I am currently an Associate Professor at the University of Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy at the Department of Literature, Languages, and Cultural Heritage.

I have an interdisciplinary training and research background encompassing social research and media and visual studies.

Expertise and Methods

My work focused on Identity and Heritage, specifically around the relations between identity, the media, and visual, material, and performance cultures.

My research areas are media production, tourism, and cultural institution and industries. I am particularly interested in constructions and expressions of nationhood, regionalism, and ethnicity. I am also interested in the anthropology and social practices of play, both new and traditional.

I specialise in qualitative social research, with an emphasis on fieldwork, and in inter- and trans-disciplinary research methodologies.

My recent research includes: an iconographic and ethnographic study of Greco-Roman antiquity and its roles in Calabria, Italy; an edited collection about the media representations of Italy and its ‘Souths’; an ongoing social inquiry into Italian and British identities at home and abroad. I am also conducting studies on traditional and digital play practices and on festivals and processions in England and Italy.

Research Interests

  • Performance, Play, and Ritual
  • National and Regional Identities and Industries
  • Heritage, Public Histories, and Tourism
  • Geography, Myth, and Folklore
  • Visual and Material Cultures
  • Traditional and Digital Games
  • Methodology, Epistemology, and Interdisciplinary Research
  • Belief, Experience, and Spirituality

Fieldwork

  • Italy
    • Calabria
    • Sardinia
  • England
    • Folk festivals
    • Italians in the UK

Recent & Current Projects

  • My monograph Geographies of Myth and places of Identity (2022) investigates the social impact of the historical narratives of Great Greece and Homeric Geographies on the representations, tourism policies, and local historiographies of Calabria, Italy (2022).
  • In 2022 I began a pilot study titled Across the Channel (supported by Brunel’s Institute of Communities and Society) which is now aiming to explore the experiences of Italians and British-Italians historically and in the post-Brexit.
  • Since 2023 I have been conducting a study on Masked Festivals in the United Kingdom and Europe.
  • I have contributed to a Brunel Interdisciplinary Research Group (BRIL) on the social reception of Lab-Grown Meats (2022).

Research Output – Publications and Talks

Research History

I obtained a BA and MAs in Communication Sciences & Publishing (Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna & SSSUB / Centro Studi Internazionale Umberto Eco). Due to an interest in heritage discourses I then received my PhD in Intercultural Studies from University College London (Centre for Multicultural and Intercultural Inquiry).

My PhD research was supervised by Professors Maria Wyke and Charles Stewart at UCL. In it, I focused on the reception of Greek antiquity in the present. The project blended media analysis, archival work, and ethnographic research in heritage and tourism sites in Calabria, formerly part of ancient Greater Greece. From an initial iconographic and textual approach, fieldwork inspired a substantial shift to ethnographic methods and a focus on matters of social and political relevance in social context. My monograph Geographies of Myth was published in 2022.

Since then I have been focusing on heritage and memory as well as regionalism and nationhood, in areas such as tourism, the cultural industries, and civic and institutional groups. I also worked on the representations of Italian cultures at home and abroad. As part of this interest I joined the activies of SIAC – Società Italiana di Antropologia Culturale.

While completing my PhD, I taught media and cultural studies at various institutions, including University College London and the University of the Arts (LCC & CSM). Overall, my previous and current research has looked at Identity in areas such as heritage and historical reception, youth subcultures, pornography and the monstrous, national media industries, gender studies, & animal representation. I have also been active in the study of play and games, also as a Founding Member and Managing Editor of independent, peer-reviewed journal GAME.

At Brunel University (2019-2024) my work shifted towards developing expertise in research methodologies and convening collaborative and interdisciplinary research projects.

At the University of Cagliari, I am looking forward to further pursuing my interests in the study of heritage processes, identity, play, and the societal dimensions of media.