Victor SECCO

Position
Research Grant Holder
E-mail
victor.secco@unive.it
Website
www.unive.it/people/victor.secco (personal record)
Office
Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage
Website: https://www.unive.it/dep.fbc

EDUCATION

Current - PhD in Social Anthropology – Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

  • Thesis: “Microbiology in the waters of the Ganges: a matter of life and death”
  • Supervisors: Prof Penelope Harvey and Dr Soumhya Venkatesan
  • Awarded School of Social Sciences Studentship

2018 - Master’s degree in Social Anthropology – University of Manchester, United Kingdom

  • Dissertation: “Pollution, dams, and sacred water: green and saffron politics on the Ganges River”

2013 - Masters's degree in Visual Anthropology – University of Barcelona, Spain

2011 - Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences – University of São Paulo, Brazil

 

PUBLICATIONS

Book Chapters in preparation

Secco, V.  Fluid futures: Water, religion and science in Banaras. In: Lazzaretti, V., Williams, P., Zara, C. (eds). Banaras Tense: Urban grounds and future-making in the “timeless city”. (chapter accepted)

Secco, V. Micro-biosocial diversity in the Ganges River: antibiotic modernity and the revival of phage therapy. In: Kavesh, M. and Fijn, N. (eds): Nurtining Alternative Futures: Living with Diversity in a More-than-Human World. (revised chapter submitted)

 

Book Review (forthcoming)

Secco, V. (2023). Science and Religion in India by Renny Thomas. Society and Culture in South Asia.

 

CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

2022

Defining the Human in Environmental Humanities – Venice International University

·       Paper: "Water bodies in between Homo microbis and Homo ritualis"

2021

Anthropology and Conservation - Royal Anthropological Institute

·       Paper: “Living with microbes and gods: anti and pro-biotic approaches to the Ganges River”

12th International Convention of Asia Scholars – International Institute for Asian Studies

·       Paper: “Snakes and Drains: myth, environment, and politics in Varanasi”

36th Conference of the International Society for Sociology of Religion

·       Paper: “Gangajal and bacteriophages: the Ganges at the intersection of science and religion”

15th Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore

·       Paper: “Gangajal: Human-microbe-divine relationships by the Ganges”

Waterworlding: Reflecting on Multiple Waters – University of Marburg

·       Paper: “Swimming with the trouble: science and religion in the waters of the Ganges”

2020

Durham Postgraduate Conference – University of Durham

·       Paper: “Friend or Foe: Human-Virus Relationships and Global Health”

 

UNIVERSITY TEACHING

2020- 2022 - Social Anthropology Teaching Assistant – University of Manchester, United Kingdom

  • Key Ideas in Social Anthropology
  • Introduction to Ethnographic Reading
  • Ethnographer’s Craft (Qualitative Methodology)

 

LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish, Hindi