Dr Giovanni Picker

Senior Lecturer (Sociological & Cultural Studies)

telephone: +44(0)1413301774
email: Giovanni.Picker@glasgow.ac.uk

Biography

I am currently a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Sociology. I received my Ph.D. in Sociology and Comparative Urban Studies from Milan-Bicocca University (2009), and a B.A. + M.A. (Laurea) in Political Sciences and Cultural Sociology from the State University of Milan (2004).

Research interests

As an ethnographer interested in urban life, politics, the economy, and culture, I draw on combinations of participant observation and archival research to examine dominant logics and shared understandings of belonging, moral worth, incorporation, and exclusion. I am particularly interested in race as a logic of social organization, and the ways in which various forms of racism play out at the intersections of everyday life and urban politics.

Since 2003, I have empirically researched these social phenomena in a number of cities in Kosovo, Romania, Italy, France, the UK and Germany.

In 2017, I published Racial Cities: Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe [Routledge]. Drawing on ten years of historical and ethnographic research, this monograph explains the emergence and persistence of segregated residential areas in European cities that are typically stigmatized as "G***y neighborhoods".

I also have co-edited six thematic collections focusing on the relationships between urban spaces, the state and everyday forms of domination, with the aim of critically broadening theoretical horizons and decentering typically Western-oriented perspectives. Two of the most recent jointly edited collections are the following:

Racialized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism [Palgrave, 2018], edited with Enikő Vincze, Norbert Petrovici, and Cristina Raţ. A series of empirical and theoretical studies that critically examine the emergence and persistence of impoverished areas on the outskirts of Romanian cities since the late 1980s.

European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism [Manchester University Press, 2022], edited with Noa K. Ha. A collection that organically rethinks European urban modernity by incorporating various combinations of global urban studies and postcolonial, decolonial and race critical theories from different historical perspectives.

I currently am writing a monograph focusing on European urbanism as constitutive of the global history of race. The project develops a socio-historical framework for examining the highly diverse and often undiscussed racial aspects of 21st century European urban societies in order to more comprehensively address social inequalities in Europe and beyond.

Related research interests

Ethnographic/Sociographic theory and writing styles
Anthropology of policy
Global and European histories of the Left
Theory and history of Socialism and Postsocialism

Research groups

Sociology

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2022 | 2021 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2006 | 2005

Number of items: 48.

2025

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2025) Planning a European racial city: dealing (with) dread in 21st-Century Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 49(2), pp. 358-75. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.13297)

2024

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2024) Urban revolutions: urbanisation and (neo-)colonialism in transatlantic context , by Stefan Kipfer, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2022, 324 pp., £112.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9789004524903. Ethnic and Racial Studies, (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2024.2348719)[Book Review]

2022

Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2022) European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester. ISBN 9781526158437

Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2022) Introduction: rethinking the European urban. In: Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni (eds.) European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester, pp. 1-34. ISBN 9781526158437

2021

Ghebremariam Tesfau', Mackda and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2021) The Italian postracial archive. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(2), pp. 195-214. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1730924)

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2021) Racist morbidities: a conjunctural analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic. European Societies, 23(sup1), S307-S320. (doi: 10.1080/14616696.2020.1825767)

2019

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2019) Special Issue: Racial and Post-racial Senses of Place. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 39(11/12) [Edited Journal]

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Race and place. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 39(11/12), pp. 913-922. (doi: 10.1108/IJSSP-10-2019-0203)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Sovereignty beyond the state: exception and informality in a Western European city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 43(3), pp. 576-581. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.12704)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (Eds.) (2019) Racial Urbanities: Toward A Global Cartography. Social Identities. [Edited Journal]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (2019) Racial urbanities: towards a global cartography. Social Identities, 25(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.1080/13504630.2017.1418606)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Anti-gitanismo, conocimiento racial y amnesia colonial. Sociología Histórica, 10(1), pp. 237-246.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Vivaldi, Elisabetta (2019) Racial segregation: camps for Roma and slums in Italy. In: Cortés Gómez, Ismael and End, Markus (eds.) Dimensions of Antigypsyism in Europe. Series: ENAR Anti-Racism in Focus, 3. European Network Against Racism aisbl (ENAR) and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma: Brussels, Belgium, pp. 180-197. ISBN 9782960130829

2018

Vincze, Enikő, Petrovici, Norbert, Raț, Cristina and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2018) Racialized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism. Series: Neighborhoods, communities and urban marginality. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham. ISBN 9783319762722

