Les infrastructures en montagne face à leur vulnérabilité : conception, gouvernance et transformation
Mountain Infrastructure and Its Vulnerabilities: Design, Governance and Repurposing
La « Revue de géographie alpine »
“Journal of Alpine Research”
Veröffentlicht am Mittwoch, 22. April 2026
Zusammenfassung
This thematic issue on mountain infrastructure is dedicated to exploring the planned structures and facilities that ensure the long-term accessibility, habitability and economic activity of mountain regions. These infrastructure assets have both a physical and technical materiality (in relation to the practices of the actors who use and/or manage them, and playing a central role in operational issues) and an economic existence (in terms of their management and finance). They therefore need to be approached both through the lens of the sociotechnical and economic systems of which they are a part, and from the perspective of their environmental, political and historical dimensions.
Inserat
Argument
This thematic issue on mountain infrastructure is dedicated to exploring the planned structures and facilities that ensure the long-term accessibility, habitability (Bertoni & Zaza, 2025) and economic activity of mountain regions. These include not only transport and communications networks, but also assets designed to produce and supply water and energy, store digital data, or protect inhabited areas, such as the check dams used to slow torrential flood water. These infrastructure assets have both a physical and technical materiality (in relation to the practices of the actors who use and/or manage them, and playing a central role in operational issues) and an economic existence (in terms of their management and finance). They therefore need to be approached both through the lens of the sociotechnical and economic systems of which they are a part, and from the perspective of their environmental, political and historical dimensions.
While designed to meet the needs of users (local, regional and supra-regional actors, and their professional and personal networks), this infrastructure is also a powerful instrument of regionalisation, via the devolution of powers to regional authorities (Vanier, 2009). Infrastructure thus plays a role in competition between regions, and is involved in decisions made in favour or to the detriment of certain economic actors and the occupations and values they represent. These aspects come into play at various stages in the life of an infrastructure asset : before and during its construction, and as part of discussions about its maintenance, adaptation or abandonment, or in some cases its replacement. In the past the public discourse largely focused on inter-regional economic equity, but since the 2000s it has come to be dominated by questions relating to environmental issues and natural hazards (Bertram & Chilla, 2022), though without any resolution of the socioeconomic contradictions. One of the objectives of this thematic issue is to successfully bring together interdisciplinary knowledge about these various aspects.
The decision to explore this infrastructure in mountain regions takes its lead from a tradition of historiography in the social sciences that has long recognised the mountain environment as fertile ground for social change, and as facilitating the emergence of often innovative citizen-led initiatives. This is amplified by physical constraints, which have an impact on mobility and impose economic choices (Attali et al., 2014 ; Torricelli, 1993), leading the communities that live in these areas to develop adaptation mechanisms. Mountain regions are also particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which in some cases is having a devastating impact on existing infrastructure. Safety concerns are paramount, especially in regions that since the 1970s have become popular locations for homes, second homes and leisure activities. Infrastructure is a particularly fraught topic in mountain regions because of environmental protection considerations (Perlik, 2025 ; 2019). And growing interest in the socioenvironmental transition among politicians and the general public is prompting a rethink of regional development models and the associated infrastructure (Bourg et al., 2016). Examining infrastructure in mountain regions thus requires research in the field of regional planning to investigate the long centralised policies pursued by the state and its institutions for economic and political purposes (Fournier & Massard Guilbaud, 2016), and the gradual withdrawal of the state from certain sectors in favour of their privatisation. Historians, geographers, urban planners and economists have already begun to explore numerous aspects of this area (FLUX, 2022), including the interplay of actors and the conflicts resulting from the strategies mentioned above (Scognamiglio et al., 2025). But their work has seldom considered mountain regions, other than through the lens of the expansion of the rail network and the development of spa towns, ski resorts and sanatoriums (Soubirou, 2018 ; Franco, 2019 ; Hagimont, 2020 ; Grizard, 2025).
This call for papers invites work on mountain infrastructure that focuses on regional planning processes, with the aim of bringing together a heterogeneous collection of case studies from which we can draw an overall picture of the way in which infrastructure shapes mountains, and vice versa. In other words, we aim firstly to explore the way in which infrastructure has transformed mountains and the human and non-human components of their environments, by increasing their accessibility, habitability and therefore attractiveness, but also through its impact on landscapes and ecosystems. And secondly, we want to examine the way in which the topography and specific geological structure of mountains have influenced the construction and management of infrastructure. This objective is a particularly timely one given the increasing frequency and intensity of natural hazards, dwindling natural and economic resources, and the rise of protest movements against technocratic approaches.
This thematic issue also takes a lifecycle approach to infrastructure in which we consider three stages : planning, construction and operation, and future prospects. In this ideal-typical timeline of an infrastructure asset as a sociotechnical process, these three stages enable us to compare and contrast the temporality specific to an infrastructure asset with that of the strategies of the actors involved, and the contexts in which they are embedded. Here, these three stages are approached from a diachronic perspective, structured by area of focus. We envisage that authors will also want to include synchronic and thematic observations about the ways in which mountain infrastructure is planned, built, used and inherited. Contributors may limit themselves to one of the three areas of focus identified below, or take a cross-cutting approach. We welcome articles from all disciplines, and indeed those that take an interdisciplinary approach, but all papers must examine the mountain environment, based on case studies from the Alps, elsewhere in Europe, or other mountain regions around the world.
Submission guidelines
Proposals for articles, approximately 1,000 words in length, must be submitted in French, English, German, Italian, or Spanish by September 1, 2026, to the following addresses: Angelo Bertoni (angelo.bertoni@strasbourg.archi.fr), Emma-Sophie Mouret (emma-sophie.mouret@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr) and Ornella Zaza (ornella.zaza@univ-amu.fr)
as well as to the JAR|RGA editorial team: Adrien Bayssé-Laine (adrien.baysse-laine@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr) and Maxime Frezat (secretariat-jarrga@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr).
Review policy
Review process: double blind peer review
Kategorien
- Geographie (Hauptkategorie)
- Gesellschaft > Geographie > Migration, Immigration, Minderheiten
- Gesellschaft > Geographie > Städtische Geographie
- Gesellschaft > Geographie > Ländliche Geographie
- Gesellschaft > Geographie > Raum, Gesellschaft und Territorien
- Gesellschaft > Geographie > Natur, Landschaftsräume und Umwelt
Daten
- Dienstag, 01. September 2026
Schlüsselwörter
- montagne, infrastructure, vulnérabilité écologique
Kontakt
- Angelo Bertoni
courriel : angelo [dot] bertoni [at] strasbourg [dot] archi [dot] fr - Ornella Zaza
courriel : ornella [dot] zaza [at] univ-amu [dot] fr - Emma-Sophie Mouret
courriel : emma-sophie [dot] mouret [at] univ-grenoble-alpes [dot] fr
Informationsquelle
- Maxime FREZAT
courriel : secretariat-jarrga [at] univ-grenoble-alpes [dot] fr
Lizenz
Diese Anzeige wird unter den Bedingungen der Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universell .
Zitierhinweise
« Les infrastructures en montagne face à leur vulnérabilité : conception, gouvernance et transformation », Beitragsaufruf, Calenda, Veröffentlicht am Mittwoch, 22. April 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/163tu
