The Maritime Alps: A Cross-Border Region Between Traditional Transalpine Mobility and International Migratory Chains

The Maritime Alps have been crossed for millennia by the routes of great condottieri and numerous armies, exiles and fugitives, but also by the trajectories originating from the traditional economic activities of the area - such as transhumance or itinerant and seasonal professions - as well as the most recent migratory movements. Mobility in the mountains has always been a necessary constant for the survival of inhabitants, as well as a custom that has allowed us to offer services to residents or to carry out mostly artisan or agricultural activities. This mobility did not only concern the descending movements from the mountain to the sea but also the inverse ones. And above all, ancestral mobility was essentially transalpine and not international. Modern boundaries, sharp and non-encircling like borders, have only partially changed local dynamics, prompting the definition of new movement strategies. The reflection on the dynamics related to the transalpine mobility of the Maritime Alps will be conducted starting from the use of the historical-geographical and geo-literary method. We propose to identify some of the cultural and socio-economic peculiarities that contribute to defining the uniqueness of the border region in question.