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2018) Conclusion: (re)centring labour, class, and race. In: Vincze, Enikő, Petrovici, Norbert, Raț, Cristina and Picker, Giovanni (eds.) Radicalized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism. Series: Neighborhoods, communities and urban marginality. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 207-226. ISBN 9783319762722 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-76273-9_8)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2018) Kristina Graaf and Noa Ha (eds). 2015. Street Vending in the Neoliberal City: A Global Perspective on the Practices and Policies of a Marginalized Economy. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Urbanities, 8(1), pp. 80-81. [Book Review]

2017

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Social inclusion/exclusion. In: Turner, Bryan S., Chang, Kyung-sup, Epstein, Cynthia F., Kvisto, Peter, Ryan, J. Michael and Outhwaite, William (eds.) The Wiley Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Series: Wiley Blackwell encyclopedias in social sciences (2908). Wiley-Blackwell: West Sussex, United Kingdom. ISBN 9781118430866 (doi: 10.1002/9781118430873.est0532)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Post-socialist Europe and its “Constitutive Outside”: ethnographic resemblances for a comparative research agenda. In: Krase, Jerome and Uherek, Zdeněk (eds.) Diversity and Local Contexts: Urban Space, Borders, and Migration. Series: Palgrave studies in urban anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 39-53. ISBN 9783319539515 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-53952-2_3)

Pasquetti, Silvia and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2017) Confined Informality: Global Margins, Statecraft, and Urban Life. International Sociology. 32(4) [Edited Journal]

Pasquetti, Silvia and Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Urban informality and confinement: toward a relational framework. International Sociology, 32(4), pp. 532-544. (doi: 10.1177/0268580917701605)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Rethinking ethnographic comparison: two cities, five years, one ethnographer. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 46(3), pp. 263-284. (doi: 10.1177/0891241614548105)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Racial Cities: Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe. Series: Routledge advances in sociology. Routledge: London ; New York. ISBN 9781138808782

2016

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2016) ‘That neighbourhood is an ethnic bomb!’ The emergence of an urban governance apparatus in Western Europe. European Urban and Regional Studies, 23(2), pp. 136-148. (doi: 10.1177/0969776413502659)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2016) Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian G. Shuttleworth, and David W. Wong (eds), Social-spatial segregation. Concepts, processes and outcomes. Urban Research and Practice, 9(2), pp. 226-228. (doi: 10.1080/17535069.2016.1190511)[Book Review]

2015

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Pasquetti, Silvia (Eds.) (2015) Durable Camps: The State, the Urban, the Everyday. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action. 19(5) [Edited Journal]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2015) Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Urban Studies, 52(9), pp. 1742-1745. (doi: 10.1177/0042098015580755)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Greenfields, Margaret and Smith, David (2015) Colonial refractions: the ‘Gypsy camp’ as a spatio-racial political technology. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 19(5), pp. 741-752. (doi: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1071123)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Pasquetti, Silvia (2015) Durable camps: the state, the urban, the everyday. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 19(5), pp. 681-688. (doi: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1071122)

2014

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2014) Gypsies and Travellers in Housing: the Decline of Nomadism, by David Smith and Margaret Greenfields. Bristol: Policy Press, 2013. Roma Rights, 2014(1), pp. 113-114. [Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Roccheggiani, Gabriele (2014) Abnormalising minorities. The state and expert knowledge addressing the Roma in Italy. Identities, 21(2), pp. 185-201. (doi: 10.1080/1070289X.2013.854719)

2013

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) “Ţiganu-i ţigan”: verbal icons and urban marginality in a post-socialist European city. Civilisations, 62(1 & 2), pp. 51-70. (doi: 10.4000/civilisations.3271)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) Policy logic and the spatial segregation of Roma in Europe. The cases of Florence and Cluj-Napoca. In: Zincone, Giovanna and Ponzo, Irene (eds.) How European Cities Craft Immigrant Integration: Something to Learn. Foundation for European Progressive Studies, pp. 40-57. ISBN 9788889988688

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) Sedentarisation and 'the right to nomadism': the urban and regional fabric of nomad camps in Italy (1967-1995). Zeitgeschichte, 40(5), pp. 276-286.

