Colonial encounters of the Swiss kind: Switzerland and the Swiss in the age of empire
samedi, 9. février
15:00 jusqu'à 17:30 heures
Salle 3119
As has been shown by a wide range of studies in the past years, colonialism cannot be fruitfully understood as the exclusive interaction between a handful of imperial ‘metropolitan countries’ and their respective colonies. In myriad ways, states without former colonies and their inhabitants (as well as states that were not formally colonized and their populace) were part of colonial relationships and intensely involved in colonial practices and/or engaged in the production and reproduction of colonial knowledges and discourses. The proposed panel looks at the local repercussions of the global phenomenon of European imperialism in the 20th century by situating Swiss actors in colonial enterprises and constellations and tracing different „Swiss sites“ at which complex and sometimes contradictory colonial entanglements took place between the 1910’s and the 1960’s. Thus, the papers examine the ways in which conceptions of Swiss identities emerged in relation to (quasi-) colonized others in ‘ethnic exhibitions’ and on mountaineering expeditions, how Swiss notions and politics of neutrality and internationalism made transnational – and among them, militant anti-colonial – activities possible on Swiss soil or how first attempts at establishing a Swiss development aid programme in Nepal were intersecting “in the field” with national and local politics.
Responsabilité
Modération
Intervenantes
Interventions
- The place of Switzerland in the European system of ethnic exhibitions (1919-1939)
- The underside of internationalism: Switzerland as hub of militant anti-imperialism and transnational revolutionary terrorism (c. 1910-1930)
- From Alpine guides to ‘Sahibs’ in the Himalayas: Swiss mountaineering and the Everest expeditions of 1952
- „Swissminiatur“ in the Himalayas? — A microhistorical perspective on Swiss foreign aid initiatives in Nepal (early 1960s)
- Legitimising the Swiss Presence in China: The Swiss Press and Chinese Anti-foreign Agitation in the 1920s