The Mountain That Collapsed into the Village

Abstract

Abstract While the 2003 Intangible Heritage Convention was adopted to safeguard domains where intangible cultural heritage manifests, such domains can be neglected in the communities they originate from – at least until their importance re-emerges when communities are put (or put themselves) at risk. This article examines such an occasion by presenting ethnographic material gathered during and in the wake of an environmental disaster that took place on Samothráki, a small and remote island in north-eastern Greece, in 2017. It revisits three aspects of (seemingly forgotten) traditional knowledge that the islanders reflected upon following the disaster in their attempt to re-approach their relationship with their surrounding environment. In so doing, it discusses how these can potentially contribute to mitigating the impact of the climate crisis on the island.