Beaches. Five Discourses about the Land-and-sea Threshold between Substances and Forms

Abstract

In this contribution we will investigate a number of issues relating to the beach and its specific role as a threshold. We will begin by framing the tourist phenomena related to the beach in a semiotic sense. In a second moment we will ropose to broaden our gaze beyond tourist phenomena, beyond images of the beach, for that the land-sea threshold can be considered a specific operator in terms of general and heterogeneous processes of differentiation and individuation. We will therefore explore five different types of discourses that bring into play its political, aesthetic, legal and moral valences. Each of these discourses will be distinguished by the role that the land-sea threshold plays therein in precise problems of defining territories, zones, limits. Finally, we will try to focus on the concept of threshold and its link to the beach in terms of the relationship between substances and forms according to L. Hjelmslev.