The space of political distance: The territorial construction of the relationship to the state in rural areas

In the media and on the political scene, connections are regularly made between territorial divisions and distant attitudes toward legitimate political practices. This article revisits these analyses in order to explain how territorial inequalities fuel the disconnection of the lowest fractions of the working classes from politics. It is based on findings from an ethnographic study of pathways to obtaining the Revenu de Solidarité Active (a form of welfare) in rural areas. These pathways are a period of socialization in how bureaucratic power works and a time when political positions are formed. A body of indicators concerning how “they govern us” and the difficulties they face in getting their rights recognized contribute to the identification of who is to blame for the misery of the poor. These difficulties are related to socially differentiated abilities to enter into relations with institutions of the welfare state, which are located increasingly far from everyday places since a wave of rationalizing reforms. This move away not only creates spatial distance, but also social and symbolic distances that inflate the city and shrink the spaces where people live their daily lives. These mechanisms demonstrate the role of territorial variables in the constitution of a distance from politics that is expressed differently on the national and local scales.