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Paper short abstract

Alpine disaster narratives, from geomyths to mining folklore, act as transgenerational archives of hazard knowledge. Through storytelling, experiences of avalanches, floods, and mining accidents are embedded in cultural memory, fostering awareness, preparedness, action, and community resilience.

Paper long abstract

Disaster narratives in Alpine regions, from geomyths to mining folklore and first-person accounts, function as transgenerational archives of hazard knowledge. Through narrative forms such as storytelling, experiences of avalanches, floods and mining accidents are embedded in collective and cultural memory and circulate as shared knowledge across generations.

This process can be understood as vernacular risk communication, since it relies on language, imagery and practices that are locally intelligible. In contrast to expert-to-public communication that often remains technical and abstract, folkloric storytelling situates hazard experience in shared cultural frames, which may strengthen understanding, enhance perceived credibility and reinforce social bonds.

Beyond mnemonic utility, these narratives encode warnings, guide preventive practices and provide action scripts during crises. Repeated retellings can support coping and recovery, affirm embodied knowledge and contribute to identity work after extreme events.

This contribution is interdisciplinary. It connects folklore and cultural memory studies with risk communication and environmental psychology. Using an aware, prepare and act heuristic strictly as an analytical lens, it examines how storytelling grounded in cultural memory supports awareness, preparedness and action, and how it may shape risk perception, self and collective efficacy, and participation in Alpine communities.

The analysis highlights disaster narratives as cultural resources that translate memory into practice, fostering community participation in everyday preparedness and in collective responses to recurrent natural hazards.