Social Process in the Italian Alps¹

Abstract

Past similarities in the outward appearance of domestic process in two adjacent villages of diverse origin in the Italian Alps resulted from shared ecological pressures, but contrasting modes of integration into the national political economy were decisive in producing differences between villages in the ways in which authority was developed and distributed within the domestic realm, and in processes of interaction between domestic groups. These contrasts have in turn influenced response to recent changes in the nature of village integration into the state, which have set domestic process moving in new directions.