Filipe CALVAO

Filipe CALVAO is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He specializes in socio-cultural anthropology focusing on postcolonial Africa, extractive economies, mining labor, and digital technologies. His research bridges nature, culture, and capital, particularly in mining communities and corporate governance. He leads three major projects: transparency in global mining, digital labor automation in the Global South, and synthetic-digital economies in mining. CALVAO holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and is affiliated with the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy and the Centre for International Environmental Studies.

Thematic expertise includes extractive economies, labor dynamics, artificial intelligence, climate change, and globalization. Geographical focus spans Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Brazil, the U.S., and Australia. His peer-reviewed work examines topics like wageless labor in African mines, blockchain’s impact on labor, and visual appraisal practices in diamond evaluation.

Research projects explore transparency technologies in mining, automation’s societal impacts, and the interplay between synthetic/natural objects in digital economies. He contributes to debates on sustainable development, illicit economies, and corporate governance through interdisciplinary approaches.