Quelle approche « réaliste » de la montagne en géographie : l’exemple des bourrelets de marge passive

Abstract

The mountain is an essential object of geography but, like other objects, it opposes an approach offering elements of description and explanation based on a realistic, and above all geological representation, to another one more recent taking counts the representations of the populations. For the geography taught but also for the use which is made of it from a legislative point of view in France with the Mountain Law, the realistic approach dominates. The question is to know if this one, which bases a normative approach of the mountain is still valid in the light of the most recent scientific advances. The passive margin mountains, emblematic mountains of physical geography, are used here as an example of a type of mountain. From an in-depth analysis of the scientific literature, two points stand out: the recent genesis of these mountains, like all mountains on the surface of the earth, and the variety of their evolution. Putting geographic science into debate here does not consist in destroying its status in its function of cognitive action, in particular in the service of uses requested by society, but in recognizing the biases and limits of certain knowledges.