2012

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) La biopolitica della differenza. Un'antropologia delle politiche dei campi nomadi a Firenze. DADA Rivista di Antropologia post-globale, 2(2), pp. 93-110.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century by Salvatore Palidda. Critical Sociology, 38(2), pp. 333-335. (doi: 10.1177/0896920511435762)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Left-wing progress? Neo-nationalism and the case of Romany migrants in Italy. In: Stewart, Michael (ed.) The Gypsy ‘Menace’: Populism and the New Anti-Gypsy Politics. Hurst & Co.: London, pp. 81-94. ISBN 9781849042192

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(4), pp. 780-781. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2011.639792)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Territori postcoloniali ai limiti. I campi per rom in Italia e Francia tra doxa e storia. In: Ceva, Emanuela and Galeotti, Anna Elisabetta (eds.) Lo spazio del rispetto. Series: Ricerca. Bruno Mondadori: Milano, pp. 96-121. ISBN 9788861598126

2011

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Rom e Sinti in Italia. Tra stereotipi e diritti negati, and Politiche possibili. Abitare le città con i Rom e i Sinti. Modern Italy, 16(3), pp. 398-401. (doi: 10.1080/13532944.2011.586546)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Inclusione, esclusione, enclusione. Per un'etnografia della governance di rom migranti in Italia. In: Baldin, Serena and Zago, Moreno (eds.) Il mosaico Rom: specificità culturali e governance multilivello. Series: Collana ISMU (46). Franco Angeli: Milano, pp. 77-87. ISBN 9788856844719

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Nomads’ land? Political cultures and nationalist stances vis-à-vis Roma in Italy. In: Stewart, Michael and Rövid, Márton (eds.) Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Romany Studies. Central European University Press: Budapest, pp. 211-227. ISBN 9786155053160

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Tra inclusione ed esclusione. Una storia sociale dell'educazione dei rom e dei sinti in Italia. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5), pp. 735-737. (doi: 10.1080/1354571X.2011.622488)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Welcome ‘in’. Left-wing Tuscany and Romani migrants (1987–2007). Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5), pp. 607-620. (doi: 10.1080/1354571X.2011.622469)

2010

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2010) Romani Politics in Contemporary Europe. Poverty, Ethnic Mobilization and the Neoliberal Order. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(9), pp. 1677-1679. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2010.510902)[Book Review]

2009

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2009) Inclusionary Rhetoric / Exclusionary Practices. Left-wing Politics and Migrants in Italy. Davide Però, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84545-157-8. Anthropology in Action, 16(3), pp. 69-70. (doi: 10.3167/aia.2009.160307)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2009) Inclusionary Rhetoric / Exclusionary Practices. Left-wing Politics and Migrants in Italy. Davide Però, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84545-157-8. [Italian Translation]. Studi Emigrazione, XVII(3), pp. 56-57. [Book Review]

2006

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2006) Fieldwork between distance and intimacy: reflections on a photo exhibition on the streets. Achab: Rivista di Antropologia, 9, pp. 33-42.

2005

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2005) Le due rive di Mitrovica: il ponte sul fiume Ibar/Ibër come frontiera interna. Conflitti Globali(2), pp. 119-129.

This list was generated on Fri Jul 18 12:29:40 2025 BST.

Number of items: 48.

Articles

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Anti-gitanismo, conocimiento racial y amnesia colonial. Sociología Histórica, 10(1), pp. 237-246.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2005) Le due rive di Mitrovica: il ponte sul fiume Ibar/Ibër come frontiera interna. Conflitti Globali(2), pp. 119-129.

Books

Book Sections

Book Reviews

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2009) Inclusionary Rhetoric / Exclusionary Practices. Left-wing Politics and Migrants in Italy. Davide Però, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84545-157-8. [Italian Translation]. Studi Emigrazione, XVII(3), pp. 56-57. [Book Review]

Edited Books

Edited Journals

Picker, Giovanni ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (Eds.) (2019) Racial Urbanities: Toward A Global Cartography. Social Identities. [Edited Journal]

This list was generated on Fri Jul 18 12:29:40 2025 BST.

Supervision

I am interested in connecting with students who are considering pursuing doctoral studies looking at any aspects of social inequalities, particularly with an urban focus which acknowledges the relevance of race and racism.

I am currently supervising the following PhD students:

Chase Beecroft - Race Critical Theories

Rohit Rao - Race, Schooling and Education

Concetta Smedile (University of Cordoba) - Anti-Roma Racism and Romani Activism in Sicily

Haritha Venu - Transformation and Climate Crisis in Kerala

Molina, Leslie Stephanie
The Politics of Mediating Migration Policies: Lawyers and The Racial State in Trump US and Brexit UK
Santagata, Nichelle
Black Women's Mental Health and Healing Through Autoethnography and Arts-Based Methods

Teaching

2024-2025

Global Inequalities (BA) L1 Contributor - Semester 1

Ethno-graphing Race and Racism (BA) - Semester 1

Critique and Criticism (PhD) - Semester 2

Racial Justice and the City (MA) - Semester 2

Additional information

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I am one of the regional liaisons (Central and Eastern Europe and Russia) of the Black Europe Summer School. For any information on the Summer School, feel free to email me. All details here, blackeurope.org.

More information on my work is available on my website.

Giovanni Picker

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