IDENTITY AND HISTORY - CLASS AND REGIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN RURAL LANGUEDOC

The history of the peasants of Languedoc has been marked by continual struggles to defend a livelihood against the combined forces of capitalist development and state integration. Constant references to this history of contentiousness in popular representations of the past have been critical in the emergence of a culture of opposition among the Languedoc peasantry. This paper explores the relationship between historical consciousness, identity construction and expressions of resistance in class and regionalist ideologies of political struggle in rural southern France.