Marc Hufty is Professor of Development Studies and the Director of International Environmental Studies at The Graduate Institute in Geneva. He has taught and conducted fieldwork in a wide range of countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Nicaragua, Madagascar, and South Africa. His research focuses on conservation and biodiversity; environmental history; local, national, and international governance; resource conflicts; extractive economies and commodities; and civil society and social movements.
His current project, “The Global Political Ecology of Lithium Commodity Chain” (2017-2021), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, is a comparative study of lithium processes between Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia in collaboration with national and local partners. The aim of the project is to take stock of the lithium commodity chain from a political ecology and a governance perspective. Can lithium, as a symbolic commodity for the green economy, be produced and consumed in a socially equitable and environmentally sustainable way? What are the implications of present and future market configurations for the metal? And what are the obstacles for a sound governance regime of this natural resource?