Mountain regions are among those most affected by accelerating global warming. This is causing profound changes in alpine environments: the predicted disappearance of most glaciers, disruption of ecosystems with the extinction of certain species such as mountain galliformes, and upheaval in human representations and activities linked to these disappearing entities.

The main objective of this project is to report on the transformations in the ways of living in mountain areas in the face of these profound changes by focusing on the processes of extinction currently underway. It will focus on two case studies: Alpine glaciers and mountain galliformes. The aim is to study all the elements that are disappearing and/or being reinvented in connection with the disappearance of these entities. The first part of the work will focus on qualifying the phenomena of extinction, seeing how this process enters the public sphere over time and depending on location, and how it shapes narratives. The historical, socio-political, economic and cultural context that led to the classification of non-human entities as extinct will be examined. The second stage will involve documenting accounts of these extinctions and collecting vernacular knowledge to analyse the interrelationships between experiences of extinction and the extinction of experiences. The aim is to identify, in conjunction with those directly involved in the phenomenon of extinction, what is disappearing, for whom and according to what processes, by documenting the most obvious expressions of these two forms of experience. Finally, the aim will be to understand how the relationships between different actors and their relationships with glaciers and galliformes are being reorganised, as well as the narratives that are created around them, by identifying what is definitively lost, forgotten or, on the contrary, reinvented.

Drawing on case studies of particularly symptomatic extinction processes in the Alps, this research will shed new light on ways of inhabiting the Alps today.