Une migration sous le regard d’Alphonse Dupront

Abstract

The article constitutes a critical review of the study entitled “Italian immigration in the Gers”, written in 1928 by Alphonse Dupront that had remained unpublished until 2018. It is the early writings of a student from the prestigious Ecole Normale Supérieure and someone who would later become a great historian. The article addresses immigration via a field research that he had carried out in his native region (the district of Condom). The approach is characterised by the territorial background, the closeness to the people, and the methodological choice. Alphonse Dupront develops an ingrained view in the physical geography of the Gascon rural area, he uses the categories of his time whilst developing a comprehensive approach of the subject. Far from the worrying debates and the abusive theories on immigration that tarnished several texts from those days, his study constitutes a remarkable milestone in terms of historiography to come.

Keywords

• migration
• France
• Italians
• Occitany
• immigration
• peasants