Paper short abstract:

A familiar element in the domain of folk medicine, “traditional” healing practices in Switzerland have experienced a long history of denigration and marginalisation. However, with Switzerland’s ratification of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage and increased popular interest in “alternative” medicine, some administrative experts are considering them from a new point of view.

Paper long abstract:

"Traditional" healing practices in French-speaking Switzerland include activities such as the use of magico-religious words and gestures (le secret), magnetizing (magnétisme) and bonesetting (reboutement).

Although these practices have interested the media for their sensationalist aspects, we observe repercussions of the many recent TV, radio and newspapers documentaries and books dedicated to this topic that go far beyond sensationalism. Indeed, the increase in popular recourse to these practices is a remarkable feature of late modernity, in Switzerland and elsewhere. Based on the interviews conducted since November 2009, I further observe that today's "traditional" healers are increasingly "coming out of the shadows", speaking more openly about their practices and their vision of the world. Some of them even assert their legitimacy in terms of professionalization.

In conformity with the requirements imposed by Switzerland's ratification of the 2003 UNESCO Convention, the Federal Office of Culture is currently drawing up a list of ICH on its territory. Some experts are now considering "traditional" healing practices as a potential item to put on the national list. Although there is a consensus about the continuity, the locality and the traditional aspects of these practices, many challenging criteria and political rationales could nonetheless work to exclude them from the national list. My communication aims to shed light on recent changes in the ways in which these practices are represented, and how these changes may reflect back on the future of these healing practices, located at the cross-roads between the logics of heritage preservation and of therapeutic effectiveness.