The Construction of French and Italian Identities in the Mediterranean
The project examines the formation of national identities on both sides of the Franco-Italian border on the Cote d'Azur/Costa Azzurra and in Corsica. The transfer of the Nice region from Piemonte- Sardinia to France in 1861 posed serious challenges to France and to the new Italian kingdom as the new border did not respect linguistic boundaries, cultural continuities or economic realities. The project analyses the manner in which the two countries attempted to transform a purely political border into a divide deeply rooted in antagonistic national identities. The first part of the project, a monograph on the recent history of the Riviera di ponente, was published in 2008.
