Territorial Associative Dynamics, Social Representations of the Environment and Insularity: An Analysis of Collective Action in Corsica and the Îles-de-la-Madeleine
Environmental protection associations are public authorities’ key partners for concertation processes in land use planning. They are therefore a vehicle for specific social representations of the environment which they attempt to bring into public agenda. Trying to uncover which social representations of the environment is part of environmental protection discourses and actions in island territory, this paper will illustrate that there are « territorial factors » influencing environmental commitment as traditional, symbolic and identity dimensions of social representations are embedded in environmental associations dynamics. The territorial organization dynamics concept is then proposed to link governance institutions, social representations of the environment and environmental collective action issues. This concept enables the understanding of how collective action falls within territory and how nature is enshrined in action.