Biography

I am a political geographer with a keen interest in the governance of human-environment relations, landscapes, and above- and below-ground infrastructure. In my current research, I am working on the politics of nuclear waste governance in Switzerland and beyond. Based on ethnographic research since 2019, I have been investigating the relationship between science, society, and democracy and how it is negotiated in a participatory governance process around issues of uncertainty, risk, and safety. In parallel, I have focused on the production of knowledge about the deep geological subsurface - where nuclear waste is to be stored for the next million years - and how it is articulated and contested in public controversies as the governance process progresses. This latter interest continues to be the focus of my SNSF Project (2024-2028) entitled "Nuclear Strata: The Political Geology of Nuclear Waste Governance", hosted by the Department of Geosciences at the University of Fribourg. Overall, my work is empirically grounded and theoretically inspired by debates and concepts in political geography, political geology, political ecology, political anthropology, science and technology studies, philosophy of science, critical sustainability studies, and environmental humanities. In addition, I have been involved in a number of collaborative arts and science projects, including the Unruly Natures project at the University of St. Gallen.

Research and publications

• Publications
  30 publications

  Adam Bobbette’s The Pulse of the Earth: Political Geology in Java. Duke University Press
  Rony Emmenegger (2024) | Review

  Nuclear Waste in my Backyard: Social Acceptance and Economic Incentives
  Rony Emmenegger, Petyo Bonev, Rony Emmenegger, Rony Emmenegger, Rony Emmenegger, Laura Forero, Kaloyan Ganev , Ralitsa Simeonova-Ganeva , Magnus Söderberg, Energy Policy (2024) | Journal article

  Der Palast und die Souveränität des Premierministers in Äthiopien
  Rony Emmenegger, Asebe Ragassa, S u b / u r b a n (2023) | Journal article

  Hinkelstein: Ein Mahnmal gegen ein Tiefenlager im Zürcher Weinland , in Orte der Schweiz. Helvetiq Verlag
  Rony Emmenegger (2023) | Book chapter

  Ordered Hybrid Ecologies: Unearthing Sedimented Histories in the Arboretum
  Rony Emmenegger (2023) | Other

  The Emperor, the Lion and the Peacock: Monuments and Contested State Sovereignty in Contemporary Ethiopia.
  Asebe Regassa, Rony Emmenegger, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space (2023) | Journal article

  Tägernauerholz: The Forest Being and Political Resistance
  Rony Emmenegger , Unruly Natures (2023) | Other

  Alpine Wertelandschaften und Energieinfrastrukturen: Grundpfeiler für eine sozialwissenschaftlich inspirierte Landschaftsforschung
  Rony Emmenegger, Maren Kern , Mountain Wilderness (2022) | Other

  Cartographic Enclosure and Urban Cadastral Mapping in the Ethiopian Somali Capital
  Rony Emmenegger, Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization (2022) | Journal article

  Energy Futures as Societal Futures: Co-evolutionary Scenarios Linking Futures of Society and Decarbonized Energy Systems in Switzerland 2050
  Paul Burger and Rony Emmenegger and Annika Sohre, Futures (2022) | Journal article

  The Nuclear Spike
  Rony Emmenegger, Marcel Rickli, Annina Boogen (2022) | Other

  Partizipation und Sicherheit: Expert:innen und Lai:innen auf der Suche nach einem geologischen Tiefenlager für radioaktive Abfälle in der Schweiz , in Die Suche nach einem Lager für hochradioaktive Abfälle: In der Schweiz und in Deutschland. Loccumer Protokoll
  Rony Emmenegger (2022) | Book chapter

  Mapping Sustainable Diets: A Comparison of Sustainability References in Dietary Guidelines of Swiss Food Governance Actors (reprint) , in Sustainable Food Production and Consumption, MDPI Books
  Teschner, Ronja, Ruppen, Jessica, Bornemann, Basil, Rony Emmenegger, Aguirre Sánchez, Lucía (2022) | Book chapter

  Nuclear Waste in my Backyard: Social Acceptance and Economic Incentives
  Petyo Bonev and Rony Emmenegger and Laura Forero and Kaloyan Ganev and Ralitsa Simeonova-Ganeva and Magnus Söderberg, (2022) | Working paper

  Mapping Sustainable Diets: A Comparison of Sustainability References in Dietary Guidelines of Swiss Food Governance Actors
  Ronja Teschner and Jessica Ruppen and Basil Bornemann and Rony Emmenegger and Lucía Aguirre Sánchez, Sustainability (2021) | Journal article

  Unsettling Sovereignty: Violence, Myths and the Politics of History in the Ethiopian Somali Metropolis
  Rony Emmenegger, Political Geography (2021) | Journal article

  The Grimsel Rock Laboratory and the Crystal Cave
  Rony Emmenegger, Flurina Gradin, Isabel Seiffert , Unruly Natures: Logbook post (2021) | Other

  Deep Time Horizons: Vincent Ialenti’s Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now.
  Rony Emmenegger, Volume 2 (2021) | Review

