Conflicting Cantonalisms: Disputed Sub-national Territorial Identities in Switzerland

The importance of constituent units for democratic federations, in general, and of the Swiss cantons for the Swiss Confederation, in particular, is beyond doubt. What is less clear, however, is how to solve conflicting views on the number and type of such units. The Swiss case offers two highly topical examples in this regard: the merger of the two ‘half-cantons’ Basel-City and Basel-Country, on the one hand, and the creation of a new canton encompassing canton Jura and the French-speaking area of canton Berne, on the other. In comparing different sub-national political identities at play in these two cases, the strength of ‘cantonalism’—understood as attachment to and identification with a canton—in Switzerland in the 21st century is shown. Second, different manifestations of cantonalism are compared: centre-periphery in Basel, linguistic vs. religious in Jura. Finally, the similar direct-democratic pathways chosen to solve both conflicting understandings of cantonalism testify to the Swiss commitment to peaceful, negotiated and popularly sanctioned settlements.

Emerging Identities in Colonial Tunisia: "Alliancist" and Zionist Representations in Tunis prior to World War I

By 1900 the Jewish community of Tunisia witnessed the emergence of new competing identities: “assimilationist” of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, termed “Alliancist,” and Zionist. Strikingly, two members of the same family in Tunis, Raymond Valensi, President of the AIU Regional Committee, and Alfred Valensi, President of the Zionist Federation, led the struggle for their separate causes. In his discussion of identity in the modern world, Homi Bhabha asks, "How do strategies of representation or empowerment come to be formulated in the competing claims of communities…where, despite shared histories of …discrimination, the exchange of values, meanings and priorities…may be profoundly antagonistic…?" It is in this context that the claims of the Alliance and Zionism will be examined prior to World War I, based on the Archives of the AIU and on such secondary sources as the indispensable work of Paul Sebag. The tensions between the Alliancists and Zionists continued until the outbreak of World War II, as the French-speaking Jews of Tunisia sought to define their individual and collective identities.

Bianca Bianchi, Rollenbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F00153

Bianca Bianchi, Hüftbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F00154

Bianca Bianchi, Rollenbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F00155

Bianca Bianchi, Rollenbild, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F05799

Bianca Bianchi, Rollenbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F08211

Bianca Bianchi als Angela, Rollenbild, in: Daniel-Françoise-Esprit Auber: Le Domino noir

Signatur des Originals: S 36/F08212

Bianca Bianchi, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G00469

Bianca Bianchi, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G00470

Bianca Bianchi, Brustbild

Signatur des Originals: S 36/G00471