Close-ups

Let’s talk about you: what is your background, what do you teach, and what are your research interests?
I am a native of Romagna who 'emigrated' to Emilia as an adult. I grew up in Imola, the city of the Formula 1 Grand Prix, where I went to grammar school and did a lot of youth sports such as swimming and athletics. Writing has always fascinated me, almost as much as reading. When I was 27, I moved to a town just outside Bologna, where I still live. I am interested in society and politics (even more so in policies) and I am inclined to look at the world through these lenses, although I am aware that they are not the only ones. Migration policies are where I have focused my energies since my PhD: I believe that the way migration is framed and then managed is an indicator of the fundamental values of a political and social system.

The area you have always wanted to be involved in but have not yet had the opportunity to explore?
I have always been quite versatile and curious: there are so many areas I would like to be involved in and I often get frustrated when I see the gap between the immensity of knowledge and my limited cognitive skills and energy. Ever since I was studying political science in Bologna, I have been interested in environmental and social sustainability (what was then called critical consumption). Today, this topic is finally taking on academic dignity and I hope that I can also deal with it as a scholar. Apart from social sciences, one discipline I particularly love is history and the research work of historians.

Have you always known that this was going to be your path?
Absolutely no. I started Political Science with the intention of becoming a journalist. At the time, I worked part-time at a local newspaper and this enabled me to become a freelance journalist. My parents were both teachers and the last thing I wanted was to follow in their footsteps! As soon as I graduated, I found a job in Coldiretti's press office in Bologna, but I kept in touch with the professor who had supervised my dissertation. After just over two years of immersion in the world of farming and office life, I realised that I still wanted to study. I won a PhD scholarship in Florence, and the experience of research linked to the PhD thesis clicked on what I wanted to do 'when I grew up'.

What do teaching and researching mean to you?
The meaning I attach today, after more than fifteen years of experience, to teaching and researching is certainly different from the beginning. For me, teaching has become less and less about 'flaunting' knowledge or putting myself on a virtual stage where someone is forced to listen to me. My greater maturity and experience lead me to value the chance I get in the classroom to explore social issues and problems together, to listen with interest to the students' points of view, to provide interpretative keys that are more likely to raise questions than provide answers. Research originates from and feeds on a desire to know and understand that continually spurs me on and keeps my motivation to do this work alive. Today, more than at the beginning of my career, researching also means trying to have an impact on social inequalities and injustice. I find it increasingly difficult to feel comfortable in self-contained research that does not leave academic journals or academic discussions.

What are you most passionate about in your research?
Studying society and politics means studying people and their interactions with their surroundings: for me there is nothing more exciting than trying to understand the world - and possibly improve it - by analysing how social and political actors think about reality and define problems, face conflicts and find agreement, make decisions, and put decisions into practice. More specifically, there are two aspects on which my attention always falls in the end: the relation that is created between public and private actors in tackling collective problems, and the (short-term) historical reconstruction of governance processes in order to try to understand the origin of certain ways of framing problems.