Biography

Elisabeth SCHUBIGER is a postdoctoral researcher in the research project ‘Maintaining Relations: Community-owned Hydropower Infrastructure Through Time’ (Swiss National Science Foundation 2024-2028).

Elisabeth holds a PhD in social anthropology from the Graduate Institute of Development and International Studies in Geneva. In her dissertation, ‘Turkana Oil Prospects: Petroscapes, Development Limbos and Self-Accomplishment at Kenya's Northern Frontier,’ Elisabeth developed the concept of ‘development limbo’ to understand how nomadic pastoralist communities deal with the unfulfilled promises of modernity and prosperity through oil exploration.

Since 2024, Elisabeth has been working for the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences as a project manager in the Sustainability Research initiative and in the Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE), where she is committed to sustainable and fair research partnerships between the global North and South. Elisabeth is also involved in science communication, including through her work in the podcast working group at Zethno (Ethnological Association of Zurich).

Prior to that, she conducted research on international education in Swiss private schools as part of the EduTrans project at the University of Education in Freiburg. Elisabeth completed her master's and bachelor's degrees at the University of Bern, where she worked as a research assistant and tutor during her studies. She also completed a CAS in Development and Cooperation at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Always at the interface between practice and theory, Elisabeth has worked and conducted research in various countries. In Haiti, she supported a vocational training centre for women in rural areas for two years. In Kenya, she conducted research on international land acquisitions in Siaya before working as a development expert in West Pokot for a year and a half.

Elisabeth's research interests include the interfaces between local institutions and infrastructure, with a particular focus on resource management and sustainable development. Her current research addresses the question of how decentralised energy supply can be successfully maintained in the long term and how it strengthens economic and social structures in local communities. Her research focus is in Switzerland, particularly in the Alpine regions, where families and communities have been operating hydroelectric power plants for more than a century.