Paper Short Abstract:

Based on fieldwork conducted in the German-speaking Swiss Alps, this paper looks at the ambiguous power of tourism, as a simultaneously rooting and uprooting force, allowing locals to lead a dignified life in their valley while perpetually threatening their well-being and heritage.

Paper Abstract:

The German-speaking Alps present long histories of obsession with rootedness. A rich intellectual tradition of Romantic and existentialist thinkers saw the Alps as the last resort for an alienated, uprooted Mankind, corrupted by the processes of industrialization transforming Europe. Inhabited by those they described as last rooted autochthons of the continent, the Alps recalled irretrievable times of harmony and authenticity. Over the last centuries, it is paradoxically thanks to intense tourism development and global connection that many Alpine dwellers have been able to stay put in their home valleys, in mountains regions that are generally prone to outmigration. Based on fieldwork conducted in the German-speaking Swiss Alps, this paper looks at the ambiguous power of tourism, as a simultaneously rooting and dislocating force, allowing locals to lead a dignified life in their valley as Alpine ‘natives’ while perpetually threatening their well-being and heritage. Focusing on the experiences of Alpine dwellers I met between 2017 and 2023, I discuss how locals reasoned along scenarios of up-/rootedness as they both yearned for a ‘purer’ past and were involved in a disorientating race forward, to attract more guest and compete with rival touristic destinations. I thereby combine Marxist and existentialist scholarships on alienation to reveal their imbrication in the current globalized-yet-nativist global context.