JulietJFall

JulietJFall, 16 hours ago

@fj @yrochat Fabuleux! Dire que j’étais dans le Jura et que j’ai tout loupé! 🛌💤

JulietJFall, 14 hours ago

@fj @yrochat Merci! On va tenter!

JulietJFall, 27 days ago

From a few days ago, when I was on my way to Cagliari to teach, I visited the extraordinary 4000-3650 BC site of Monte d’Accoddi, a Neolithic site in Northern Sardinia, completed to the present form around 3000 BC. Fabulously intriguing, and apparently the only ziggurat-style structure in the Western Mediterranean. This island has so many layers of history, in this case with a hint of Mesopotamia!#StandingStoneSunday #Sardegna #Sardinia #VisitingProfessor #unica

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JulietJFall, 13 days ago

In the last few days, in between teaching & writing, I visited two more Nuraghic sites near Siddi dating from the Bronze Age, on a slight high plane above the fertile lowlands of Sardinia: one corridor-shaped (not the usual beehive dome style) at Sa Fogaia; one “giant’s tomb” called Sa Domu ‘e S’Orcu (i.e. house of the orcs!). Both practically empty in April & open to visitors to climb around and inside. Extraordinary places! #StandingStoneSunday #BronzeAge #History #Nuraghe #Sardinia #Sardegna

Inside, a man (my geographer friend & colleague Andrea Corsale, from Unica in Cagliari!) takes a photo with his phone, pointing upwards. The ceiling is about triple his height
Large tomb structure formed a truly massive rocks in a gently sloping facade, with a central door beneath a massive rock
Inside corridor about 1.5 meters wide and about 4 or 5 meters long where bodies were apparently placed. Some smaller niches to one side. The roof is slightly collapsed at the other end, allowing light to stream in

JulietJFall, 1 month ago

@sundogplanets Oh what fun! The first time I saw my neighbour hatch eggs in an incubator, it felt to me like growing animals from seed. We took five chicks home and it was marvelous to watch them grow. Enjoy your fuzzballs!

JulietJFall, 3 months ago

@altlife @ak_text Isn’t it? I can’t get over the vibrant colour. I put it back carefully afterwards so that it stays damp.

JulietJFall, 4 months ago

@Ruth_Mottram @SuneAuken Some years, I teach my university students how to write & edit on it as part of their coursework, and this really is a super exercise for them to understand how it works, how much to trust it, and how it is produced collaboratively.

JulietJFall, 4 months ago

There is a simple & accessible open-access downloadable book about the historical context & Irène Gubier (and other local characters), in French, if anyone is interested: file:///Users/fall/Downloads/livre-expo-gubier-web.pdf
#womenshistory #resistance #worldwar2 #localhistory #genève #gaillard

JulietJFall, 3 months ago

Smile moment last night as we hopped into France to celebrate my lovely father-in-law’s 80th birthday, crossing by car at a place we have walked. I know all the slightest details of the borderline there, and the location of every stone. But politics also has daily rhythms that we forgot. When we wanted to go home, the border was shut. Ha! My daughter took one look at me and said “Ah, yes, Captain Geography…” 😂 I now have a new ironic title! #borders #geography #borderlines #politics #BorderWalk

JulietJFall, 3 months ago

Another Sunday exploring. No snow on the mountains, so the family isn’t skiing as much as some winters. Time to border hop!
We connected back with where the photo above — showing a border that closes at night — was taken, and tootled on. I love spotting all the infrastructure connected to the 🇨🇭🇫🇷 border. I now have an official list of it all from the Office du Patrimoine but it’s usually pretty legible.
#borderWalk #geography #borders #slowResearch #visualEthnography

Man tapping his gps watch at the exact border. A Swiss border crossing station is behind saying Douane de Croix-de-Rozon, 1960s architecture.
Phone map screenshot, from Swisstopo app, showing that the border follows a tiny stream along this stretch. The French side of the map is blank.
Former 1920s border post, now converted to private dwellings. Probably designed by Marc Camoletti.

