Stranger in the Swiss Village: Celebrating and Contesting Globalization

Inspired by James Baldwin’s seminal engagement with ideas of belonging and estrangement in a Swiss Alpine village, the project  “Stranger in the Village: Celebrating and Contesting Globalization”,  explores how processes linked to globalized tourism or the so-called “business of foreigners” (Fremdenverkehr) are both essential for the survival Swiss Alpine dwellers and met with deep skepticism. The Swiss Alps draw on a long history of touristification, transforming valleys inhabited by mountain farmers into globalized resorts from the 19th century. By looking at everyday understandings of touristification narratives in the village of Grindelwald in the Bernese Highlands, this project questions the contested nature of tourism between its necessity and its abuses and the inequality on which resorts are built. “Stranger in the Village” ethnographically explores the “strange” affective states accompanying tourism development, such as the coexistence of hope and fear and the boundaries separating those who are said to “profit” from tourism - Swiss “native” locals - and those who work in the hospitality industry for lack of a better choice - migrants. Paying attention to the historical narratives of development via touristification, “Stranger in the Village” also focuses on people’s expectations for the future in a touristic resort in unprecedented times following the outbreak of Covid-19.