I am an economic sociologist with over a decade of experience at world-class institutions – including Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy), Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and University College London (UK). I am currently Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures (Censof) at the University of Bristol.

My interdisciplinary research is situated at the intersection of economic sociology, the critique of political economy, and critical social theory. It centres on the urgent need to envision alternatives to contemporary capitalism and to drive transitions toward more just, equitable, and sustainable futures. My work is inspired by, and engages with, prominent contemporary thinkers in what can be called the field of ‘capitalism studies’ such as Nancy Fraser, Silvia Federici, Stefania Barca, Jason Moore, Cornel West, and Erik Olin Wright, among many others. These scholars share a commitment to ‘de-orthodoxifying’ the understanding of the long history of capitalism by uncovering its underlying conditions of possibility: gendered care work and social reproduction, primitive accumulation of natural resources, exploitation and wealth extraction, and economic influence over democratic political processes.

My research complements this vibrant field of scholarship by going beyond the critique and focusing on how imaginaries of alternative futures are prefigured, contested, and negotiated vis-à-vis contemporary capitalism by various social actors. I have pursued this agenda as a EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow on my project EcoLabSS – Ecovillages as Laboratories of Sustainability and Social Change – and as co-founder, since 2017, of the international research network Alternatives to Capitalism at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), the leading professional organisation in the field of socio-economics.

My work has been published (or is forthcoming) in journals such as Acta Politica, Thesis Eleven, The Sociological Review, TripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Organisation Studies, and many others. My publications on prefigurative politics, among which the edited volume “The Future is Now. An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics” (2022; 2024 Bristol University Press), are widely cited and considered key references for scholars working on alternative organisations, social change, social movement studies, and capitalism studies.

Furthermore, I am co-editor of the book series Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century at Bristol University Press where, together with Dr Torsten Geelan, we have curated the publication of several monographs and edited volumes on topics such as food democracy, radical municipalism, democratic planning, alternative currencies, intentional communities, and digital commons.

I enjoy and I am often invited to deliver public lectures and keynotes within and outside academia. For example, I have delivered guest lectures and talks for the European Sociological Association, the Academy of Management, the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies in Lund (Sweden), the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies on the Futures of Sustainability in Hamburg (Germany), but also for think-tanks and advocacy groups such as Rethinking Economics, the Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), and ATTAC Italia, among many others.

You can browse my detailed CV here.