Titre : Wood and wooded areas: use the space and live inside The paradigm of oak and juniper craftsmen in the twentieth century in Provence 

Auteurs : Ada Acovitsiòti-Hameau
, Philippe Hameau,  

Revue : Archaeology, Society and Environment 

Numéro : Issue 1 

Volume : 3 

Date : 2023/11/30 

DOI : 10.21494/ISTE.OP.2023.1030 

ISSN : 2752-4507 

Résumé : Since the 19th century, two crafts have changed form and/or actors in Moyenne-Provence: charcoal burning and distillation of juniper. The reciprocal and intimate knowledge of the places where these craftsmen operate,or the plant speciesthey manipulate and thecontained fire they use for transformation unites them in the status of men of woods. This status is as well claimed by them than recognised to them. Their common space of action is the Provençal “hilly land”. Each craftsman is led to take advantage of the potentialities of this multiform space, considered repulsive, in order to live there, to work there and to perpetuate his activity by a permanent maintenance of the sites and the forest cover. The fire of the oven, a term common to both crafts, is secret because it is not visible. Our reflection on this know-how and lifestyle is based on surveys, experimentations, ethnographic interviews and investigations in archives. The acquisitions of this research go beyond the Provençal terrain and the contemporary times. Their comparative and diachronic perspectives enable us to discover technical and anthropological constants and to position the crafts and the concerned spaces at the heart of the construction of collective memories funding rural identities. 

Éditeur : ISTE OpenScience