18The sensitive nature of this subject is demonstrated by the various legal disputes that have arisen. In the cases we have observed, it is often people 60 years old and over who rally forces and take action. While this is not exclusively the case, those who have the time to get involved are prepared to organise themselves legally in order to defend their sections, including before the courts. When land is transferred to the commune estate in spite of resistance, there is a palpable sense of injustice and an affront to dignity, particularly as these procedures are irreversible.

The Bourgeoisies

An Institutionalised Relationship to a Longer Temporal Perspective

  • 15 Communaux cultifs are another type of ancestral collective land tenure system.
  • 16 Remarks made by members of the bourgeoisie of Saint-Gingolph (Haute-Savoie) at a group meeting in 2 (...)

19Across the board, from the consortages of the Chamonix valley to the communaux cultifs of the Maurienne region,15 the bourgeoisies of Lake Geneva and the sections de commune in the Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme and Cantal regions, the various types of collective landholdings are remarkable in their longevity. This continuity is one of the main reasons they are held in such regard by their members, who almost universally observe how these systems have stood the test of time, and note the unbroken involvement of successive generations: ‘Our ancestors undoubtedly fought to pass them on to us’; ‘We inherited them and we have to respect what our forefathers did’; ‘We have to keep it going because that’s the way it’s always been and we owe it in turn to the young!’16 Here, it is the collective framework that regulates the day-to-day lives of rights holders and constructs the historicity of the group, understood as the way in which it connects the present to the past and future (Bantigny, 2013).

  • 17 With the rationalisation of production through the division of labour, and the introduction of time (...)

20For centuries, traditional rural societies were primarily governed by a cyclical view of time. Their activities followed the rhythm of, and were structured around, the seasons and religious or community rituals. The future was thus understood as a kind of logical, natural continuation of the past. An initial shift in the collective temporal order came with the industrial period,17 and the contemporary era has seen an intensification of the individualisation of the relationship to time (Zawadski, 2002), along with a blurring of representations of the future. Not only have individuals become more autonomous as they have become emancipated from some of the social timeframes that once governed community life (Rosa, 2019), but the paradigm of progress on which our conception of modernity was founded in the wake of the Enlightenment has also been disturbed by the inherent uncertainties of the ecological and climate crisis. By advocating the need for permanent innovation (Bouveresse, 2023), ‘a systemic culture of urgency’ (Aubert, 1998) has altered our relationship to historic continuity. This regime of the ephemeral (Fuchs, 2016) is linked to dismissive representations of old age, which is now largely associated with an assumption of uselessness, and therefore reduced to problems of the related cost or burden on the community (Demichel-Basnier and Corbin, 2024). In the context of common land, however, older people have moral authority due to their role in the transmission of traditions and their ability to manage conflicts and pass on agroecological knowledge. They are not only witnesses to the past, but also play a key role in preserving customs and adapting these systems to contemporary challenges.

  • 18 This includes small houses on the shores of the lake, which are available for holidaymakers to rent

21The Saint-Gingolph bourgeoisie holds its meetings in a room surrounded by the coats of arms of the families that have handed down their hereditary rights, from generation to generation, for over 400 years. This transmission remains patrilineal, with rights passed solely down the male line. The bourgeoisie owns 2,500 hectares of common land straddling France and Switzerland, and manages forests, mountain huts, upland pastures, and waterfronts18.on the shores of Lake Geneva, along with a quarry, a church and a castle. As we will see below, its ageing membership is one of its main concerns.

The Challenge of Transmission

22Many of the rights holders we met (the most involved) are over 60, 65 or even 70 years old, and all of them are now worried about how they can get young people involved, and thus secure their succession. They share this concern with their counterparts in the sections de commune and consortages, who face the similar challenge of an ageing membership and the corresponding need to secure succession through the active involvement of younger people.

23The president of the French division (80 years old in 2022) described it in these terms:

We are a very old institution and we all have a role to act as custodians of the past and of memory, to look after the present and also to think about the future so that we can hand down this legacy by passing on our assets in good condition, as our predecessors did before us.

