Paper short abstract:

Based on a long-term ethnography 'at home' in a Swiss alpine canton, this contribution analyses the connection that this mountain society has with its glaciers, as indicative of the complex political, citizen and spiritual relationships that it builds with its changing environment.

Paper long abstract:

On September 6th, 2022, over 200 people from various climate protection organizations gathered at the foot of the Trient glacier in Valais, an alpine canton in Southwestern Switzerland, to celebrate his funeral. The participants included a parish priest who blessed the dying glacier, urging the faithful to stop being masters of Nature, but to instead “find their rightful place” in her.

Processions and prayers to glaciers are nothing new to Valais (and to Switzerland). Since 1678, the Aletsch glacier has been feared and prayed about in processions by the people of the valley, to ensure that its progress is contained. However, since 2011, people's prayers have changed direction: they are now appealing to God to fight global warming and the subsequent melting of the glacier.

In several Valais regions, inhabitants set up and attend events that aim at materializing a spiritual link with Nature, in an attempt to make the consequences of climate change visible. Simultaneously, the local State seeks to strengthen the management and coordination of responses to the so-called “natural hazards” that face its alpine territory, by creating a new state service: the Natural Hazards Service (which include glaciers, avalanches, landslides, torrential flows).

This contribution draws a parallel between a technocratic state management of “natural hazards” and specific empathetic attitudes towards Nature as a living being (especially glaciers, but not only) in Switzerland. It relies on examples of more than human entanglements to cope with changing “natural disasters”, whether these are inevitable or more uncertain.