Modernity, Complex Societies, and the Alphorn by Vignau Charlotte;

Author:Vignau, Charlotte; [Vignau, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter THREE

The Migration of the Alphorn Phenomenon

Three Case Studies: Allgäu, the Netherlands, and Japan

Alphorn practice outside Switzerland can be found in the United States, in Canada, Guatemala, France, and many more places. Here I will focus on three case studies: the Bavarian region of Allgäu in Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan—more precisely the central island of Honshu (where Tokyo and Osaka are situated). In all three of the studies a direct link is traceable to Switzerland’s alphorn culture, which in this book I regard as the center of alphorn-playing activity.

In all three situations, the migration of the alphorn phenomenon was connected to migration of people as a necessary factor for starting and developing an alphorn scene. While moving to and leaving Switzerland can be seen as permanent migration, there is also temporary migration for work reasons—which in times past included travel by Swiss mercenary troops—and leisure travel, better known as “tourism” (also see van den Berghe 2007:552). Following on, the particular alphorn practices which mix endogenous cultural elements of their region with exogenous cultural elements of Switzerland—or sometimes not of Switzerland itself but rather of an imagery of Switzerland—will be described, combined with the issue of migration.

Case Study One: Allgäu—Bavaria

Many people emigrated from Switzerland at the beginning of the nineteenth century because of economic difficulties. More broadly speaking, emigration was taking place constantly from 1700 to 1900. While many emigrants went overseas to Brazil, Argentina, or the United States, for example, others stayed closer to home, which is often overlooked: “even when, at the height of the migration overseas toward the end of the nineteenth century, half of the foreign-Swiss lived in European states” (Goehrke 1992:6, translation by the author). As Goehrke states in his introductory article about the research into emigration from Switzerland, moving overseas usually took place as organized mass emigration, and therefore left easily traceable evidence (see Goehrke 1992:7), for instance in (Swiss) archives. In addition to organized mass emigration, there was also collective migration from one village or town, as well as from one specific canton, to one area (see Goehrke 1992:12). But these sources and evidence are more difficult to obtain. As regards emigration from Switzerland to the rest of Europe, research has been carried out about emigrants in Russia (see Goehrke 1992:6), but Goehrke comments: “The European countries which have been neglected until now, especially France and Germany, deserve increased attention” (Goehrke 1992:14, translation by the author). Where Germany is concerned, not so much is known yet about emigrants from Switzerland. From the poem Die Auswanderer (The emigrants) by poet and writer Ferdinand Freiligrath (see Freiligrath 1845:15) it seems that some of them went to the region of Spessart, Germany.1 It is also known that some went to the Allgäu region.

The German Allgäu region consists of a small, southeastern part of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, and a neighboring, larger, southwestern part in the federal state of Bavaria, more precisely in the administrative district of Bavarian Swabia. The region of Allgäu is separated from

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