  Von Modellen zu Visionen: Ansätze zur Ergänzung von quantitativen Energieszenarien
  Frank C. Krysiak, Burger, Paul, Blumer, Yann, Braunreiter, Lukas, Cometta, Claudio , Rony Emmenegger, Lordan-Perret, Rebecca, Marucci, Adriana, Roux, Catherine, Roux, Sohre, Annika , (2021) | Working paper

  The Miner and the Neon Fish: Decolonizing Alpine Ecologies
  Rony Emmenegger, Stephan Hochleithner (2021) | Other

  State Territorialization at the Margins: Property Formalization and Paperwork in the Ethiopian Somali Frontier
  Rony Emmenegger, Geoforum (2020) | Journal article

  Diverging Worlds of Biodiversity and Biosecurity: The Presence of Wolves in a Swiss Alpine Territory , in The Return of the Wild: Human Encounters with Wolves in Europe
  Ilona Imoberdorf, Rony Emmenegger (2020) | Book chapter

  Ontology and Integrative Research on Global Environmental Change: Towards a Critical GEC Science
  Rony Emmenegger and Rory Rowan and Debra Zuppinger-Dingley and Cornelia Krug and Maria Alejandra Parreño and Benedikt Korf, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (2017) | Journal article

  Decentralisation and the Local Developmental State: Peasant Mobilisation in Oromiya, Ethiopia
  Rony Emmenegger, Africa (2016) | Journal article

  Urban Planning in Practice: The Contemporary Dynamics of Land Formalization in the City of Jigjiga , in Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies
  Rony Emmenegger (2016) | Book chapter

  Re-spacing African Drylands: Territorialization, Sedentarization and Indigenous Commodification in the Ethiopian Pastoral Frontier
  Benedikt Korf and Tobias Hagmann and Rony Emmenegger, The Journal of Peasant Studies (2015) | Journal article

  Entre pouvoir et autorité. Propriété urbaine et production de l'État à Jigjiga, Éthiopie
  Rony Emmenegger and Jean-Nicolas Bach, Politique africaine (2013) | Journal article

  Decentralization to the Household: Expansion and Limits of State Power in Rural Oromiya (reprint) , in Reconfiguring Ethiopia: The Politics of Authoritarian Reform
  Rony Emmenegger, Tobias Hagmann, Sibilo Keno (2013) | Book chapter

  The Roads of Decentralization: The Historical Roots of Rural Road Construction in Ethiopia
  Rony Emmenegger, (2012) | Working paper

  Decentralization to the Household: Expansion and Limits of State Power in Rural Oromiya
  Rony Emmenegger and Sibilo Keno and Tobias Hagmann, Journal of Eastern African Studies (2011) | Journal article
• Research projects

  Nuclear Strata: The Political Geology of Nuclear Waste Governance (NUCSTRAT)
  Status: Ongoing

  Start	01.03.2024
  End	29.02.2028
  Funding	SNSF
  Deep geological disposal is considered the solution for nuclear waste from civil nuclear energy production. It is based on the idea that nuclear waste can be safely disposed in a suitable geological stratum-so that no human action is needed in the future. Although current and future societies will increasingly depend on geology, the way in which actors conceive subterranean strata and how such conceptions of geosocial relations affect nuclear waste governance has hardly been researched. The project Nuclear Strata: The Political Geology of Nuclear Waste Governance (NUCSTRAT) fills this gap.NUCSTRAT’s overall research objective is to unearth the geological dimension of nuclear waste governance. For examining the political significance of ideas about subterranean strata, it poses the research question: How are geosocial strata produced in nuclear waste governance processes? To answer this question, NUCSTRAT scrutinizes how scientific knowledge about the subterranean is communicated towards the public, and how this is mediated and contested. It examines ethnographically how subterranean strata manifest and consolidate in discursive and material form at various science-society interfaces at the surface. Based on a comparative research design, NUCSTRAT focuses on three case studies, each representing a long history of site explorations in a specific host rock formation-clay in Switzerland, salt in Germany and granite in Sweden. The comparative analysis acknowledges variations of the geological conditions of host rocks and levels of trust in scientific authority. As such, NUCSTRAT will provide important insights into how consent is fostered, or contestations are inspired, depending on generic, as well as country-specific political and geological circumstances.NUCSTRAT is hosted at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Fribourg, a strategic hub at the intersection of social science and geoscience research. Research will be carried out by the applicant and two PhD students, who will triangulate a set of qualitative research methods over 38 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the three respective countries. Theoretically, all case studies will employ a set of interrelated concepts-strata, vertical territory and interscalar vehicles-to better understand the spatio-temporal assemblage of geosocial strata. A strong international team of social scientists will bring together methodological skills, theoretical expertise, and long-term experience in nuclear waste governance research in the comparative analysis of the three cases. NUCSTRAT examines the co-constitution of the Earth’s stratified composition and the formation of (post-)nuclear nation-states, exemplifying the profound reworking of human-subterranean relations. NUCSTRAT contributes to the geological turn in the social sciences and to the institutionalization of political geology research on the subterranean in the field of geography in Switzerland. Strengthening this research orientation is particularly pressing for societies in light of ongoing political struggles about human-subterranean relations in fields of waste disposal, but also resource extraction, geothermal energy generation or carbon capture and storage.

Teaching and courses

Show in course program