dr. S (Sven) da Silva
Postdoctoral researcherFollow me:
I was born in the Netherlands and raised in Aruba, known as “One Happy Island.” I even played in the national youth football team. However, when I realized that I wouldn’t become a professional football player, I shifted from chasing a ball to chasing social justice. I decided to study International Development at Wageningen UR. For my Master’s thesis, I conducted ethnographic research at the neighborhood level in Recife, Brazil during the 2014 FIFA Football World Cup. I later expanded this analysis to the city level during my PhD research at Radboud University Nijmegen. My research focused on how marginalized groups fight for their right to the city, with a specific emphasis on community leaders involved in an internationally lauded slum upgrading program. Currently, I am working as a postdoctoral researcher within the POPULAR project at the SDC Group, where I am studying the “politics of the periphery” in the city of Medellín, Colombia.