Post-glacial politics: the making of a climate opportunity in Switzerland

How do policy actors imagine and govern post-glacial areas namely, the lands and lakes which form upon glaciers retreat? Much of the recent literature has investigated the biological and geomorphological processes at play in the formation of post-glacial areas. (Bosson et al. 2023; Wilkes et al. 2023; Gobbi et al. 2021; Cauvy-Frauni and Dangles 2019). However, few works have looked into the social processes through which post-glacial areas acquire meaning, value, and are associated with policy projects. As alpine biomes change in the context of glacier retreat, so do projects for their (non)usage (Zimmer et al. 2021). Based on the results of a PhD thesis, this contribution investigates the emergence, contestation, and institutionalization of different political imaginaries surrounding post-glacial areas. I use the case of post glacial areas in the Swiss Alps as a key example in which biophysical changes following glacier melting are seized, framed, and reframed by policy actors ranging from scientists, private companies, politicians to NGOS. Combining insights from policy process theory, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and the analysis of 58 elite interviews conducted between mars and December 2022, I argue that post-glacial areas were constituted as opportunities for hydropower storage as a result of three processes: the emergence of a dominant imaginary of post-glacial areas in sciences (1), its uptake, co-production, and legitimization in politics (2), and the delegitimization of alternative political imaginaries (3). In doing so, I ask: how do actors form and contest different visions of post-glacial areas? And why are some definitions of post-glacial areas institutionalized over others?