Colonial: Switzerland's global entanglements

Abstract

"Switzerland has been globally connected and entangled with colonies established by the seafaring European nations in Africa, the Americas, and Asia since the 16th century. Colonial Switzerland's Global Entanglements offers a timely overview of this highly topical matter, placing a wide range of aspects in historical context and addressing as well questions of colonial continuities. Contributions by distinguished scholars and experts from various disciplines investigate questions such as the involvement of Swiss companies in the trade with enslaved people, Swiss mercenaries in the service of colonial powers, the colonial legacy of the country's missionary societies, and the research and collection of artefacts by Swiss scientists in former colonies. Light is shed also on the involvement of anthropological institutes at the universities of Zurich and Geneva in scientific racism. Conceived as an illustrated reader, this volume is both an invitation and a stimulus to explore and to engage critically with Switzerland's history of global interdependence." -- provided by publisher.

Contents

Preface / Denise Tonella -- Exhibiting Swiss colonial history / Marina Amstad, Pascale Meyer, Raphael Schwere, Marilyn Umurungi -- Tracing the legacy of colonialism in the Swiss National Museum / Heidi Amrein -- Overdue attention : how the Swiss role in European colonialism was discovered / Georg Kreis -- Divisive and unifying : colonial history for a just future / Monique Ligtenberg, Bernhard C. Schär -- The colonial past in Switzerland's collective memory / Hannan Salamat -- Colonial traces in everyday life in Switzerland / Marina Amstad -- Fabrics, ships, and slavery : Switzerland at the Black Atlantic / Jovita dos Santos Pinto -- Jumping on the bandwagon of colonial exploitation : Swiss wholesale trade in the colonial era / Andreas Zangger -- On money and violence : the global dimensions of Swiss mercenarism / Philipp Krauer -- Swiss missionary societies and colonialism : religious, cultural, and political entanglements / Claudia Buess -- Researching, collecting, preserving : Swiss explorers in colonial territories / Tomás Bartoletti -- The exploitation of nature : big-game hunting, plantation economy, and colonial climate impacts / Raphael Schwere -- Colonialism and the institutionalisation of Swiss "racial research" / Marilyn Umurungi -- The changing perspectives at museums : archival coloniality and restitution debates / Esther Tisa Francini -- Wallmapu, Ayiti, and Abya Yala : inequality and exploitation in the Global South / Jose Cáceres Mardones.