L’enfance de la montagne : Structures familiales et développement local

Topics

• Governance capacity

Abstract

This book is not very recent. However it is very original and focuses on a factor of local development the importance of which has often been minimized: the land ownership and transmission rules, in relation which the family structures as conceived by a French anthropologist (Emmanuel Todd). It provides three excellent case studies taken in Savoy, and a general framework which underlines the following facts: - the rule in land transmission, within a family and through heritage, are very various, being more or less egalitarian; - the more egalitarian modes (heritage is equally shared between all the children) seem to be a source of difficulties for economic initiatives for individuals. Most of them do not have enough capital for investing in tourist activities for example; - the less egalitarian modes (heritage is mainly given to the eldest boy) has proved to be a favourable factor for local development : the eldest boy used to take the farm and the land of his father; the following boys either stayed in the region, being hired by local firms or working for his brother, or – and it was the norm in the Beaufortain region for example – moved to a big city for a while and came back with enough money for investing in hotels and shops, becoming the major actors of tourist development of the region.

Journal / Publisher / Institution

L'Harmattan, Paris

Reference to the original publication

hardcopy

Remarks

related paper: MATTEUDI E., 1995, Développement touristique local et spécificités territoriales ; in : JAMOT C., VITTE P. (dir.), Le Tourisme diffus, actes du colloque de Clermont-Ferrand 1994, Université Blaise Pascal, Cahiers du Ceramac 8, Clermont-Ferrand, pp.63-72.