Tell us about yourself: where do you come from, what do you teach at Ca' Foscari University, what are your interests and areas of Research?
I was born in Verona following my parents' 'internal migration', but I would never call myself a Verona native. My family is first and foremost of Friulian origin, and then Venetian, as my surname suggests.
I am a sociologist: for the time being, I teach Methodology of Social Research (mainly ethnographic and qualitative) and Sociology of Migration (or, rather, I have taught several courses dealing with different aspects of migration, especially international migration). My current research interests are related to migration, precisely, families, inequalities, racism, labour transformations, urban contexts and, more generally, social change.
What is your academic background?
After graduating in Literature with a thesis on sociological analysis of media representations of Arab populations in the Italian press, I completed a Master’s Degree Programme in 'Immigration: Migration Phenomena and Social Transformations' at Ca' Foscari University. This was a deeply transformative experience for me, which made me (even more) passionate about social research and critical sociology. Despite this, I was not planning to pursue academic research; in fact, thanks also to the Master’s Degree I had obtained, I started working in the field of social work and in the third sector with immigrant users.
Only a few years later, I undertook and completed a PhD in Social Sciences in Padua, with a thesis that spanned migration studies and gender studies.
Subsequently, I experienced the precarious path of academic research, with contracts and research grants – mainly in Padua and Ca' Foscari University, but also doing research in Sussex, England, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Dhaka, Bangladesh – until I finally got to my current – somewhat more stable – position at DFBC.
Did you always think this was your path?
No, as can be seen from my non-linear career. I only realised 'along the way' that I wanted to dedicate myself to research.
Initially, I also thought that my background in the humanities would be an obstacle and a limitation for a career as a sociologist, but then I realised that this background could provide me with unusual sensitivity and a clear view of social reality. My work experience in the third sector also turned out to be a very useful background.
What is the aspect you are most passionate about in your field of research?
I am fascinated by being able to unravel the mechanisms whereby the social world works, in the knowledge that I am part of it and, therefore, a subject of it, that I am produced and reproduced by it, but also, in some way, a protagonist and potential agent – albeit limitedly and certainly not individually – of change.
Sociology and social research, if practised with a critical approach – which, from my point of view, the social sciences cannot avoid taking – provide the tools to advance a critique of the profoundly unequal and unjust social world; they enable us, on the one hand, to grasp the forms of domination, inequalities and contradictions that run through society, revealing, that is, dimensions of social reality that are 'normally' all the more invisible and effective the more taken-for-granted; on the other hand, they help us to understand our own biographical path, our own habitus and our own positioning in the world. That is, they enable us to grasp the forms of domination, inequalities, contradictions, revealing, that is, dimensions of social reality that are 'normally' all the more effective the more invisible, embedded, given-for-granted.
One must be aware, however, that bringing to light stakes, positioning and contradictions can entail risks and even unpleasant consequences, both in everyday life and in relationships.
Finally, what fascinates me about this field of research is being able to understand how the social structure models, influences and falls on the everyday life and trajectories of subjects, i.e., being able to relate the macro dimension to the micro dimension, the objective dimension to the subjective dimension, the structural dimension to the 'individual' dimension.
What is the field that you have always wanted to deal with but have not yet had the opportunity to explore?
I would like to deal with social conflict in a broader and deeper sense; I am interested in the different forms that the clash between classes takes, i.e., between capital and labour, and with the intersection between the international and social divisions of labour.
In addition to this very broad topic, I would also like to develop some unrelated specific research projects which I have not yet had the opportunity to develop, namely the dynamics of transculturation and intercultural everyday practices taking shape around the eastern border; the experiences and processes of post-earthquake reconstruction in Italy of the distant past, recent past and present. I would also like to have – or to create – other opportunities to combine the language of comics with the social sciences.
At the moment, I am working with some colleagues on research into two areas, that of workers in the 'digitised' service industry and that around the construct of 'migratory stratification' that I recently coined.
What are your professional reference points?
I was a pupil of Pietro Basso, first, and Franca Bimbi, later on; they have both contributed from different perspectives to my sociological posture and training.
Consequently, if I were to think of my theoretical references in a broad sense, I would say Marxist (or, better, Marxian) analysis and Bourdieusian sociology; if, on the other hand, I were to name a few sociologists of reference, I would say Pierre Bourdieu, Wright Mills, Abdelmalek Sayad and Loïc Wacquant.
What have been your greatest professional satisfactions?
Surely the ones yet to come.
Amongst the things I have accomplished, on the other hand, I would say becoming part of the staff of Ca' Foscari University’s Master’s Degree Programme on Immigration; producing a sociological comic book; being appreciated by colleagues whom I consider quite authoritative, but above all by many students and social workers.
What is your message to young people approaching research today?
I would like to warn them about the job and existential precariousness that research entails, as a reflection of the precariousness of all aspects of society. However, if they are really determined, I suggest that they be tenacious, gritty, 'stubborn', and that they devote themselves to research with passion and dedication, focusing on the quality of their work; by doing so, results and achievements will follow. I would also like to remind them that doing quality social research implies adopting a critical perspective, since limiting oneself to the mere description of the social world means not doing a good service to oneself, sociology or knowledge.