L' anthropologie alpine aujourd’hui et ses nouveaux défis

Abstract

The paper aims to highlight the mutation of the role of the Alpine anthropologist within a geographical and human space in deep and rapid transformation. As an urban cultural product, the Alpine world is at the centre of many ideological tensions and misunderstandings. In particular, the author insists on the need to adapt the discipline (in terms of methodology and epistemology) to the new representations of the mountains. Researchers could thereby enhance communication between the categories involved in diverse ways (although with diverse representations of belonging) to such territories and the most distant ones: a very important purpose if we think to the central role of the Alps within Europe.