Diego Silva is an economist and anthropologist (PhD - IHEID 2017) whose work is located at the intersection of science and technology studies, environmental and economic anthropology, and agrarian studies. His current research agenda includes: 1) the socio-technical analysis of seed commodity networks and the rural conflicts surrounding the deployment of agricultural innovations in Latin America (FNS Postdoc project); 2) the anthropological study of climate change mitigation in agriculture through the emergent knowledge and practices of environmental accounting (PI: prof. Shaila Seshia Galvin); and 3) the political ecology of the EU energy transition with a focus on the lithium battery production chain, linking Latin American suppliers of lithium minerals with the European lithium battery industry (co-coordinator for the project led by prof. Marc Hufty).
Diego’s work has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Doc.CH and Early Postdoc grants), the Swiss Network of International Studies (SNIS research grant) and the Organization of American States (OAS), among others. His PhD thesis on agricultural biosafety in Colombia was awarded the Lateinamerika Preise for the best Swiss thesis in Latin American Studies (University of St. Gallen), and the Prix des Anciens for the best 2017 PhD thesis at the IHEID. He is editor of the Grassroots section of the Journal of Political Ecology and has been a member of the editorial board of Alternautas since 2014. Outside of academia, Diego has had the opportunity to work for the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, and the Dutch environmental NGO Tropenbos in the Colombian Amazon.
Silva Diego. 2021. From standard to region-specific monocrops: localizing industrial agriculture through microbes’ taste of place. Tsantsa: Journal of the Swiss Anthropological Association 26(1): 18-36. https://doi.org/10.36950/tsantsa.2021.26.6921
Silva Diego 2020. Keep calm and carry on: climate ready crops and the genetic codification of climate ignorance. Science Technology & Human Values. 46(5) 1048-1075. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243920974092
Silva Diego & Gutierrez Laura. 2020. Revolturas: resisting multinational seed corporations and legal seed regimes through seed saving practices in Colombia. Journal of Peasant Studies. 47(4): 674-679. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2019.1668780
Silva Diego. 2020. Argentinean agribusiness and the porous agricultural company. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society. 3(1): 170-189. https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2020.1768792
Silva Diego. 2019. Tres lógicas de acción y reacción para la monopolización de los mercados de semillas en Colombia. Revista Colombiana de Antropología (RCA) 55(2): 9-37. https:/doi.org/10.22380/2539472X.795