An embodied enquiry into alternative agriculture in Morocco and Switzerland (PhD of Andrea Mathez)

September 7, 2026
Presentation of the thesis at the public defence, Sept. 2026

What are those magic moments that make farmers practising alternative agricultures feel that they are doing the right thing? Perhaps it isn’t the headline ideological commitments, but instead little glimpses during the humdrum of daily life.  Andrea Mathez unravels these ideas, mixing ethnographic work in Morocco and Switzerland, philosophical considerations of hope, utopia, and enchantment, and embodied participatory engagements with goats, weeds, water and between farmers from the two places.

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Wildfires coming to Switzerland

June 27, 2025
Forest fire above Rolle, VD, a terrifying vision of the future?

What if, one unusually hot summer, after four weeks without rain, a wildfire progressed across the face of the Jura, the hills of la Côte, or the forested foothills of the Alpes Vaudoises, a spectacle above the Lake Léman. Perhaps sparked by a faulty power line, a spilled charcoal grill with cervelas sausages, an arsonist… First blowing one way with the westerlies, then dangerously confounding firefighters with a switch to a strong clear-skied northeasterly la bise wind…

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Discipline and mastery: impressions of Swiss school system

November 24, 2015

Parents learn can learn a lot about an education system from the vocabulary their children bring home.  Since our arrival in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, the results are telling.  The words bouncing around the living room are “test, oublie, revision, bavardage, arrivée tardive, heure de retenue, heure d’arrêt, redoubler…”  These are all words about discipline or performance.  Previously, in very different school systems, the words were more along the lines of “my project, the school concert, assembly, homework“.  What does this show? Read the rest of this entry »