The ‘frontier lands’ of the south-western Alps: Analysis of local territorial processes through the literary constructions of Francesco Biamonti and Jean Giono

According to the definition of Raffestin (1992, p. 371), “frontier lands” are inherently areas of transit, not only of things, people and ideas, but also between different "worlds”. The borders, which cut across frontier lands, not only fail to truly separate but are, in effect, an ' exchange of promises". These hybrid areas are excellent examples of “espaces troués "(Deleuze, Guattari (19?), and over time they have become a powerful combination of linearity and zonality. The latter leads us to reflect on the processes of production of territory, marked by numerous borderlines, which bear testimony to the various manifestations of power over the centuries. In this specific case, the” frontier land” in the Italian-French south-western Alps will be analysed. The corpus of this study consists of the literary constructions in “L'ange d' Avrigue” and “Les paroles la nuit” by Francis Biamonti, with some additional “forays” into Jean Giono’s “Jean le Bleu” and “Le hussard sur le toit”. The aim of the study is to establish how the two novelists have contributed to the understanding of the Italian-French " frontier land "which, for millennia, has not only been a border region, but also a distinctive cultural region (the Maritime Alps is a name that has disappeared from the official subdivisions of the Alps ) . This contribution can be added to the work of scholars who, by means of specific language and scientific categories, have demonstrated what Michel Butor wrote about the " frontier lands ": " Little by little, fortunately, all territories touch each other at some extremity or another: we all become frontier people. [...] So even the most impenetrable borders slowly become transparent and these buffer regions, transit regions, gateways, gaps are transformed into new centres. The multitudes converge on them and then expand out from them more sensitive to a new way of listening to things " (1987, p. 412)