Noémi Gonda

I am a researcher and an associate professor ("docent") at the Department of Urban and Rural Development.

I have a PhD from Central European University. My PhD research (2016) was a feminist ethnography on the politics of gender and climate change in rural Nicaragua.

Between 2017 and 2020, I was a post-doctoral researcher on social and ecological justice at the department of Urban and Rural Development at SLU under the mentorship of Professor Andrea Nightingale.

My current research is inspired by feminist and decolonial perspectives on environmental change as well as by the burgeoning scholarly field of political ecologies of the far-right.

I engage directly with what I consider to be the two most important and urgent challenges of our time: the accelerating rise of far-right authoritarianism and the urgent need for a just energy transition.

While each of these developments has attracted scholarly attention, their intersection remains underexplored.  Beyond exposing the risks of authoritarian co-optation in green transformations, my core aspiration is to shed light on possible pathways of democratic renewal – emphasising societal resilience and the pursuit of more just, sustainable and equitable socioenvironmental futures.

I had a life before the PhD:  I have professional experience in rural development mainly in Central America (Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala) where I have been working between 2002 and 2010 with smallholder farmers, Indigenous groups and international organisations. Before starting my PhD in 2012, I also worked with rural development NGO's on projects in Western Africa and Europe.

I was initially trained as an agricultural engineer at Bordeaux Sciences Agro (formerly called ENITAB), France and as an engineer in tropical agriculture at l'Institut Agro Montpellier (formerly called CNEARC), France. I also have a master of science in tropical agriculture and development from l'Institut Agro Montpellier. 

I am particularly interested in exploring how radical social and environmental transformations towards justice and equity can emerge, and the role of scholar-activists in supporting the emergence of such transformations.

I am fluent in English, Spanish, French and Hungarian and can get around in Swedish.

My current research project JUSTPOWER : "Democracy and justice challenges in energy transformations" is funded by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development Formas and looks at how energy transition projects can catalyse undemocratic tendencies and parties, political repression, and geopolitical alliances with undemocratic states. The process through which this occurs, - I argue- is understudied but tremendously important to look at. Indeed, amid escalating climate risks and unprecedented investments in clean energy, undemocratic political regimes are on the rise.

Thus, my project JUSTPOWER responds to the urgent need to understand better the intersections between energy transition initiatives and undemocratic processes, with the aim to build a transformative theory of Democracy in Energy Transitions to guide more inclusive and just low-carbon futures. It builds on an analysis of selected energy transition efforts in two European countries differently positioned on the authoritarianism-democracy scale: Hungary and Sweden.

The objectives of JUSTPOWER are:

• To decipher the relationships between societal inequalities and the just energy transitions agenda (empirical focus on energy poverty and intersectional inequalities)
• To map conflicts over knowledge in energy transition (empirical focus on knowledge struggles)
• To probe how theories and practices of energy justice change when we account for democracy and to empirically test novel strategies for enhancing democratic dimensions in energy justice policy and practice (theoretical andsociety-relevant dimension).

JUSTPOWER will generate recommendations for policy-making and scientific communication for inclusive democratic energy transformations amid rising authoritarianism.

I am also involved as a senior research partner working on how energy transitions create new areas for struggles over rights and political authority in the thematic Research Group Unruly Sustainability Challenges: addressing uncertainty in governing energy transitions, funded by University of Oslo (UiO) (PI: Prof. Andrea Nightingale).

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I just finished in 2024 two big research projects I was part of as a PI or Co-PI:

1) Exploring Governance Regimes through Agricultural Land Grabbing Dynamics funded by FORMAS. 

Land rights are human rights which are fundamental for achieving sustainable development. In this project, I start from the idea that in a context of rapid environmental changes and shrinking democracies across the world, agricultural land grabbing requires renewed discussions as new actors, as well as new instruments for possessing, expropriating, and challenging previous land controls emerge.

In this three-year project (2020-2022, extended until 2024 due to parental leaves), I investigated to what extent agricultural land grabbing processes affecting rural areas are inserted in broader governance struggles over power relations and identities. I engaged with questions concerning the relationship between State-making and land grabbing from a comparative North-South angle (Hungary/Nicaragua), an interdisciplinary standpoint (bridging feminist political ecology and scholarship on governance), a transdisciplinary perspective (with an action-research component), and with a focus on an understudied sector in the debate: agricultural areas in countries in political transition.

