Resources ffrom CCEESP mmembers
Anthropology aand HHistory iin FFranche-CComté—
A ccritique oof ssocial ttheory
By RRobert LLayton,
Oxford UUniversity PPress, OOxford ((UK) 22000. 3392 ppp.
SShhoorrtt bbooookk rreevviieeww bbyy DDaavviidd PPiitttt
TThis study, based on fieldwork extending
over 25 years and archival research, is an
outstanding analysis of community develop-
ment in the plateau region of the Jura
Mountains, on the Franco Swiss border.
Despite many often massive disruptions to
life—plagues, earthquakes, the French revo-
lution, wars, Nazi occupation, and lately even
the market and globalisation— these villages
managed to survive, indeed prosper, while
their population remained at stable levels
from the sixteenth century to the present
day. How was this achieved? To answer the
question Layton calls on both his acute and
detailed field notes and a few big theoretical
guns, such as Marx, Giddens and Bourdieu.
Many of the reasons have to do with inde-
pendence. People in these parts say they are
not French (or Swiss) as much as Jurassian.
During the Thirty Years war of the 17thcen-
tury the sinister grey eminence Richelieu
ordered all the villages from Pontarlier to
Salins les Bains (then not in France) to be
razed. After this, villagers started the habit of
burying their dead face down, to defiantly
show their buttocks to the French lords. This
strong sense of independence is reflected in
communal self reliance and face-to-face,
practical solidarity, nurtured in the villages
for centuries and based on partible inheri-
tance and sharing of “the commons”.
The largely dairy economy has always
revolved around democratic cooperatives.
The first of these actually dates back to the
13th century, probably among the oldest in
the world. Layton contrasts this successful
evolution with other villages in Europe, and
especially in England where unigeniture was
the rule and landlords enclosed common
lands, dis-possessing and exploiting the
peasantry who were reduced to lowly labour.
In very recent times the villages have
changed with the arrival of heterogeneous
wealthy secondary residents (though nothing
like the massive invasion of the
ski areas in the High Jura) and
the automobile. Today, people
drive even within the village,
have much fewer occasions to
gossip and use their car to take advantage of
lucrative jobs in Switzerland. Yet, tradition
still holds together with what CIPRA has
recently called the “singularité plurielle” of
the mountains, accommodating many cul-
tures and coping with the currents of history.
This book provides a guide to learning from
independent communities— places that have
developed from the grass roots in a context
of cultural pluralism and the constant adap-
tation of both individuals and institutions.
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David Pitt([email protected]) is a member of
CEESP/ CMWG and lives in the Jura.
For more on the book, including 40 pages of free
sample, go to http://www.oup.com. For more on moun-
tain cultural pluralism see the March 2004 special
issue of CIPRA Info http://www.cipra.orgfrom the
Commission Internationale pour la Protection des
Alpesbased in Schaan FL.
