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Col de la Bonette troupeau de moutons

Considering pastureland as a non-human actor that allows us to learn more about the human world, this project proposes a comparative ethnographic study of livestock practices, grasslands and the internatio- nal food and animal market in Switzerland and North East Italy. 

What can we learn from grasslands when they are considered as part of a chain of relationships connecting humans, animals and the international food and feed market? How do grasslands, which remain one of the world’s largest biomes, respond to changing human practices? How do grasslands, animals, farmers, herders, the animal market and the international feed industry interact and co-depend? Finally, what are the interdependencies between local and global actors, such as producers of concentrated feed, and how do all sorts of elements that are remotely connected to grasslands (e.g. people, animals, soil, grass, meat, concentrated feed...) allow us to see beyond grasslands in alpine regions? 

To answer these questions multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with a multi-species approach will be carried out in several locations in Switzerland (Graubünden, Valais and the Jura mountains) and in the north-east of Italy (South Tyrol and Friuli), with different actors: herders, farmers, animals, grassland, as well as representatives of the animal market and of the animal feed industry. 

This groundbreaking anthropological study on grasslands responds to the alarming findings of ecologists on biodiversity loss and to the «UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration» (2021-2030), which focuses on grassland biomes. Using the example of grassland landscapes in Switzerland and north-eastern Italy, the project aims to identify the main factors that favour the survival of grasslands in alpine regions.


Research team

  • Viviane Cretton, project leader (HES-SO Valais Wallis, Switzerland)
  • Elisabeth Tauber, project leaders (Free University of Bolzano, Italy)
  • Almut Schneider, scientific collaborator (HES-SO Valais Wallis, Switzerland)
  • Stefan Festini Cucco, scientific collaborator (Free University of Bolzano, Italy)


Research partners

  • Roland Hardenberg (Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt a.M., Germany)
  • Jérémie Forney (University of Neuchâtel, CEDD-agro-eco-clim, Switzerland)


Funding

  • Swiss National Science Foundation
  • Autonomous Province of Bolzano South Tyrol