41

Group, cooperative housing, which has reemerged in the last ten years, has found recognition as participative housing ( habitat participatif), a term used in the recent ALUR law (Access to housing and reformed urban development). Through the itinerary of potential or future inhabitants of these alternative housing schemes, it is possible to retrace a social movement whose foundations lie in the urban and social utopias of the nineteeth century and influenced by twentieth century projects—residents’ cooperatives, self-build homes (Castors movement), and self-managed housing. More than just a historical account, this article reveals the atypical nature of a residential trajectory, slowed down to the pace of the collective and covering the time living together. Over a period of about ten years, these local, varied, experimental and self-help initiatives create support and communication networks, and then move towards processes of professionalization and institutionalization.