From fallow imaginaries to imaginaries of fallows. Four ways social groups exist through derelict spaces in Liège and Montreal.

This presentation will draw on the hypothesis that the ever-growing interest for derelict spaces in urban studies produces and is fuelled by a functionalist meta-narrative (Lyotard 1979). Through the exploration of two case studies (Bavière, Liège, Champ des Possibles, Montréal), this meta-narrative of fallows will be shown as both suited to certain social groups (researchers, urban planners, economic agents) and participating to the erasure of other social existences and imaginaries of places.

This exploration of various social imaginaries through the scope of an anthropology of enchantment (Winkin 2023) allows to establish three complementary ways through which social groups exist in those spaces. While some groups do thrive through an existence in fallow, others exist through imaginaries of the space as a place, as a haut-lieu (Debarbieux 1993), or through a (quasi) absence of imaginary of that space. This distinction is established through the type of attachments or detachments, whether material or affective, those groups develop within those imaginaries, in relation to the dispositive-disposition couple upon which the concept of enchantment is built.
This typology, by showing the diversity of social imaginaries at hand, gives insights on some of the visible and invisible social conflicts which arises in the redevelopment of derelict urban spaces.