My research aim was to:

(i) analyse the extent to which State-making is influencing transformations in national land tenure systems;

(ii) understand the effects of recent land politics, particularly on those farmers that are marginalised;

(iii) explore how sustainable land politics can be envisioned in contexts of deep political transitions.
The data collection include interviews, participatory mapping, citizen science data collection, and social network analysis.

2) Governing Climate Resilient Futures: Gender, justice and conflict resolution in resource management funded by VR. The principal investigator in this project was Prof. Andrea Nightingale.

This research probed the link between gender and social inequalities, conflict, and how they affect sustainable and resilient climate development pathways. By expanding the conceptualization of resilience to include a theory of change that embeds resilience within social-political relations, conflicts, and struggles over authority and rights, the project broke new grounds: conceptualizing resilience as a sustainability outcome rather than a state; probing the causes of conflict and conflict resolution in environmental governance; and generating co-learning methodologies to tackle poverty and development challenges.

Empirically, the project developed case studies on the inter-related gendered, social, political and environmental causes of poverty and conflict in forest and water governance across three continents (in sectors crucial for poverty reduction, justice, and climate change adaptation and mitigation).

Our inter-disciplinary project was of direct relevance for Sweden’s development and climate change related efforts, and involved senior and junior researchers, and academic and non-academic institutions from Sweden and Kenya, Nepal and Nicaragua to build international cooperation and research capacities for promoting resilience, poverty alleviation and sustainability.

The project was supposed to be implemented between 2019 and 2022 but ran until 2024 due to the pandemic and parental leaves.

I enjoy teaching. For me the purpose of teaching is to prompt learners to build their capacities and desires for radically changing the world and buiding a more just one.

Whether it is under a tree, on a maize field, in a hut, in a small classroom, in a conference aula or via videoconference, I like to think about the ‘classroom’ as a learning community of participants with different identities, subjectivities, backgrounds, experiences and interests where everybody, including me, is learning and teaching. My role is to ensure that this process happens in a respectful way and everybody is given the possibility to participate, debate and question. My interest as an engaged teacher and researcher is to support learners to question our own assumptions and deconstruct universalities that sustain the status quo in our word.

I started my doctoral studies after ten years working with smallholder farmers and Indigenous people in Central America on topics related to environmental governance. Back then, my professional responsibilities included leading training seminars often in challenging contexts and for participats ranging from state workers and university students to illiterate farmers. When I began to take formal courses in order to learn how to teach at the Teaching and Learning Center at Central European University, I realised how much my teaching and working experience ‘on the ground’ determined my development as a university teacher -to be.  Also, I discovered, that some aspects of teaching were equally important no matter if my learners were illiterate farmers from Nicaragua or master’s students of a prestigious European University.

I taught at the Central American University in Managua, Nicaragua (since then confiscated by the Nicaraguan regime) and served as a teaching assistant at Central European University, Budapest, Hungary (university that was expelled by the Hungarian regime - CEU is now in Austria) while I was doing my PhD. I  regularly lecture in  Master's and Bachelor programmes at Cemus (Uppsala University) and SLU.

2024: Awarded the "Best docent lecturer of the year 2023/2024" title at SLU. Lecture title: “Climate Justice and Democracy: Authoritarianism and Justice Challenges in Sustainable Rural Development”.

Supervision:

PhD students:

2023- 2024 : Co-supervisor for Deeksha Sharma, Department of Urban and Rural Development, SLU.

2019- present: External PhD committee member for René Rodríguez Fabilena, Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerpen, Belgium. 

Master’s students (with completed theses):

2025: Märtha Lindberg, Master’s program in Rural Development and Natural Resource Management, SLU; Axel Alejandro Corte Aguillón, Master Thesis in Sustainable Development, Uppsala University.

2024: Vincent Edte; Julia Kortén, Master’s program in Sustainable Development (SLU & Uppsala University).

2021: Francesca Gallisai. Master program in Rural Development and Natural Resource Management (SLU).

2015: Teresa Pérez, Master’s in Gender Studies, Central American University (UCA), Managua, Nicaragua. 

2006-2010:       Field research supervision in Nicaragua of a dozen of master students in rural development from different universities in France (Montpellier SupAgro, AgroParis Tech, ISTOM…).

• 2023: Doctoral Supervision Course, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
   
• 2012-2016: Program for Excellence in Teaching in Higher Education, Central European University. 

PhD courses: 

• Sept.-Oct. 2024:  PhD course on Political Ecology: foundations and emancipatory trends. Course co-leader with co-responsibility for the design of the syllabus, recruitment, organisation, grading and lecturing in 50%  of the lectures. SLU. 7,5 credits P000094. 

