Kupper Patrick

Creating Wilderness: A Transnational History of the Swiss National Park
Wildnis schaffen: Eine transnationale Geschichte des Schweizerischen Nationalparks

Project Number: CH-2923
Project Type: Research_Project
Project Duration: 05/01/2006 - 05/31/2010 project completed
Funding Source: ETH , other , SNSF ,
Project Leader: Prof. Patrick Kupper
Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften und Europäische Ethnologie
Universität Innsbruck
Innrain 52
AT-6020 Innsbruck
Austria
Phone: +43 (0)512 507 4390
e-Mail: patrick.kupper(at)uibk.ac.at
http://www.uibk.ac.at

related to this project.
for which the project has a relevance.


Research Areas:
Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege

Disciplines:
History in general
History

Keywords:
Environmental History, Global History, Conservation History, Land Use History, National Park History

Abstract:
The research project "Creating Wilderness" seeks to interpret the creation and development of the Swiss National Park as a specific local site within global conservation history. The natural and social conditions of land use will be examined, together with its practical and symbolic forms and its unintended consequences and backlashes. Practical forms of land use include agriculture, forest cultivation, hydropower, scientific research and outdoor recreation. Symbolic forms of land use have taken place as part of discourses about national monuments, environmental protection and wilderness. The period of investigation is the entire 20th century. This scope allows for analysis of long-term developments and gradual changes. Special attention is given to transnational dimensions, relations between nature and culture, social and natural networks, and the interplay between discourses and practices.
The Swiss National Park, officially founded in 1914 in the Lower Engadin, ranks among the first national parks in Europe. In contrast to the Swedish parks established at the same time, the Swiss park deviated in significant ways from the American model. The promotion of ecological sciences was set as the park's main goal. The park was intended to serve as a large outdoor laboratory, where nature could be observed at work, undisturbed by human interference. To this end the park was placed under a blanket preservation order ("Totalschutz"), enforced by a set of exceptionally strict regulations. Its borders and regulations have repeatedly been the subject of intense discussion. Nature preservation for scientific purposes has been challenged by proposals that the land should be put to different uses – including hunting, hydroelectric power production, outdoor recreation and tourism. According to the park's statutes nature was to be left untouched. The park nature, however, was manmade wilderness and man remained present in many ways.

URL: http://www.tg.ethz.ch/forschung/projektbeschreib/Kupper/engl_nationalpark.htm

Publications:
  • Bernhard Gissibl, Sabine Höhler, Patrick Kupper (Eds.). Civilizing Nature: National Parks in Global Historical Perspective, Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books 2012.
  • Patrick Kupper. Wildnis schaffen: Eine transnationale Geschichte des Schweizerischen Nationalparks, Forschungsreihe Nationalpark, Bern: Haupt 2012.
  • Patrick Kupper. Grenzüberschreitungen: Zur Geschichte von Mensch und Tier im Schweizerischen Nationalpark, in: Histoire des alpes, 15, 2010, S. 229-245.
  • Patrick Kupper, Tait Keller, Jon Mathieu. Mountains and the Metropolitan Mind: Urbanization, Imagination, and the Preservation of Alpine Nature, in: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Ed.). Metropolises and "their" Alps, München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2010, p. 26-28.
  • Patrick Kupper. Nationalpark und Tourismus: Eine vergleichende Geschichte der USA und der Schweiz, in: Bundesamt für Naturschutz (Hg.). "Wenn sich alle in der Natur erholen, wo erholt sich dann die Natur?" Naturschutz, Freizeitnutzung, Erholungsvorsorge und Sport - gestern, heute, morgen, Bonn: Bundesamt für Naturschutz 2009, S. 207-228.
  • Patrick Kupper. Zernez, 11. November 1909, ein Meilenstein auf dem Weg zum Schweizerischen Nationalpark, in: Cratschla 2/2009, S. 18-21.
  • Patrick Kupper. Transnational History of Alpine National Parks, in: 4th Symposion of the Hohe Tauern National Park for Research in Protected Areas, Conference Volume, Kaprun: Hohe Tauern National Park 2009, p. 187.
  • Patrick Kupper. A Comonwealth for Alpine Nature: The Swiss National Park, in: Ibid. p. 189-191.
  • Patrick Kupper. Science and the National Parks: A Transatlantic Perspective on the Interwar Years, in: Environmental History 1/2009, p. 58-81.
  • Patrick Kupper. Nationalparks in der europäischen Geschichte, in: Clio-online. Themenportal Europäische Geschichte, 2008. www.europa.clio-online.de/2008/Article=330.


    Last update: 12/23/16
    Source of data: ProClim- Research InfoSystem (1993-2024)
    Update the data of project: CH-2923

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