While empirical research in Shenzhen has been delayed until 2023 because of Covid restrictions, Pablo has pursued two main research themes. First, an exploration of China’s concept of Ecological Civilisation in relation to the development of the EV industry. This is a key policy concept that guides China’s approach to economic development and environmental sustainability. Pablo focuses on the development of EV battery technology and its role in building an Ecological Civilisation in and beyond China.

The second theme focuses on the production of a lithium battery market around China. This concern has emerged from the need to understand the political economy and geopolitics of lithium, including how its prices are ‘discovered’, which battery formulas are implemented, and which are discarded, and how a global map of circulation of lithium knowledge and goods is configured. In particular, he is working on the politics of the circulation of knowledge about lithium and the EV market amongst lithium market experts and its impact on the EV battery economy.

Shenzhen is one of China’s most developed cities, and one of the major industrial centres along the Pearl River Delta. Due to its strategic location, colliding with Hong Kong, Shenzhen has played the role of a gateway between China and the world. With a mostly migrant population of 12.5 million people, it stands out for its linguistic, culinary, and cultural diversity. The fact that it has been carefully planned and built from a network of small villages has made it the perfect candidate for becoming a “socialist demonstration area” by 2050. Nowadays, Shenzhen’s industry stands at the forefront of global technological development, with household names like BYD, Huawei, and Tencent that are leaders in the electric vehicles' industry, telecommunications technology, and digital entertainment industry.

Pablo is a social anthropologist and historian. He holds a PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale and the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. Within the ‘Worlds of Lithium’ project, he focuses on the economic and sociotechnological transformations around the lithium battery industry in China. Besides his current work on lithium batteries, his research has explored diverse aspects of Chinese society and Sino-Latin American Relations, and he has taught and researched in several South American, Chinese and European institutions.

Pablo is also a photo-documentalist, with part of his work published by the National Geographic, and hosts the Spanish-language podcast ‘Todo Bajo el Cielo’.