Short abstract:

This paper argues that the plurality of avalanche experts, from engineers and foresters to mountain guides, in Switzerland during the second half of the twentieth century was the basis for the field's influence in rebuilding mountain landscapes and shaping humans' behavior in the mountains.

Long abstract:

In the early 1960s, Swiss officials began dividing inhabited mountain areas in three zones: white zones with no risk of avalanches; blue zones, in which buildings had to comply with certain standards to resist avalanches; red zones, in which building was basically prohibited. This cartography was based on the risk calculations of the engineers at the Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Science in Davos. The engineers trained local officials to do the zoning, refusing to do so themselves to remain a neutral arbiter in case of conflict. Conflicts arrived quickly. Private owners or local authorities contested zones that diminished land value, and unexpected avalanches challenged the science itself. When an avalanche hit a white zone in the engineers’ backyard Davos in 1968, the engineers had to publicly defended their science. Municipal authorities employed local experts, such as mountain guides, to make decisions about order to close roads and to evacuate–or not, such as in Evolène in 1999, when an avalanche killed 12 people, leading to questions about the fractured political and epistemic authorities. Ultimately, the number of avalanche victims declined steadily in the second half of the twentieth century. This paper argues that it was exactly the fractured expertise of snow and avalanches with its relationship to a multifaceted Swiss state that made it a successful science. The plurality of experts and the state-internal contestation enrolled ever more actors in the avalanche control effort, while providing avenues for generative controversies and refinement of knowledge and protection practices.