Annalisa Butticci - Visiting Scholar

Annalisa Butticci received her MA in Political Science from the University of Padua (Italy) and her Ph.D in Sociology and Methodology for Social Science Research from the Catholic University of Milan (Italy). Her Ph.D thesis, titled “Gender, Ethnicity and Social Inequalities in the Ethnographic Research”, represents her intellectual, sociological and methodological reflection on the politics of social research on migration and ethnic minorities. The study focuses on the role of gender, ethnicity and class in the social research process. Using a narrative and biographical approach and the theoretic perspective of constructivism, critical theory, feminism, and postcolonial studies, the research analyzes the outcomes of her fieldwork (22 biographical interviews with African women and men living in Italy) underscoring how, when, and where gender, ethnicity/race, and social inequalities can be assumed as analytic and interpretative categories in the analysis of life stories.

Her main areas of interest include migrations, gender, religion, interethnic-interracial and interreligious relations, social research methods in particular biographies and life stories. Most of her research focus on the multiple aspects and features of the African Diasporas reinterpreted and conditioned by the social, political, economical, religious and cultural Mediterranean context. Her recent research include a study on the West African Pentecostal Diaspora in Italy, on intercultural practices of parenting and child care, and on the Issue of Human Rights and Female Genital Mutilation within the African immigrant communities.

Other research include interracial and interreligious marriages in Italy and Europe, Social, economic and spatial segregation of African immigrants in the European cities, and Child migration from east Europe and Africa.