JulietJFall, 3 months ago

Lots of lovely border stones to keep me happy along the way (left bank 72 to 85 today), large and small, old and new(ish). Some easy to see, some requiring a phone app with gps to find in brambles, some needing repair, and some behind private fences (ahem…). #BorderWalk

Modern 1981 granit border stone, by a stream. Large S for Switzerland on one side.
A massive borderstone number 74bis at the tip of a triangle shape. The author stands behind it, looking happy but rather unfocused
Border stone 77 made of limestone rock in low undergrowth. It’s in a terrible shape, so damaged that only half of the number is visible. It’s close to a field so perhaps got hit by a tractor?

JulietJFall, 3 months ago

We wore Wellington boots today, which was inspired, because it was muddy in places, we waded through the stream used to define the 🇨🇭🇫🇷 border for some stretches, and it was POURING with rain as we turned back to the car. Home for tea after another lovely walk seeing the superb and the mundane, following an (in)visible line. How much effort goes in to making us believe in the reality of the arbitrary territories we carve out!
#BorderWalk #geography #borders #borderlands #sovereignty

A sign by a fence saying Passage Interdit.
A large French road with the Salève mountain in the sun, before the skies opened. The border is along the trees on the left.
A person climbing through brambles and branches to reach border stone 80

JulietJFall, 2 months ago

It’s Sunday so off we go 🇨🇭🇫🇷boundary-walking, through fields & along the river Hermance. We walked from border stones 210 to 216 on the left bank, close to Veigy-Foncenex.
We started by stumbling upon a memorial in Crevy to some of the Righteous among the Nations, i.e. local people who helped Jewish refugees flee to Switzerland during WWII. (We reckon we’ve got about 5-6 stretches left to complete our tour, but we might stretch it out a bit!) #localHistory #borderWalk #geography #history #ww2

Stone monument that looks like wings
Context of the small monument in Crevy, that shows how it’s a little spot rather in the middle of nowhere, not really at the border nor in the village

JulietJFall, 2 months ago

We joined up with the border & continued upstream, along the river Hermance. The border now runs down the middle of it here (here it was formerly along the talweg, i.e. following the deepest bit of the river bed). It is a picturesque and languid river meandering in a rural landscape punctuated by the usual border infrastructure: border stones, disused border guard buildings and rusting signs and fences. #borderWalk #geography #switzerland #visualMethods #visualEthnography #walking

A border stone un the foreground, next to an old stone bridge. The Swiss old border guard’s house is visible in the background
The typical 1910 architecture of the Swiss border post houses, designed by Marc Camoletti
Border stone 2016b, in the mud by the river Hermance

JulietJFall, 2 months ago

Some of the river bank has been reinforced on the Swiss side. We wouldn’t want the pesky neighbours to steal bits of territory (Note almost springtime birdsong!)

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JulietJFall, 2 months ago

We then got into trouble traipsing across cross-border fields, ending up in someone’s garden, trying to accurately follow the line where it left the river. « We are just trying to follow the invisible borderline» not surprisingly comes across as rather odd to people who are wondering if the walkers wandering into their land are a) lost or b) burglars! To be fair, none of this really makes any sense, does it? Other than as geographical poetry of the absurd. #borderWalk #geography #borderlines

Another trace of a WWII memorial (on the French side) marking the gateway to freedom during 1943-44, presumably meaning access to Switzerland, but manned by occupying forces.
Man standing at one border stone looking through binoculars at the next one, in a field
A border passage point that is closed with a gate at night, in front of yet another 1910 border guards building

JulietJFall, 2 months ago

We found ourselves in formerly Sardinian (!) territory as a splendid crested border stone across the 🇨🇭🇫🇷Hermance river reminded us that this was part of wider kingdoms in 1816, before the same stone was recarved when this area joined France, but maintaining the Sardinian royal flag. On the other side, the Geneva crest was spectacularly inaccurate, and as a result really rather cool. #borderWalk #history #borders

The Geneva crest of an eagle & key, but carved in such a way as to look like a scrawny chicken with a funny hat
Sardinian eagle crest, with the name France carved below it
The author squinting into the sun next to stone number 214