Antonio Ballesteros-Figueroa

Antonio Ballesteros-Figueroa is a 4th Year PhD candidate in Science and  Technology Studies (STS). His research focuses on analysing the role everyday, mundane events play during the construction of environmental policy quantitative tools (rankings and machine learning). In particular, he is focused on discussing the discrepancies between methodological documents and the way the quantification of environmental issues occurs. Therefore, his research moves between STS, environmental sociology and the sociology of quantification.

As part of his research, Ballesteros employed ethnographic methods which included two participant observations. The first observation (Sep 2018 – Jan 2019) was at the Uppsala University Department of Peace and Conflict Research during the production of the Violence Early Warning System (ViEWS). While working as Visiting Researcher, he focused on a sub-project aiming to forecast the probability of conflict due to climate change-related droughts. The second participant observation (February - June 2019) was conducted during the production of the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy (YCELP). A worldwide benchmarking tool focused on ranking environmental policy implementation at the national level.

Ballesteros was previously a visiting Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany.