“Crossing the Border to Earn More : Between Local Mutism, Commuting Costs and Real Estate Micro-Speculation”

Publication by Agnès Gramain and Florence Weber: « Passer la frontière pour gagner plus : entre mutisme local, coût de la route et micro-spéculation immobilière », L’Homme, Dossier : Ethnographier le pouvoir d’achat, 255-256 | 2025, 135-160.

Abstract: Border areas within the European Union are characterized by commuting not only of cross-border workers but also of consumers. This article explores why, in some areas, this mobility fails to harmonize « purchasing power » on either side of the border, and therefore why mobility is increasing. It answers these questions through an ethnography of neighbourhoods and family trajectories in an area of the Jura mountains where increasing numbers of commuters go to work either in the Swiss watchmaking industry or in the Greater Geneva area. These commuters are not only from families native to the area ; since 2008, new residents have also been attracted by Swiss salaries and French prices. They explicitly play on purchasing power, that is a household income-price calculation. The difference in purchasing power on either sides of the border is both a local taboo and a repeated native calculation around the cost of commuting. It also results in multiple strategies of real estate micro-speculation. After describing the dynamics of cross-border mobility on a European scale and in the French-Swiss case, the article analyses native economic strategies and explores the strong moral dimension of crossing the border to work. It underlines the role of inabilities and reluctance to « go [to work] in Switzerland » feeding tensions between either natives or newcomer neighbours. Finally, it allows us to reflect on the economic and social dynamics on a local scale, and on the possibility of their reversal.