Race et folklore. L'image officielle de la France en 1800 - article ; n°4 ; vol.31, pg 802-823

Marie-Noëlle Bourguet

Description

Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations - Année 1976 - Volume 31 - Numéro 4 - Pages 802-823
At the dawn of the 19th century a project to establish a « Statistique générale de la France » was conceived. The purpose was to draw an accurate picture of the country and its inhabitants at the end of the Revolution. Napoleon's prefects were made responsible for directing the survey département by département. Children of the Enlightenment, these untried observers availed themselves of the analytical categories of the physicians and the naturalists of the 18th century : they came up with topographically slanted descriptions of the French countryside, which saw human diversity as related to diversity of the landscape and ways of living. At the time, the view was that this environmentalist approach would afford a means of building a human science on a regional basis. But other premises, ideological and political, causes this project of an anthropogeographical kind to go off course ; in contrast to the multifarious France they observed, the prefects posited the image of an ideal France, one and homogeneous, where the others, be they peasants or people from Provence, had no place, except insofar as they would gradually conform to the urban and refined, national model. Their anthropological thinking borders on racism and is intolerant of difference.
22 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: ANNALES_ECONOMIES_SOCIETES_CIVILISATIONS
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1976
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Marie-Noëlle Bourguet

Race et folklore. L'image officielle de la France en 1800 In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 31e année, N. 4, 1976. pp. 802-823.

Abstract At the dawn of the 19th century a project to establish a « Statistique générale de la France » was conceived. The purpose was to draw an accurate picture of the country and its inhabitants at the end of the Revolution. Napoleon's prefects were made responsible for directing the survey département by département. Children of the Enlightenment, these untried observers availed themselves of the analytical categories of the physicians and the naturalists of the 18th century : they came up with topographically slanted descriptions of the French countryside, which saw human diversity as related to diversity of the landscape and ways of living. At the time, the view was that this environmentalist approach would afford a means of building a human science on a regional basis. But other premises, ideological and political, causes this project of an anthropogeographical kind to go off course ; in contrast to the multifarious France they observed, the prefects posited the image of an ideal France, one and homogeneous, where the others, be they peasants or people from Provence, had no place, except insofar as they would gradually conform to the urban and refined, national model. Their anthropological thinking borders on racism and is intolerant of difference.

Citer ce document / Cite this document : Bourguet Marie-Noëlle. Race et folklore. L'image officielle de la France en 1800. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 31e année, N. 4, 1976. pp. 802-823. doi : 10.3406/ahess.1976.293750 http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/ahess_0395-2649 1976 num 31 4 293750 _ _ _ _ _