“We Could Not Find One” Is Not Enough

When Switzerland represents itself, who gets to be seen as Swiss?

By Tallulah Patricia Bär, Founder of AfroSwissters

Whenever we ask why there are not more people of African descent representing Switzerland—nationally or internationally—we often hear some version of the same answer:

“We tried, but we could not find one.”

No suitable speaker.

No qualified candidate.

No available expert.

No person with the right experience.

Sometimes the response is defensive. Sometimes it is apologetic. Often it is presented as a practical problem: the institution wanted broader representation, but the search simply did not produce anyone.

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At first, this explanation can sound reasonable. Switzerland is a relatively small country. Certain sectors are specialised. People are busy. Selection processes have deadlines. Not every organisation has access to every professional network.

But when “we could not find one” is repeated across conferences, boards, delegations, expert panels, cultural programmes, media discussions and leadership teams, it stops being an isolated recruitment problem.

It becomes evidence of how narrowly institutions search, who their networks make visible and who they have learned to recognise as naturally representative of Switzerland.

The issue is not that the people do not exist. The issue is that many institutions still do not know where—or how—to look.

Who is allowed to represent Switzerland?

Countries represent themselves constantly. They do so through diplomatic and trade delegations, cultural programmes, international conferences, academic exchanges, corporate leadership teams, media appearances, exhibitions, sporting institutions and public campaigns. Every panel, delegation and official photograph communicates something about who belongs to the country being represented.

When Switzerland sends representatives abroad, who is seen as Swiss? When international visitors attend a conference in Zurich, Geneva, Basel or Bern, who appears on the stage?

When a national institution convenes experts to speak about Switzerland’s future, who is treated as someone with the authority to shape it? When Swiss organisations operate across Africa, the Middle East, Asia or the Americas, whose knowledge and experience inform those relationships?

Too often, the image presented remains far more homogeneous than the country itself.

People of African descent live, work, build, research, create, invest, teach, govern, care and contribute across Switzerland. Some were born here. Some arrived later. Some hold Swiss citizenship; others have spent much of their lives embedded in Swiss institutions and communities. Yet when Switzerland formally represents itself, AfroSwiss people are frequently missing. They may be invited to speak about racism, migration, Africa or diversity, but not necessarily about finance, technology, law, healthcare, diplomacy, culture, sustainability, education or economic policy.

They are considered when the subject is difference. They are less consistently considered when the subject is Switzerland. That distinction matters.

The talent is not missing

“We could not find one” suggests a shortage of qualified people.

But the problem is rarely an absolute absence of talent. More often, it is the result of a search that began too late, travelled through familiar networks and used criteria shaped by previous appointments.

If an organisation searches only within the networks it already knows, it will continue finding the same types of people. If every new candidate must be recommended by someone already inside the room, the composition of the room will change very slowly.

If public visibility is treated as the main proof of expertise, people who have previously been overlooked will remain less likely to be selected. And if “Swiss expert” still evokes a particular appearance, surname, educational path or professional biography, qualified AfroSwiss people may not be recognised as obvious candidates—even when their expertise is directly relevant.

This is how exclusion reproduces itself without anyone openly stating an intention to exclude.The panel organiser contacts the usual institutions.

The institution recommends the usual names.

The advisory board appoints people from familiar professional circles.

The journalist searches among experts who have already appeared in the media.

The international delegation is assembled from individuals who have previously been part of international delegations. At the end of this process, the institution looks at the result and says:

“We could not find one.”

But perhaps the institution did not conduct a search capable of finding anyone new.

Swissness cannot remain visually narrow

There is also a deeper question beneath representation: what does Swissness look like?

An AfroSwiss person is sometimes still read as bringing an “international” or “diverse” perspective into a Swiss conversation, rather than as a Swiss person already speaking from within Switzerland.

Their presence is treated as an addition to Switzerland instead of part of Switzerland.

This becomes especially visible internationally.

A person of African descent representing a Swiss organisation abroad may repeatedly be asked where they are “really” from. Their Swiss identity can appear surprising because the image of Switzerland exported to the world has remained so narrow. This is not only frustrating for the individual. It also presents an inaccurate picture of the country.

Modern Switzerland is multilingual, internationally connected and shaped by several generations of migration. Its institutions, universities, businesses, hospitals, cultural spaces and communities are sustained by people with many different histories.

National representation should reflect this reality. Not because every delegation must perform diversity for a photograph, but because a country is represented more credibly when the people speaking for it resemble the breadth of people who actually constitute it.

AfroSwiss people should not have to prove that they are Swiss enough to represent Switzerland.

They already do so every day.

Representation is not merely symbolic

Broader representation is sometimes dismissed as an aesthetic concern: an attempt to create a more diverse photograph without changing anything substantial.

That criticism is valid when inclusion is superficial.

Adding one Black person to a panel after the programme has already been designed does not automatically make the conversation inclusive. Nor does appointing one individual and expecting them to speak for every Black person in Switzerland—or for an entire continent.

Meaningful representation is not about placing a person in the room as evidence that diversity has been achieved. It is about recognising expertise, sharing authority and expanding who participates in decisions.

Who helped define the agenda?

Who selected the speakers?

Who was consulted before the strategy was finalised?

Who has access to the informal conversations where partnerships are formed?

Whose knowledge is compensated?

Who is invited again after the diversity-themed event is over?

Representation affects what questions are asked, which risks are recognised and which relationships become possible. It can improve the quality of decisions because the people involved bring different professional experiences, networks and points of reference.

