Romantic Visions of the Village: Tourism, Nationalism, Locality and the Politics of (Non-)Belonging in the Swiss Alps

Abstract

From the 18th century, Romantic authors came to the Alps to encounter what they described as the Sublime: a delightful form of “horror”. The Alps became a shelter at the margins of civilization where rural, farming and authentic values were “still” shaping life, in comparison to the decaying life in the urban centres of Europe. Based on thirteen months of fieldwork in the touristic resort of Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps, in this paper, I propose to the trace the historical development of the alpine village and its connection to Romantic sensibilities between past and present. I first trace the genealogical links between the alpine locale and Romantic imaginaries in processes of touristification and nation-state building. In a second part of the article, I turn back to the present to interrogate the experiences of village inhabitants. I show how Romantic visions of rooted belonging and cultural difference participate in feelings of cultural alienation and the reassertion of unequal politics of (non-)belonging differentiating between local, national and foreign dweller.