Étudier les mobilités antiques : réflexions sur un tournant historiographique

Claudia Moatti’s article discusses the “migration turn” in ancient historiography over the last twenty years. It highlights the conceptual and methodological shifts that social science research has produced, leading to a radical reassessment of the extent of movement in Greek and Roman societies. The most recent works have, for example, highlighted the role of cities in the integration of migrants, the reticular character of the Roman imperial model, the development of a true culture of mobility; they have also analysed the way in which the law has seized this mobility in order to define it or even to regulate it, favouring the development of actual migration policies. Claudia Moatti finally reminds how important it is to maintain a comparative approach in this research field, all the more so when we are interested in the very experience of migrants.