Master´s courses:

• Nov. 2025- January 2026. Governance of Natural Resources Fall 2025, SLU.  15 credits. LU00093. 15 credits. Course leader.
• Jan.-October 2025:   Master Thesis in Rural Development Spring 2025, SLU. 30 credits. EX0889. Course leader.
• Jan.-June 2025:  Internship in Rural Development 2025, SLU. 15 credits ÖV0001. Vice-course leader.
• Aug.- Dec 2024: The Process of Research: Qualitative methods, data analysis and academic writing. Fall 2024, SLU. 15 credits.  LU00091. Vice-course leader.

PhD courses: 

• Sept. 2024: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural  Development. PhD course on Gender, Development and Environmental Governance. Lecture on “Femininities, Masculinities and Authoritarian Organising”. 
• March 2021 & March 2023: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural Development. PhD course on Development in the Global South. Lecture on “The politics of Natural Resources and the Environment”.

Master´s and Bachelor courses:

• December 2024: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural   Development. The Process of Research: Qualitative methods, data analysis and academic writing” Master´s course. Lecture on “Environmental Discourse Analysis” (2 hours session, approx. 45 students)
• November 2024: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Bachelor´s course on Entrepreneurship and Rural Development. Lecture on “Rural  Development in the Authoritarian Era: Why democracy matters for rural  sustainability? (3 hours session, approx. 6 students)
• Nov. 2023 & 2024: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Ecology. Society and  Environment” Master´s course. Lecture on “Why sustainability science needs gender and intersectionality?” (3 hours session, approx. 45 students)
• Nov. 2022 & 2023: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural Development. Governance of Natural Resources Master’s Course. Lecture on              “Feminist and decolonial political ecology perspectives on environmental                           governance” (2 hours session, approx. 30 students)
• April 2022:       University of Geneva, Department of Political Sciences. Bachelor course on electoral behaviour (“comportement électoral”). Lecture in French on “Comportement électoral et  systèmes autoritaires” (electoral behaviour and authoritarian systems”) (2 hours session, approx. 40 students)
• May 2021: Central American University, Managua, Nicaragua and Institute of Development Policy, Antwerp, Belgium. Joint Master’s Program in Development Studies. Module on Access to  land and Natural Resources. Lecture on “Power and Environmental Politics: the Political Ecology of Climate Change Adaptation” (2 hours session, approx. 12 students)

among many other ones...

• 2024: Best docent lecturer of the year 2023/2024 at SLU. Lecture title: “Climate Justice and Democracy: Authoritarianism and Justice Challenges in Sustainable Rural Development”.
• 2015-2016: Central European University’ (CEU)s PhD write-up grant for advanced Doctoral students (approx. 4300 EUR)
• 2015: CEU’s Academic Achievement Award for Advanced PhD students (800 Euros)
• 2013: CEU’s Academic Achievement Award for First Year PhD students (500 Euros)
• 2012-2015: CEU’s Full Doctoral Fellowship (36 months) (approx. 25 000 EUR)       
• 1996-1997: The French Government’s Excellency Scholarship for foreign students’ university studies in France (Bourse d’Excellence) (12 months) (approx. 10 000 Euros)

1)  Gonda, N.(2025). Democratizing energy justice: Rethinking energy justice in authoritarian times. Progress in Environmental Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/27539687251342264

• In this purely theoretical article, I critique conventional energy justice frameworks for their limited ability to respond to the rise of authoritarianism and far-right populism. I argue for a rethinking of energy justice that centers grassroots democratic participation and civic mobilization as essential to resisting authoritarian encroachment. 
 

2)  Parsons, M., Godden, N., Paiva Henrique, K., Tschakert, P., Gonda, N., Atkins, E., Steen, K., Crease, R. (2025). Participatory approaches to climate adaptation, mitigation and resilience; a systematic review. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02202-z (Parsons 30%, Godden 20%, rest of authors 10% each)

• This article is a systematic literature review. Results reveal that most participatory approaches sustain power imbalances and exclude marginalised groups, hindering meaningful engagement. However, some cases highlight transformative practices that foster empowerment, shared decision-making, and inclusivity. These examples offer pathways to rethink participatory climate action by emphasising power redistribution and community leadership.
 

3)  Gonda, N., Flores, S., Casolo, J. J., & Nightingale, A. J. (2023). Resilience and conflict: rethinking climate resilience through Indigenous territorial struggles. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2022.2161372 (Gonda 40%, Flores 15%, Casolo 15%, Nightingale, 30%).

