Paper short abstract:

Mutual aid initiatives have multiplied in recent years in Switzerland, bringing together on the Alp a range of volunteers who engage innovative exchanges with peasant families in need. On the Alp, interesting assemblages of humans and non-humans reshape their representations of the Other.

Paper long abstract:

In Switzerland, several aid programs, from associations and the state, support farmers in need whose farms are located at an altitude of over 800 metres, by providing them with human resources. Since 1995, numerous volunteers (civil servants, ordinary citizens) have been given their time and skills to support mountain farmers in their daily work.

Our paper relies on an undergoing anthropological project that proposes an ethnography of 4 volunteer programs to the mountain farmers in the Swiss Alps. It focuses to one of them, an eco-volunteer program, founded in 2020 in Valais, that provides sheep farmers with volunteers to watch over their flocks in order to prevent wolf attacks. Such innovative programs offer privileged sites to observe how interesting assemblages of humans and non-humans interact and change their representations of the Other, whether human or animal.

Our exploratory survey indicates that the volunteers who show up are often urban ecologists who dream of seeing the wolf, but who, once on the Alp, become attached to the sheep and start to fear its arrival. It suggests that farmers have many stereotypes about city dwellers, but ultimately appreciate the effort they make and the solidarity they show by assisting them, whereas the locals do not give them any help.

It suggests ways to analyse the composition of some little-known alpine microcosms that offer an other type of support (than the financial one of federal subsidies) to mountain farmers by reshaping their imaginaries, working practices and identity, on the basis of gift relationships.