24For the members, being useful means contributing to the imperative of intergenerational transmission. This involves preserving the quality (of the environment, heritage, etc.) of the various assets managed by the community, maintaining use rights, and ensuring that the latter are exploited in accordance with the values on which the group’s identity is founded. Central to the principles that motivate the bourgeoisie is the desire to ‘respect the land ’ by ‘taking the time to make the right decisions’ and not ‘doing just any old thing’, since ‘it is what lasts that has value’ (77-year-old member).

25We can therefore see that the collective practices specific to bourgeoisie life are not organised on the basis of the transitory horizon of the short term. On the contrary, the communal land tenure system is atemporal in nature. In anthropological terms, it therefore represents a form of transcendence that gives meaning to action, enabling shared projections into the future. At the same time, it assigns a central role to the oldest members, who act as custodians of a shared memory, and as holders of the know-how that is essential to the continuity of the system and to the careful management of local resources. As such it eliminates, or at least substantially reduces, any sense of social uselessness.

26Our interviews revealed a shared awareness of this responsibility on the part of older members, and the pride they take in it. This is particularly the case as the bourgeoisie members have a good relationship with the local authorities and work closely with them, including by acting as advisors or sponsors on various projects concerning the upkeep of built heritage, planning and regional development.

The Consortages

Taking Joint Action

  • 19 Literally ‘cow shares’ – originally giving holders the right to graze a cow in an upland pasture.

27Like the bourgeoisie model, the consortage system is not unique to the French Alps, but can also be found in the canton of Valais in Switzerland, and in Italy, notably in the Val d’Aoste region. In the Chamonix valley, this form of collective landholding encompasses cadastral parcels that belong to all of the consorts, each of whom owns a share in the form of ‘fonds vache’.19 Today, these use rights, which are passed down by hereditary succession, are divided between seven montagnes (another local name for the consortages), and correspond to around 370 Chamonix families covering 11% of the total surface area of the valley. While they operate in the form of various legal entities (primarily as SCI or non-profit organisations), these montagnes share the attributes of the other ancestral collective landholdings discussed above, with a focus on the shared management of resources within the community.

28The Chamonix valley is characterised by the very strong presence of tourist and recreational activities, which sets it apart from other rural areas experiencing population decline. The main problems faced by the consortages concern management of the flows of holidaymakers and sportspeople who are attracted to the area by the beauty of its landscape and the wide variety of activities available in both winter and summer.

  • 20 The consortage land includes ZNIEFFs (natural areas of special ecological interest).

29Consortage members maintain the parcels of land that make up the collective landholdings on a voluntary basis, for example by maintaining the footpaths and hiking trails that cross their land, ensuring compliance with certain biodiversity rules,20 and running internationally famous refuges such as Plan de l’Aiguille and Lac Blanc. As such, overtourism is one of their main concerns. As part of their mission (both practical and moral) to look after the mountains, they are all striving to reconcile their system with the challenges posed by the growing number of visitors who come to enjoy the beauty of these areas. In responding to recent changes, the experience and in-depth knowledge of the territory acquired by their longest-serving members is often the deciding factor when it comes to making collective decisions and rulings. This was the case, for example, in relation to the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) trail race, when the various presidents of the consortages conveyed the desire of their members to preserve the integrity of their lands and to respect local traditions, and their concerns about the environmental impact of the event, and respect for their property rights. The seven presidents declare that ‘we absolutely have to bring in new blood, but it’s a winding road’. Half of them are already over 70 years old, raising the question of who will take over.

The Role of ‘Territorial Sentinel’

  • 21 This meeting was held as part of the work of the VALCOM research partnership. These meetings were f (...)

30At a group meeting held in June 2024,21 the consortage president representing one of Chamonix’s seven montagnes emphasised that they wanted to maintain access to their land, since otherwise:

  • 22 A large number of ski lifts are located on consortage land, as are the walking and hiking routes de (...)

