Territorial embeddedness of natural resource management: A perspective through the implementation of Industrial Ecology

We address the territorial embeddedness of resource management: the way in which resource management is shaped by the territorial context in which it occurs, as well as the way in which resource management contributes to shape new territories. We demonstrate that Industrial Ecology (IE), as a specific resource management approach, can be used to gain new perspectives on territorial patterns emerging with resource optimization. First, we lay down a theoretical framework that should underlie the use of territory as a concept, building bridges between geography and IE. Then, drawing upon this theoretical framework, we develop a methodological structure that can lead to and manifest the process of territorial construction at work in IE. We test the knowledge production capacity of this theoretical and methodological approach to territory in IE by applying it to a specific case study in the Aix-Marseille Provence metropolitan area (France). This paper thus enhances knowledge about the territorialization process at work in IE, by identifying different IE territories within the same geographic area and positioning local stakeholders, understood as local inhabitants, with respect to territorial interfaces. Finally, we discuss how IE, as a specific resource management approach, questions the different aspects of the connection between people and geographical places in a natural management context.