Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the relation between retreating glaciers, snow cover and skilled labour in a glacier ski resort in the Austrian Alps. It will discuss how the changes of the weather are affecting both the cryosphere landscape and the workers' daily work and senses of identity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the relation between retreating glaciers, snow cover and skilled labour in a glacier ski resort in the Austrian Alps. Ski resorts are contributing in a substantial way to the

tourist economy in Austria. Moreover, the Alpine landscape with its white peaks along with

skiing as a popular sport have become essential signifiers of national identity after the end of

World War II. However, both snow tourism and identity are facing challenges today because

dramatic and rapid changes in snow and ice are occurring due to the effects of global climate

change. Although glacier ski resorts in Austria have been affected by retreating glaciers since the 1990s, they are considered as the sole remaining "future snow reservations" by scientists and tourist managers. However, I will argue that such future models do hardly correspond to the experiences of skilled workers in Austria's highest glacier ski resort rising to elevations of more than 3.400 metres. Based on my anthropological fieldwork in this alpine cryosphere environment, I will illustrate how retreating glaciers and melting permafrost are affecting the landscape and these male workers' and managers' daily work and identity in deep ways. The profound changes of snow- and icescapes are countered by an extensive range of practices constituting "technological fixes" to solving the problems caused by "unreliable" snow and ice. At the same time, so I will show, these dramatic environmental changes directly impact on the workers' concerns about job security, their affects and senses of identity.