Intimacy and heroization games in the French middle class

the case of hiking

Abstract

I propose to study the practice of hiking in France, considering that it consists in a game of exploration of different facets of subjectivity. Three records of this tourist experience will call our attention. The first relates to subjectivation by matter (Warnier, 1999), it evolves around the value of technical equipment used by hikers. We shall see how much our culture nourishes a desire for wisdom derived from a technico-scientific myth of intimacy with the matter. The second record consists of listening to the primary sensations of the body making effort. The individual plays here a dive inside himself that lives as a patch of his/her identity. The last record concerns the life within the group of hikers. The aim here is to describe different affective experiences in proxemia and to analyze their sociological function. The question of intimacy with matter, with oneself or with others, will allow us to grasp a recreational exercise of self-government whose understanding illuminates certain sociological and political aspects of the contemporary transformation of the social bond.