It would be a real blow to all of these tourist activities, because people would no longer have access. That’s why it’s so important that the wider community respects us and is aware of this. And all of us have a duty to keep this natural area as beautiful and as clean as possible, because that’s also what our tourists want to see. And we all know that tourism is the lifeblood of this valley, as it is in neighbouring valleys.22

31This burden weighs heavily on their shoulders. Members do this work in their spare time, which requires ‘determination, energy and perseverance over time’. However, as another consortage president (68 years old) observed:

It worries me, because I’ve done 150 hours (of voluntary work) in 2 months, which is like working part-time. And I’m sure that in lots of other montagnes, there are lots of other people involved as treasurer or president or members who do all the work behind the scenes. That definitely poses a problem for the future, because we’re not getting any younger. So we need young people. We’re trying to get them to join us and help us keep it all going.

32Poorly understood by modern law, and therefore generally given little consideration by local actors (such as nature reserve managers, communes or commune federations, decentralised state institutions, and event organisers), the consortages currently maintain a low profile and operate almost invisibly, based on the goodwill of those who are able to get involved without expecting anything in return (and who have the time to do so).

33This perhaps explains why most (though not all) of the representatives of the seven montagnes in the Chamonix valley are older people who have already entered retirement. They all emphasise that they are motivated by the satisfaction of taking care of the upland pastures and helping to maintain the traditional custodian system, so as to keep the old ways going. This requires them to implement their own model of governance in parallel with that of the public authorities. This everyday micropolitics brings them together in various deliberative bodies in which they hold discussions, make decisions in the name of territorial responsibility and accountability, develop strategies and find operational solutions so as to collectively respond to the environmental and social challenges of the present and future. As such, the consortages are active communities, structured by forms of interaction, interdependency, cooperation, regulations and agreements. Like the bourgeoisie and sections de commune models, in their fundamental principle they reveal a relational ontology that goes beyond the individualist prism. The relationship to the resource is never an extractivist one, since what provides heat and sustenance also keeps people together, and the need for communal management mitigates the effects of the decline in social ties that is sometimes associated with aging.

Conclusion

34Through common land, the collective management of assets such as forests, pastureland and farmland provides a framework within which older adults can pass on their traditional knowledge and expertise in managing local resources. This transmission strengthens their role as custodians of a collective memory, and of knowledge that is valuable to the community. Within collective landholdings, older people are active or influential members who participate in decision-making. This gives them a central role in local governance and highlights the value of their experience and expertise concerning the land. The meetings, collective work and events associated with the activities of the common land enable them to maintain regular contact with other members of the community. While it is important not to present these groups as being wholly altruistic or philanthropic, since they undoubtedly include their share of conflicts, squabbles and self-interest, collective landholding models are described by their members as being able to produce forces of cohesion, belonging and harmonious living. At the local level, these systems appear – albeit often imperceptibly – to play a role in weaving together the threads of a social contract (in complement to the role played by institutions and conventional political action). Rights holders act as having obligations to the territory. The most experienced members are assigned valued and rewarding roles, since they are recognised as having the know-how to act on the environment, and the skills to assess how much pressure shared spaces can bear. This explains why many of them report feeling a visceral attachment to the virtues of the commons and the social life it produces, aware as they are that isolation and withdrawal are recognised risks of ageing.

35The value of these systems cannot therefore be reduced to an out-dated, folkloric view. The work of the VALCOM research partnership shows that, where these models are still in operation through the active involvement of their members, they are a rich source of democracy and produce a wide variety of forms of sociability in which the over-60s play a leading role. Common land could also represent a response to the environmental and social challenges of the future, particularly if it were given full legal recognition. Inspiration can be drawn from the example of the Valle d’Aosta, where changes in regional legislation have provided a real boost by enshrining a principle of horizontal subsidiarity (Louvin and Alessi, 2021). The communities that keep these systems alive in the area are officially recognised as being capable of acting in the general interest.

36In any case, it would undoubtedly be useful for small rural upland communes, in which common land still exists, to be able to appreciate the various benefits they provide. There is a need for robust data on the diverse services provided by collective landholdings. As things stand, we undoubtedly still lack a complete assessment of the benefits that would be lost if ancestral common land were to be stifled into extinction by the administrative authorities as a result of their persistent ignorance or indifference.

