STATE FICTION. The Gaze of the Swiss Neutral Mission in the Korean Demilitarized Zone

In her book "State Fiction" Denise Bertschi looks at how Switzerland's neutral mission in the Korean demilitarized zone contributed to the construction of the Swiss “neutral” national identity. Offering new perspectives in terms of geopolitical, military, and sociological histories of the twentieth century, Denise Bertschi takes her readers through elements of archival photographic and cinematographic artefacts left behind by the Swiss military men. Indeed, Denise Bertschi’s meticulous discussions of the archival material reveal how the Swiss soldiers and senior officers stationed in Korea on a "neutral" mission, which began in 1953 and is still going on today, contributed extensively to the very construction of representations of Swiss “neutrality”, unveiling the mechanisms behind this particular STATE FICTION.