Dr Giovanni Picker
- Lecturer in the Sociology of Inequalities (Sociology)
telephone:
+44(0)1413301774
email:
Giovanni.Picker@glasgow.ac.uk
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139Biography
I am currently a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Sociology of Inequalities. 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 ethnography 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 2005, 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.
My current book project develops a socio-historical framework to examine the diverse and often undiscussed racial aspects of 21st century European urban societies in order to more radically 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
Grants
2023 | International Partnership Development Fund -- University of Glasgow College of Social Sciences + School of Social and Political Sciences.
2016 | 2-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (European Commision). University of Birmingham School of Sociology, Criminology and Social Policy, UK.
2015 | 2-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie Co-Fund BRAIN Fellowship (European Commision). European University Viadrina, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Frankfurt(Oder), Germany (reduced to 18 months).
2014 | 6-month Junior Research Fellowship. Central European University Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest, Hungary.
2012 | 1-year Postdoctoral Fellowship. Higher School of Economics, Department of Sociology, Moscow, Russia.
2011 | 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship. ISPMN - Institute for the Study of National Minorities, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Supervision
I am interested in connecting with students who are considering pursuing doctoral studies under my supervision, looking at any aspects of social inequalities, particularly with an urban focus that considers the intersections between cities and race.
I am currently supervising the following six PhD students:
Chase Beecroft - Race Critical Theories
Leslie Molina - The Racial State and Migration in the US and the UK
Rohit Rao (CoSS) - Race and Education
Concetta Smedile (Cordoba) - Anti-Roma Racism and Romani Activism in Sicily
- Santagata, Nichelle
Mental Healthcare System Disparities: Black Communities Within the United Kingdom - Venu, Haritha
Climate Crisis: Kerala's Subaltern as a case study
Teaching
2023-2024
Global Inequalities (BA) Contributor - Semester 1
Critique and Criticism (PhD) - Semester 1
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 contact persons (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.
I am part of The NYI Global Institute of Cultural, Cognitive, and Linguistic Studies.
In Winter-Spring 2022, I was Visiting Researcher at the TU-Berlin Center for Metropolitan Studies.
I am a member of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 21 on Urban and Regional Development, and Research Committee 05 on Racism, Nationalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity.
More information on my work is available on my website.
