ABSTRACT
In chapter 2, ‘Transformations of common pastures and woodlands in Switzerland: a historical perspective’, Martin Stuber and Rahel Wunderli put the focus of the historiographical perspectives on two topics: organisation and resource. In the first part they outline the development of commoners’ organisations in Switzerland in four phases: formation in the late Middle Ages; consolidation in the Early Modern period; transformation in the nineteenth century; new roles in the twentieth century. They describe commoners’ organisations as actors in a network of political authorities and as groups that constantly have to balance inner social tensions. In the second part, the authors analyse the long-term economy of collective woodlands and pastures in Switzerland using the concept of the three energy ages: in the ‘agrarian society’ these resources were contested goods within the local context; in the ‘industrial society’ they came under pressure to modernise; in today’s ‘consumption society’ their utilisation is characterised by polarisation: the simultaneous overexploitation of favourable areas and the abandonment of peripheral areas. It becomes obvious how deeply commoners’ organisations as owners of many forests and pastures in Switzerland were and are affected by the changes in the functions of these two resources.
