Tourisme sportif et construction de l’altérité dans les espaces de pratique : le canoë en France et en Zambie

Historically, canoeing is based on the principle of free circulation on water streams and on a tourism-oriented overview of nature. In France, during post-war years, rivers were closed to navigation, which led canoeists to search for new spaces to practice. Wild waters sites were identified in African countries during the 1950s. A “natural” logic, based on an unstable and wild environment, has been incorporated under tourist designs of nature. These take into account the relationship with the land and the relation to the Other. We should understand how emerged, from the point of view of Western tourists, their relationship to the Tonga people of Zambia, some of them being mobilized as guides on the Zambezi River. Interviews were analyzed, using an in situ investigation. This activity is designed to explore the nature and explore high places while travelling in Zambia; the Zambezi River Gorge is a world-renowned site for this type of activity. In what context did leisure canoe spread from Europe to Africa? We should show how the otherness between practitioners relationships are constructed and how they change the guides norms.