Abstract EN:

Modem outdoor leisure activities appeared simultaneously in Reunion Island and in Europe, in the XIXth century. A British model dictated the habits of a privileged social minority. The colony of Reunion, where informal sociability rules over practices, didn't really have clubs and societies. Written primary sources give a limited vision of the colony's outdoor leisures in which the women seem invisibles. Photographs reflect another reality, in wich genders appear. Images here are not only primary sources but, above all, a unique corpus, testimony of leisures' reality. History, which undeniably involves both men and women, was in colonial Reunion recorded by women too, photographing and practising. Outdoor practices, such as cycling, croquet and lawn tennis were first confined to gardens, then reached the town for river baths, extended to the sea-side and invested mountains and highlands spas for the major activities of colonial tourism, hiking, motorized excursions or mountain climbing.