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Paper short abstract

In this paper, I examine the links between mobility and uncertainty from the touristic, German-speaking, Swiss Alps, through the experience of migrant workers. I propose a reflection on the various scales and manifestations of uncertainty – contextual, structural, existential – in global tourism.

Paper long abstract

In the last decades, a succession or acceleration of crises have created a global sense of instability (Eriksen 2016). Yet, modern societies are structurally uncertain as they are required to constantly reinvent themselves, particularly in the processes of creative-destruction that drive capitalism (Harvey 1989). Mobility is deeply tied to these contextual and structural forms of uncertainty: globally, people often move from contexts of instability to places of normality or security. In this paper, I examine the links between mobility and uncertainty from the touristic, German-speaking, Swiss Alps, as an attractive destination for tourists but also migrant workers, who seek to secure their futures in one of Europe’s wealthiest countries. I discuss how crises – humanitarian, financial, etc. – drive people to physically move to be existentially mobile (Hage 2009), while the difference they represent in “host” societies is put to work in a capitalist, touristic economy (exemplified in the outsourcing of hospitality labor to migrants). While some migrants manage to restore a sense of stability thanks to their new lives in Switzerland, I show how tourism labor creates new forms of instability and precarity for many. This existential uncertainty is however part of a global economy of tourism that is uncertain in itself, as an industry based on acceleration and innovation, as well as the fleeting mobility and unmanageable wanderlust of tourists. I propose a reflection on the various scales and manifestations of uncertainty – contextual, structural, existential – and their relationships to uneven forms of mobility.