Floating Worlds: Conflicting Representations of Sea and Shore in Arcachon and La Teste, 1830-1910

Abstract

This thesis examines the spatial conflicts and negotiations that took place around the nineteenth-century development of the French Atlantic coastal resort, Arcachon (Gironde). It investigates how the fishing community on the Bassin d'Arcachon responded to the "improvement" proposals of engineers and investors in the first half of the century, and then to the campaign to create an "ideal" beach for bathers. The "empty desert" of the moors or Landes between Bordeaux and La Teste (the commune out of which Archachon was carved), the legally problematic tidal zone, and the treacherous narrows leading from the Bassin to the Atlantic, were all targeted by reformers who sought to control nature for..