Silvia Pergetti

Dr. Silvia Pergetti is a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science, specializing in energy access, gender, and development in South Asia. Her ethnographic work in India's Sundarbans examines how material practices and masculinities shape energy infrastructure maintenance within feminist sustainability frameworks.

Her academic foundation includes:

• PhD in Social Anthropology (2018-2024), University of Edinburgh
• MScR in Social Anthropology (2017-2018), University of Edinburgh
• MSc in Anthropology and Development (2015-2017), London School of Economics

Pergetti's research interrogates the lived realities of energy systems through lenses of material culture and gendered labor, particularly highlighting how 'caring masculinities' manifest in electrical repair work and how sustainability emerges from localized maintenance practices rather than top-down interventions. She challenges conventional energy development paradigms by documenting the invisible labor of middlemen in operational continuity.

Her publications reveal a cohesive focus on ethnographic studies of energy maintenance in the Global South, emphasizing how feminist perspectives transform understandings of sustainability through attention to everyday material practices and social relations in India's Sundarbans region.

Key recognitions include:

• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Doctoral Scholarship (2017)
• LSE Lucy Mair Prize for outstanding MSc dissertation (2016/2017)

She actively contributes to academic discourse through guest lectures on energy anthropology and climate change at Edinburgh, plus organizing significant panels like 'Through a Feminist Lens: Unsettling South Asian Masculinities' at the 2022 AAA Annual Meeting. Current work expands her feminist energy systems research with fieldwork on maintenance labor in South Asian development contexts.