These oral history interviews are products of the Franklin University Switzerland Germanic Studies class GER 372 “Postcolonial Switzerland”, which ran in Spring 2023. This class introduces students to Switzerland as a postcolonial nation, exploring the active role of this country that was enmeshed everywhere despite having no official colonies in global power structures past and present through a variety of case studies drawing on historical engagements, cultural institutions and their legacies, postcolonial cityscapes, the chocolate and tobacco industries, and contemporary discussions of migration, collective memory, and “nation.”
The students of “Postcolonial Switzerland” contacted German-speaking Swiss and Swiss-based curators, action groups, cultural organizations, politicians and educators to discuss with them and understand how colonial power relations of the past have left their mark on Swiss cultural landscapes, and how they are working in different ways to make these traces visible in the present.
This oral history project was supported by AMICAL’s Digital Oral History cohort program through consultation sessions with Dr. Brooke Bryan, utilizing the interview techniques and ethics of OHLA (Oral History in the Liberal Arts).
The team as a whole is grateful to Tancredi Chionio for the on-site technical assistance with the interviews and Kate Roy would like to warmly thank her research assistant, Ariane Castillo, whose participation was supported by Franklin’s LLLS Program, for her dedicated work on bringing the project to fruition.
Interviews
Project lead
Dr. Kate Roy, Coordinator of Digital Pedagogy Initiatives and the Writing and Learning Center; Adjunct Professor of Languages, Literatures and Cultures