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Technical University of Munich
Technical University of Munich

Dr. Martín Fonck

Postdoc

Wissenschaftssoziologie

Martín Fonck is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Chair of Sociology of Science at the Department of Science, Technology and Society (STS), TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology. He completed his PhD at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich (LMU). Working with the concept of geofuturism, he investigates the future of environmental technologies such as negative emission technologies, or geothermal energy in the Chilean Andes, as responses to the climate crisis. His main research interest is to investigate how the future has increasingly become a matter of concern and, from a governance perspective, demands the development of action and responses from science and technology. However, rather than reducing the dilemma to a problem-solution logic, these challenges require cultivating speculative and critical reflexivity to re-examine the formulation of the problems at stake and to promote research that fosters and inspires the creation of emergent platforms and scenarios. Martín's work also has the aim of bringing together scholars, geoscientists, artists, and others interested in the intersection of the earth's stories and its future imaginaries.

  • Geofuturism

  • Cono Sur

  • Speculative Technologies

Selection:

  • Fonck, M. (2024). Geological (Dis)orientations: Training Sites, Storytelling, and Fieldwork in the Chilean Andes. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 0(0).
  • Fonck, M. (2024). Subterranean explorations: The Unfinished Promise of Geothermal Energy in the Chilean Andes. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (Spanish version open access available here).
  • Waltorp, K., Dale, R. F., Fonck, M., & du Plessis, P. (2023). Imagining energy futures beyond colonial continuation. In S. Abram, K. Waltorp, N. Ortar, & S. Pink (Eds.), Energy futures: anthropocene challenges, emerging technologies and everyday life. Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Fonck, M., Gómez, M. J. C., & Valdés, C. (2022). Paisajes geológicos: imagen, medida e imaginación en la formación del conocimiento geotermal. In C. Ibarra, S. Vargas, & D. Morata (Eds.), Geotermia en Chile: un siglo de historia para un desarrollo sustentable. Santiago, Chile: Centro de Excelencia en Geotermia de los Andes (CEGA).
  • Fonck, M. (2021). Subterranean (In)visibilities: Traces, Underground Water, and Thermal Flows in the El Tatio Geyser Field, Atacama, Chile. Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia, 24. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.
  • Di Giminiani, P., Fonck, M. & Perasso, P. (2021). Can natives be settlers? Emptiness, settlement and indigeneity on the settler colonial frontier in Chile. Anthropological Theory, 21(1): 82-106.
  • Fonck, M. & Simonetti, C. (2020). Resonancias geológicas: Aprendiendo a ser afectados por las fuerzas de la tierra en el Antropoceno. AIBR Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana, 15 (1): 157-178.
  • Di Giminiani, P., & Fonck, M. (2018). Emerging landscapes of private conservation: Enclosure and mediation in southern Chilean protected areas. Geoforum, 97: 305-314.
  • Fonck, M., & Jacob, D. (2018). „Escuchando el llamado del bosque“: Explorando las dimensiones afectivas de la conservación ambiental desde la etnografía multiespecies. Santuario El Cañi, Chile. Revista Austral de Ciencias Sociales, 35: 221-238.
  • Digiminiani, P. & Fonck, M. (2015). El paisaje como proceso de vida: experiencias de domesticación del bosque en el sur de Chile. Revista de Geografía Norte Grande, N° 61: 7-24

Selection:

  • Fonck, M. (2022) „The limits to tell a story“: Emerging frontiers and unexpected undergrounds following earth system science practices. Paper presesented at the Conference 4S / ESOCITE 2022 – Reunion, recuperation, reconfiguration – Knowledges and technosciences for living together, Cholula, Mexico.
  • Fonck, M. (2022). „Geological disorientations„: the unexpected effects of digital technologies in geological fieldwork. Paper presesented at the Conference EASST 2022 – The politics of technoscientific futures, Madrid.
  • Fonck, M. (2021). “The Fugitivity of Water”: Steam and Underground Water Aesthetics in Scientific and Political Imaginations of Subterranean Spaces. Paper presented at the Conference “ Reflecting on multiple waters” at the University of Marburg.
  • Fonck, M. (2020). „Underground Exploration”: Textures, Scales and Embodied Engagements Producing Geological Knowledge in Chilean Andes. Paper presented at Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) and the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology Conference, Prague, Czech Republic.
  • Fonck, M. (2019). “Explorando el interior de la Cordillera de Los Andes”. Presentation at „Energies and Technologies Futures“ workshop organized by the Future Anthropologies and Energy Anthropology Network (European Association of Social Anthropologists), Lyon, France.
  • Fonck, M. (2018). Geothermal futures. Paper presented at European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA), at the panel Energy in motion [Energy Anthropology Network], Stockholm.
  • Fonck, M & Jacob, D. (2017) “Science, collaboration and affects” Panel coordination at the International Conference Knowledge/Culture/Ecologies at the Universidad Diego Portales. Santiago, Chile, November 15 – 18.
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