Alpine Sentinels. Climate Crisis and its “Non-Human” Perceptions in the Mont-Blanc Area

This research was carried out within the highland communities of the Mont-Blanc area (Italian side). This Alpine region is characterized by a huge variety of biodiversity and environments in which human and non-human species coexist, coping with extreme natural phenomena due to specific weather conditions, topography, and consequences of the current climate crisis (e.g. glaciers melting, heatwaves, extreme events). In this context, despite scientific evidence of the impacts of global warming on the land, the socio-cultural attitude of the people exposed (e.g. perception and response) tends to hide or scotomize risk. In the field of “natural” risks and “climate change”, we usually identify “perception” on a theoretical and methodological level as a mainly human category (belonging to homo sapiens faber ludens). Nevertheless, throughout my inquiry into the socio-cultural impacts of global warming on the Alps, I encountered some “non-human” figures such as wild and farm animals, and even insects and plants, which have always played a crucial cultural role for Alpine communities from their imaginaries to their founding myths and economies. These species are of great importance not only in “perceiving and bringing” the first signs and symptoms of the “climate crisis”, but also in “anticipating” it as sentinels (Keck et al., 2020). Impacts inscribed in the animals’ bodies (e.g. chamois) and behaviour, and even in their “natural habitats”, were first observed, perceived and blamed on the climate crisis by local hunters. The aim of this proposal is to analyze, through the case of Mont-Blanc, how human-animal interactions at the micro scale may become key tools to anticipate, read, comprehend and explain the local and global crisis that is underway.