Foreword

In many parts of the world, mountains have long been marginalised in popular discourses on the sole basis that they are often inaccessible and remote from the major centres of power (e.g. Funnel and Parish, 2001; Cosgrove and della Dora, 2009). This picture of marginality has been accentuated by the alleged “extreme” hazardousness of mountainous environments struck by spectacular earthquakes, landslides, flash floods, droughts and avalanches, amongst others, which are often embedded in local ...