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Screening the Other. Asian-American women in Western motion pictures The paper shows how the Western motion picture industry contributed to the othering of race and gender. The career of Anna May Wong, a Chinese-American actress famous in the 1920-1940's, includes many movies dealing with the curse of miscegenation and the erotization of her exotic body. Her characters were deeply stereotyped and derogatory to the Chinese-American community. She was the victim of an oppressive racist and sexist system, but at the same time was reluctantly involved in its reproduction. The actress is today celebrated by her community, and became a gay icon because of the camp dimension of the Dragon Ladies she used to play on the screen. Her career and movies prove that race and gender domination matrices support each other in a way that makes them almost undifferentiated. It is suggested these figures of the Oriental women have nourished Western fantasies, leading to the development of sex tourism in East-Asia.

Urban environment and obesity : can North American approaches be transferred to European contexts ? Available studies conducted in North America suggest an association between obesity and urban sprawl, motorization and walkable urban environments. The potentiality of transferring North American results to a European context has yet to be established. The examination of three case studies conducted at different scales in Luxembourg, Germany and France, call into question such a transfer. For each case study, obesity prevalence, built environment and urban context were analysed. We find that urban sprawl, motorization and walkability may not play a decisive role on obesity rates in the European case studies. Differences in urban ways of life and city morphology between Europe and North America may explain a large part of this result.

Contribution of discourse analysis for understanding landscape representations and environmental demands – The example of valleys in north western France The latest regulations (European Landscape Convention, Aarhus Convention) call into question landscape expertise methods. The paper aims to demonstrate the value of discourses of local actors and content and discourse analysis methods for identifying social demands concerning landscape. In this context, a survey was carried out among local actors (inhabitants, farmers, elected representatives, planners) to understand better the social representations of ordinary landscape using the example of three valleys in Normandy. Patterns and values on which landscape representations are constructed are identified. Preoccupations expressed by interviewees are then identified from “discourse maps”. The outcome is that it is possible to get go beyond the straightforward listing of individual expectations and to define a real collective demand. Linked to environment and landscape amenities development, the social demand observed focuses on heritage conservation. This prompts reflection about the respective role of verbal accounts and experience in the expression of demands regarding nature and the environment.

The dune forests of Western France : from the need for resources to the difficulties of multifunctional management The dune forests of Western France are artificial creations whose origin dates back to the 19th century. Set in a context of increasingly rapid agricultural transformation and land enhancement, afforestation seemed to offer a solution that could transform unstable areas that were deemed of no great value. At that point, forests became resources of immense value, giving rise to the greatest investment and radically transforming the dune landscape. Today the situation is different because the dune forests are aging and expectations are no longer the same. Coastal risks have become evident and some forests face the threat of the sea owing to their position on the water's edge. The only way for forests to be managed effectively is for them to be reconfigured into dune ecosystems.