Articles | Volume 81, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-137-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-81-137-2026
Standard article
 | 
16 Feb 2026
Standard article |  | 16 Feb 2026

The menhir: aesthetic politics of radioactive waste disposal in northern Switzerland

Rony Emmenegger and Federico Luisetti

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Cited articles

Adler, P.: Swiss Nuclear Waste Governance: Political Processes, Constructive Opposition, and the Role of Affectedness, Unruly Natures, https://unrulynatures.ch/Swiss-Nuclear-Waste-Governance (last access: 10 February 2026), 2023. 
Aschwanden, R.: Strahlende Berge: Urner Opposition gegen ein Endlager für radioaktive Abfälle in den 1980er-Jahren, Traverse, 27, 53–70, 2020. 
Bassett, K.: Rancière, Politics, and the Occupy Movement, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32, 886–901, https://doi.org/10.1068/d5013, 2014. 
Benediktsson, K.: “Scenophobia”, Geography and the Aesthetic Politics of Landscape, Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography, 89, 203–217, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0467.2007.00249.x, 2007. 
Bennett, J.: Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, Durham and London, Duke University Press, https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822391623, 2010. 
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Short summary
Geological disposal projects rest on the assumption that radioactive waste can be safely managed through its spatio-temporal separation from human life at the surface. This paper examines how a local farmer in the Zürcher Weinland – one of the regions considered for nuclear waste disposal – disrupted this assumption by rendering the radioactive hazard perceptible through a series of landscape interventions.
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