Third Place (Tiers-lieu)

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Third places are citizen spaces where different publics, skills, resources, working methods, innovative materials, etc. combine and hybridize, making each of them unique spaces, claimed as such and attached to a territory. With the wind in their sails, there were already more than 3,500 of them on French territory in 2022.

The third places address fundamental issues: the question of ownership and use, health, education, food, the right to experiment, multifunctionality, networking, as well as the very real risks of institutionalisation and standardisation and instrumentalisation, etc.

"Above all, third places are the sign of a crisis in our institutions, which were designed in industrial societies according to a vertical and sectoral model. They decompartmentalise activities as well as audiences, recompose the relationship to work, bring back activities in fragile territories, restore social ties or contribute to the ecological transition".

They claim to be actors of the transition on a given territory, deeply connected to solidarity economy, popular education and the commons at the same time. Thus they draw on the more political dimensions of collective deliberation and action, organisation around resources, knowledge, spaces and a presence in the public space.

History of the concept

The term comes from the concept "Third place" (after home and work), theorised by the American sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his book published in 1989: The Great Good Place.

Links

With socioeco.org

Putting the word "Tiers Lieu" in the search engine: here

With Ripess NL articles or position papers

• France: Ripess Europe newsletter, november 2022
• Geneva : Ripess Newsletter, April 2022

External glossaries

• Wikipedia page "Third Place"