Between Grazing and Gathering: Plant Knowledges, Belonging and Becoming in the Swiss Alps

Abstract

Alpine summer pastures with high plant diversity emerged through millennia of farmers grazing their animals at higher elevations during the summer months. In the past decades, as plants have migrated uphill, changing the species composition in Alpine pastures, the economic viability of mountain agriculture has simultaneously declined, and who cares for which animals in summer pastures throughout the European Alps has shifted. In the Swiss Alps, seasonal workers from neighbouring countries make up a large portion of shepherds and cheesemakers involved in transhumance. Here, I aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of how the interactions between humans, animals and plants shape changes in alpine landscapes and their meanings. Drawing on autoethnographic methodologies, I reflect on my experiences as a shepherd in the Swiss Alps over several summers to explore how my growing knowledge of plants through herding and my own foraging anchored my relationship to the Alp and led me to think more deeply about approaches to conservation in regions characterised by alpine farming. While local farmers and members of the communities relate to plants mostly through animals, as a herder, I grew my plant knowledge based on species I could use for teas and as food for myself. As my knowledge about local plants grew, my relationship to place became more tightly attached, and accentuated a different relationship to plants from that which I observed among the local community. Based on my evolving relationships with the Alp, I suggest that plant knowledges provide an entry point to studying continuous becoming in places traditionally associated with high conservation value, providing an emergent perspective on the alpine pastures of the future.