Conversation at the Salon around a question:

Chocolate, colonialism... and Switzerland?

With Letizia Gaja Pinoja and Samy Manga
Beginning in 2024, rising cocoa prices are hurting chocolate producers around the world. This is also a cause for concern in Switzerland, the land of chocolate par excellence. The Chocosuisse federation, which includes Nestlé and Lindt, has been lobbying Swiss politicians for decades to facilitate the manufacture and marketing of this product, which is the pride of the country.
Yet the global history of chocolate goes back a long way. Since the days of slavery and right up to the present day, cocoa production has been linked to the dynamics of economic, social and ecological exploitation on a global scale, with a North-South axis of domination.
What does this mean today for the former colonies that supplied the brown gold? And to what extent is there awareness, in Switzerland, of the global violence through which the country's chocolate is produced?
Guests speakers
Letizia Gaja Pinoja is a doctoral student in the Department of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She is interested in Switzerland's colonial past through the history of Swiss chocolate. Through her archival research, she helps to shed light on often overlooked facets of the historical narratives that have shaped the nation's cultural landscape. She is also active in the study of contemporary issues related to racism in Switzerland, and advocates the use of the country's colonial history as a tool in the fight against racism.
Samy Manga is a writer, ethno-musician, sculptor and environmental activist from Cameroon. As an eco-poet, he promotes green writing in favor of ecology and biodiversity. He is also founder of the Écopoètes International association and artistic director of the ArtViv Projet cultural space in Lausanne. His latest publications are Chocolaté (Éditions Écosociété, Montreal, 2023) and Choco Trauma (Éditions La Croisée des Chemins, Casablanca, 2024), two books that explain and denounce "the bitter taste of cocoa farming". He won Fipa's Grand Prix Poésie Africaine d'Expression Française in 2021, and was a finalist in other literary competitions in 2023 (Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, Prix Kourouma).
The Conversations at the Salon is the lecture-meeting series of the temporary exhibition "Remembering. Geneva in the colonial world".
This cycle was conceived and organized by Fabio Rossinelli.
Entry to the exhibition is free of charge in 2024.