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Notes

1 In the sense that the people who hold these rights are less important than the continuity of the system.

2 See, in particular, ‘Autour d’Ostrom: communs, droits de propriété et institutionnalisme méthodologique’, Revue de la régulation. Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, 14, 2nd semester 2013, eds. Jean-Pierre Chanteau, Benjamin Coriat, Agnès Labrousse and Fabienne Orsi.

3 ‘« Les communaux en montagne » (projet COMON – 2018-2022)’, https://www.fac-droit.univ-smb.fr/fr/2018/09/projet_comon/ ; ‘Projet COMETE’, https://www.fac-droit.univ-smb.fr/fr/2021/04/projet_comete/

4 ‘Chaire valoriser les communs’, https://www.fondation-usmb.fr/chaire-valcom/

5 This programme is entitled ‘Communs ruraux et transition écologique : de la montagne à la mer’ [‘Rural commons and the ecological transition: from the mountains to the sea’].

6 See, for example, the following websites: Propriétés collectives en montagne. Les sociétés de consorts de Chamonix ; Le renouveau des réseaux d’irrigation en Tarentaise; and La forêt cache-t-elle le commun?

7 This notably resulted in the production of a 58-minute documentary film: EN COMMUN! La propriété collective à l’épreuve de la modernité (Olivier Chavanon and Jean-François Joye).

8 A ‘commune’ is the smallest administrative division in France, roughly equivalent to a civil parish in the UK but with much greater powers. It is governed by an elected mayor [maire] and a municipal council.

9 The data used are taken from the Direction générale des Finances publiques (French General Directorate of Public Finances, DGFIP) database and should be treated with caution, as the cadastral nomenclature may contain numerous errors or approximations concerning the identification of common land.

10 This indicator typically includes 22 everyday public services and amenities.

11 Analyses Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, no. 162, June 2023; Territoires ruraux: entre dynamisme démographique et vieillissement de la population, INSEE, Analyses Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, no. 120, April 2021.

12 Insee Première, no. 1881, November 2021.

13 Agricultural land owned by the section is assigned under a bail rural lease or a multi-year farming agreement. Priority is given to ‘farmers who have their real and fixed place of residence, a farm building and the registered office of their farm in the territory of the section and who farm land within it’ (Article L2411-10 of the CGCT).

14 In recent years, the number of sections de commune has declined, largely as a result of communalisation procedures, under which land is transferred from common ownership to that of the commune. This is typically justified by commune mayors as a way to simplify management, and as being in the local public interest.

15 Communaux cultifs are another type of ancestral collective land tenure system.

16 Remarks made by members of the bourgeoisie of Saint-Gingolph (Haute-Savoie) at a group meeting in 2019, where the mean age of attendees was probably above 70 years old.

17 With the rationalisation of production through the division of labour, and the introduction of timekeeping to regulate work.

18 This includes small houses on the shores of the lake, which are available for holidaymakers to rent.

19 Literally ‘cow shares’ – originally giving holders the right to graze a cow in an upland pasture.

20 The consortage land includes ZNIEFFs (natural areas of special ecological interest).

21 This meeting was held as part of the work of the VALCOM research partnership. These meetings were funded by the Fondation de France. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzELUn_XoS0, retrieved March 10, 2025.

22 A large number of ski lifts are located on consortage land, as are the walking and hiking routes defined in the local walking and hiking map (PDIPR).

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1. Sections de commune in mainland France9
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/14616/img-1.png
Fichier image/png, 735k
Titre Figure 2. Sections de commune in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/14616/img-2.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 278k
Titre Figure 3. Collective landholdings in the Chamonix valley
URL http://journals.openedition.org/rga/docannexe/image/14616/img-3.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 543k
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Référence électronique

Olivier Chavanon, « A Common Experience of Ageing: The Social Role of Ancestral Collective Land Tenure Systems in Rural Upland Areas »Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine [En ligne], 113-1 | 2025, mis en ligne le 15 avril 2025, consulté le 14 juin 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/14616 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/13wow

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Auteur

Olivier Chavanon

Lecturer in Sociology
Université Savoie Mont Blanc
Scientific Director of the Pôle Enquête
Co-director of the VALCOM partnership chair
Member of the Antoine Favre Law Research Center
Olivier.chavanon@univ-smb.fr

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