Éléments pour une géographie sociale de la contestation des nuisances aériennes à Bruxelles

The Brussels Airport is located at the city gates and thus poses the problem of aircraft nuisances, daytime as well as overnight. Depending on balance of power between authorities, between pressure groups or between authorities and pressure groups, air procedures frequently have changed in order to avoid one or another district. Our research first set out the recent geography of air routes in the Brussels area. There are used as an approximation of the aircraft noise geography. Then this geography is compared with the geography of the Contesting nuisances, according to three methods of initiative: setting up a community association, lodging a complaint to the dedicated, federal administration or bringing a legal action. Then we notice that the inhabitants leaving in privileged areas are much better organised than those leaving in working-class areas, to the detriment of the latter that are absent of the protest. Social structure strongly conditions the organization of the inhabitants in order to defend themselves, because they lead to inequalities in terms of available resources (cultural and economic capital, social and politic networks). The local defenceinequality leads then to an increase of aircraft noise sudden by working-class areas.