ABSTRACT
Based on the notions of after-tourism and leisure migration, a case study in the Vercors Massif (Alps, France) questions the meaning and forms of the recreational practices of “new highlanders”. This approach examines how a transition from “visiting to living” is at the heart of their residential and existential project. While there is much talk of “reinventing” tourism against the backdrop of multiple crisis factors (climate, energy, health), the infra-tourism or extra-tourism practices observed on the field seem above all to contribute to its disinvention. The notion of the art of living, which is both constitutive and inherited from tourism, but has been little addressed by the social sciences, is examined in order to account for this. This perspective appears to be an opportunity to rethink the future of mountain territories in terms of diversification and economic reorientation, in order to reduce the dependence on tourism. But it is also discussed from the point of view of its contradictions, particularly in terms of eco-gentrification. From the emblematic case studied, it is then a question of monitoring the way in which the Alps are becoming a residential refuge, or a laboratory for a new art of living.