It also affects trust. An institution that wishes to speak to the whole country cannot continually present only one part of it.

Do not invite us only when the subject is race

There is another pattern we need to challenge.

AfroSwiss people are frequently sought when an organisation needs someone to speak about discrimination, diversity, integration, migration or Africa. These subjects matter, and many people have developed serious expertise in them. But Black professionals should not be confined to explaining Blackness.

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An AfroSwiss lawyer should be considered when the subject is law. An AfroSwiss researcher should be invited to discuss their research. An AfroSwiss entrepreneur should be present in conversations about business and innovation. An AfroSwiss cultural practitioner should not have to frame all their work through identity in order to be recognised.

An AfroSwiss finance professional should not suddenly become visible only when a company launches a diversity initiative.

And an AfroSwiss person should not automatically be expected to represent Africa simply because of their appearance or heritage.

There is a particular irony when Swiss institutions build partnerships in African countries without engaging people of African descent within Switzerland. But even here, participation should be grounded in relevant knowledge—not in the assumption that every Black person possesses the same relationship to every African country.

Representation requires more care than visual matching.

It means understanding what people actually know and what they have done.

This is why we built ASWOI and ASMOI

At AfroSwissters, we became tired of hearing that suitable people could not be found.

We also recognised that criticism alone would not solve the problem.

Institutions need to expand their networks, but there must also be accessible places where they can begin discovering people whose work has received less public attention.

This is part of the rationale behind AfroSwiss Women of Impact and AfroSwiss Men of Impact.

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ASWOI and ASMOI document women and men of African descent who have helped shape Switzerland through knowledge, creativity, entrepreneurship, care, resistance, scholarship, public service, culture and sport.

They are not rankings.

They are not awards.

They are not final lists.

And they are not catalogues of people available to perform diversity on demand.

They are researched, living and correctable archives intended to make AfroSwiss contributions more visible and discoverable. They demonstrate that expertise and impact are already present across many fields. The people included do not all have the same politics, professions, histories or relationships to Switzerland. That is precisely the point. There is no single AfroSwiss experience and no single acceptable form of contribution.

These archives should make it more difficult to claim that nobody could be found.

But they should not relieve institutions of their own responsibility.

AfroSwissters cannot become the emergency contact called two days before an event because someone has noticed that every confirmed speaker looks the same.

The real work must begin earlier.

Build relationships before you need a name

If organisations genuinely want broader representation, they must build relationships before a vacancy, delegation or conference programme needs to be filled.

That means following people’s work over time. It means developing relationships with community organisations without approaching them only when access to “diverse talent” is required.

It means opening recruitment and nomination processes beyond private networks.

It means examining whether the criteria were designed around the profiles of people who have historically held the position.

It means advertising opportunities early enough for people outside established circles to participate. It means compensating expertise fairly. It also means asking better questions when a search produces a homogeneous result:

Where did we search? Who was asked to make recommendations?

Which languages did we search in? Were community and professional organisations consulted? Was the opportunity publicly accessible?

Did our criteria unnecessarily exclude people with less conventional careers?

Are we looking for proven expertise—or for a biography that resembles the previous appointment? Did we decide that someone was insufficiently Swiss because their name or appearance did not match our assumptions?

“We could not find one” should initiate an examination of the process. It should not conclude the conversation.

One person cannot represent everyone

More AfroSwiss representation must not create a new burden in which one person is expected to carry an entire community.

No individual can represent every person of African descent in Switzerland.

The category itself contains different generations, national origins, languages, regions, religions, professions, migration experiences and political perspectives.

A single Black participant should not become responsible for correcting every institutional blind spot. They should not be asked to provide the “African perspective” on every subject. Nor should disagreement with them be treated as disagreement with an entire community.

Real representation means plurality. It means reaching a point where the presence of one AfroSwiss person is not so unusual that everything they say becomes symbolic.

It means creating enough access that people can be recognised as individuals: for their knowledge, judgment, experience and work.

The goal is not to identify one person who can be repeatedly used to satisfy every institution’s representation needs. The goal is to broaden the field of who is seen, trusted and invited.

The archives are an invitation to act

ASWOI and ASMOI provide a starting point.

A journalist can use them to discover people whose work deserves deeper coverage.

A conference organiser can broaden the range of experts considered for a programme.

A cultural institution can identify artists, writers, curators and community builders. A university can find practitioners whose knowledge belongs in the classroom. A public institution can reconsider who participates in an advisory group. An international partner can encounter a more accurate picture of who represents Switzerland. But discovering a name is only the first step. Read their work. Understand their expertise.

Invite them because their contribution is relevant. Compensate them properly.

Do not ask them to participate only to improve the photograph. And do not wait until every other decision has already been made.

What does Switzerland want the world to see?

The question of representation is ultimately a question about the country Switzerland believes itself to be.

Does it want to present a contemporary and credible image of itself?

Does it recognise that Swiss identity is not determined by phenotype?

Does it understand the international value of drawing on the knowledge, languages and relationships already present within its population?

Or will national and international representation continue to be shaped primarily by inherited networks? AfroSwiss people are not waiting to become capable of representing Switzerland. They are already building companies, producing knowledge, creating culture, shaping communities, working within institutions and contributing to public life.The work exists.The expertise exists.The people exist.

What is still missing is consistent recognition, access and institutional imagination.

The next time an organisation says, “We could not find one,” the response should be clear:

Where did you look?

Who did you ask?

What did you understand representation to mean?

And why did your process fail to see the Switzerland that is already here?

“We could not find one” is not enough.

Not anymore.