De la Thaïlande aux Grecs pontiques : deux « terrains fondamentaux », deux thématiques de recherche différentes

Michel Bruneau’s itinerary as a geographer was organized around two "fundamental fieldworks" between 1966 and 2020, located in two different cultural areas, calling for different research methods. In Thailand and South-East Asia, analysis of village survey and remote sensing data was used to study landscape dynamics and changing inequalities in rural areas. In Greece, Turkey and in the Greek diaspora, surveys of descendants of Pontic Greek refugees were necessary. In this study of a diaspora and its places of memory, the theme was a cultural and political geography evolving towards a geohistory. To understand such a "big gap", we must use autobiographical elements, the institutional environment, the personal links essential to build each of these two "fieldworks" before considering the links that may exist between them.