Paper Short Abstract:

Inalpe and Désalpe, the vertical transhumance of livestock up and down the mountains, mark the agrarian calendar of alpine communities and are often ritualized during the “Alpine season”, recently recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. This paper discusses how the social and cultural links between rural and urban are renegotiating during these performs.

Paper Abstract:

In December 2023, UNESCO included the “Alpine season” in Switzerland in its Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Alpine season is a living tradition that involves driving cows, sheep and goats to high altitudes during the summer months for grazing. In addition, during the Alpine season, certain festivals and rituals mark the lives of farming families and many of them are open to the public. These include the Inalpe et Désalpe in the French-speaking cantons, i.e. the vertical transhumance when farmers with livestock go up to the alpine pastures at the beginning of the season in May-June, or when they come down in September-October. Inalpe and Désalpe have marked the rural calendar of Alpine communities since the earliest human settlements and are highly symbolic. Today, they are events that involve both local communities and urban populations. Moreover, during the Inalpe or the Désalpe, cattle often parade through towns, led by farmers in traditional costumes. Starting from the 1980s, this contribution aims to propose a reflection on the current ways in which the "Alpine season" is represented as a living tradition. In particular, the work focuses on how Inalpe and Désalpe are staged, analysing how these events are organised and which actors are involved, while at the same time questioning how they contribute to the renewal of social and cultural relations between rural and urban.