• This article explores the roles socioenvironmental conflicts play in the scaling up of transformation amidst ongoing settler colonial projects in Indigenous territories in Nicaragua. Drawing on insights from resilience, climate change and critical agrarian studies, it reframes resilience as a process produced within socioenvironmental conflicts, placing contestation and negotiation in the centre
 

4) Ojha, H., Nightingale, A. J., Gonda, N., Muok, B. O., Eriksen, S., Khatri, D., & Paudel, D. (2022). Transforming environmental governance: critical action intellectuals and their praxis in the field. Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-022-01108-z (Ojha 50%, Nightingale 30%, 20% remaining authors jointly)

• This article presents theoretical insights on how critical and intellectually grounded social actors can trigger systemic change in environmental governance. These actors prompt transformative change by shifting policy discourse, generating alternative evidence, and challenging dominant policy assumptions, whilst empowering marginalised groups. This is illustrated through cases in Nepal, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Kenya. 
 

5) Nightingale, A. J., Gonda, N., & Eriksen, S. H. (2022). Affective adaptation = effective transformation? Shifting the politics of climate change adaptation and transformation from the status quo. WIREs Climate Change, 13(1), e740. DOI: 10.1002/wcc.740  (Nightingale 50%, 45% Gonda, 10% Eriksen) 

• This study brings affect theory into conversation with the literature on adaptation politics, socio-environmental transformations and subjectivity. Our empirical work in Nicaragua, Nepal and Sweden scrutinises three aspects of transformation: (i) the uncertain relations that constitute socionatures; (ii) other ways of knowing; and (iii) the affective relations that form a basis for action. 
 

6) Gonda, N., Prado Córdova, J. P., Huybrechs, F., & Van Hecken, G. T. (2022). Exploring the love triangle of authoritarianism, populism and COVID-19 through political ecology: time for a break-up? Frontiers in Human Dynamics, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fhumd.2022.653990 (Gonda 35%, 50% equally divided between Prado Córdova and Anonymous Author 1 (name omitted by fear of repression), 15% remaining authors). 

• This publication discusses pandemic politics in three authoritarian countries (Hungary, Nicaragua, Guatemala), envisioning the conceptual and practical possibilities for breaking up the unhealthy relationship amid pandemic politics, authoritarianism and populism, and for ultimately dismantling all three
 

7) Garcia, A., Gonda, N., Atkins, E., Godden, N., Paiva Henrique, K., Parsons, M., Tschakert, P., Ziervogel, G. (2022). Power in resilience and resilience's power in climate change scholarship. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change(e762). doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.762 (Garcia 35%, Gonda 30%, Atkins 30%, 5% remaining authors) 

• This article advances a framework inspired by feminist political ecology, illuminating the importance of knowledge, scale and subject making in understanding the complex ways in which power and resilience become interlinked. It illustrates how overlooking such complexity has consequences for how socio-natural challenges are framed in resilience scholarship and, in turn, how resilience is planned and enacted in practice. 
 

8) Bori, P. J., & Gonda, N. (2022). Contradictory populist ecologies: pro-peasant propaganda and land grabbing in rural Hungary. Political Geography, 102583. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102583 (Bori 60%, Gonda 40%) 

• This study illuminates how populism predates political discourse on rural livelihoods, and how it co-opts emancipatory environmental claims, arguing that emancipatory ecologies must work to debunk the (pseudo-) ecological claims of authoritarian regimes and rethink the future of rural areas. 

9) Gonda, N. (2019). Re-politicizing the gender and climate change debate: the potential of feminist political ecology to engage with power in action in adaptation policies and projects in Nicaragua. Geoforum, 106, 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.07.020. 

• Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Nicaragua, this article discusses the workings of power in climate change adaptation politics. In doing so, I raise questions that can lead policy-makers and project practitioners to explore how adaptation processes could open up the conceptual possibility for emancipation, transformation and new ways of living life in common.

10) Gonda, N. (2019). Land grabbing and the making of an authoritarian populist regime in Hungary. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 46(3), 606-625. doi:10.1080/03066150.2019.1584190. 

• How do authoritarian populist regimes emerge within the EU in the twenty-first century? In Hungary, land grabbing by oligarchs has been one of the pillars maintaining Prime Minister Orbán’s regime. The Hungarian case calls for scholarly-activist attention to how authoritarian populism is maintained by and affects rural areas, and how emancipation can be envisaged in such a context.