Cristóbal Bonelli’s work explores imaginative and meaningful ways of fostering coexistence and intercultural communication. Through dialogues that bridge diverse disciplines and forms of knowledge, his research addresses the interconnectedness of human and non-human worlds, highlighting the importance of cultural transformation in addressing contemporary challenges. By linking relational and material dimensions of shared realities, Bonelli’s approach contributes to nurturing more thoughtful and sustainable ways of living, creating opportunities for innovation and collaboration across disciplines.

Trained as a clinical psychologist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and later specializing in systemic family therapy in Italy, Cristóbal earned a PhD in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. His career spans innovative mental health projects inspired by democratic psychiatry, as well as ethnographic research into how public health systems navigate intercultural communication and relational challenges. These experiences inform his interdisciplinary approach, which combines insights from anthropology, psychology, and science and technology studies (STS).

Currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, Cristóbal leads the ERC-funded project Worlds of Lithium. This research examines the social and material transformations driven by global decarbonization efforts, focusing on their impacts on both human and non-human lives in Chile, China, and Norway.

He also coordinates research and teaching in Sustainability, Decolonial Change and Ecological Transitions, a field dedicated to exploring how interdisciplinary collaborations and relational dialogues can reimagine ways of understanding health, sustainability, and environmental transformation, while addressing the tensions of our critical times. 

Currently, Cristobal leads the ERC project titled 'Worlds of Lithium,' (WOL) investigating the societal impacts of lithium extraction and lithium-ion batteries in global energy transition efforts. Through empirical studies in Chile, China, and Norway, the project sheds light on our  interdependence and co-constitution with these materials and technologies, exploring their transformative implications within the complexities of modern life in times of climate change.

WOL builds upon Cristobal’s previous ‘Invisible Waters’ research supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie EU programme. His ‘Invisible Waters’ Marie Curie project on groundwater practices in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, the driest desert in the world, showed the urgency to ecologically study and rethink what decarbonisation strategies entail.

Postgraduate level

• The Politics of Sustainability: Environments, Cultures, Materials /  Multispecies ecologies and Planetary Matter

Undergraduate level

• Environments, Alterities and the Anthropological Imagination / Practicing Etnography / Ethnographies and academic writing

I am also Supervisor at the Master on Cultural and Social Anthropology, at the  Research Master's in Social Sciences, at the  Master in International Development Studies and at the Master in Medical Anthropology and Sociology