Dr. Annina Michel

Annina Michel is a human geographer interested in social and political dimensions of protected areas and landscape planning. With a research focus in Switzerland, she engages with questions of equity and justice in environmental negotiations and participatory processes, and how these are intertwined with and influenced by social values.

Currently, she is a group leader at the Department of Geography, University of Zurich (Landscape and Conservation Social Sciences), and part of the research project ValPar.CH. Here, they want to better understand different stakeholders' perceptions of landscapes and landscape elements, the meanings attributed to them, and how they emerge in embodied, emotional experiences. By unraveling these meanings, they will gain insight into the social values of different ecosystem services in Swiss regional nature parks. Generally, she is interested in human-nature relationships: How do we speak about and engage with our surroundings, and how do we shape and interact with what we call 'nature'?