Research group

Francesca Forno holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Strathclyde (UK). She is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. Her interests include sustainable consumption and political consumerism. A special focus in these areas is on the consequences of the spread of market-based forms of action for citizens’ participation and mobilisation. She has published papers on civic participation and social movements, conducting research on political consumerism, collaborative consumption, grassroots initiatives on social eco-innovation and alternative food networks. Her work has appeared in journals including the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the Journal of Consumer Culture, the International Journal of Consumer Studies, South European Politics and Society and the British Food Journal, as well as in collections of essays published by Oxford University Press, Wiley-Blackwell and Zed Books.
Natalia Magnani holds a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. She is an Assistant Professor in Environmental Sociology and Urban/Rural Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. Her research interests include energy transition, energy communities, sustainable development and environmental conflicts. On these issues she has published various articles in internationally renown journals such as Energy Policy, Energy Research & Social Science, Energy, Journal of Rural Studies, Organization & Environment in addition to books and book chapters.
Margherita Brunori is an Assistant Professor in Agriculture and Food Law at the University of Brescia, Department of Law, Italy. She holds a degree in law and a PhD in ‘Politics, Human Rights and Sustainability’, obtained at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna with a thesis on the emerging international standards on access to land and security of tenure and the role of soft law in the UN system. Her research interests are Agriculture and Food Law, Natural Resources Governance, Human Rights and Corporate Responsibility. She has worked on the participatory dimension of the right to adequate food and access to natural resources, and currently follows a project on socio-technical innovations in European food systems.
Alice Dal Gobbo is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento (Italy). She has completed her PhD at Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. She is interested in ecology and socio-economic transitions in the context of current transformations of the capitalist system. Her approach brings together theoretical reflections around value, life and new-materialist understandings of socio-ecological collectives with the (methodological) search for new ways of studying and conceptualizing them. Particularly interested in subjectivity and the ways systemic dynamics are embodied in day-to-day life, much of her investigations have approached environmentally relevant everyday practices through an analytical lens drawing on neo-Marxist, eco-feminist and new materialist approaches.
Mattia Andreola is a Ph.D. student in Agrifood and Environmental Sciences at Trento University. He earned a master’s degree in Sociology and Social Research in 2020 at the same University. During his internship and his Master Thesis, he participated in the institutional project “Nutrire Trento”, where he has developed his interests in the field of sociology of food and agriculture.
Michela Giovannini is a postdoctoral researcher in the framework of the project FOOdIVERSE. She holds a PhD in Local Development and Global Dynamics at the University of Trento (2014). Her main studies focused on social and solidarity economy organizations in Latin America (Mexico, Chile), and Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal). She won a Marie Sklodowska Curie individual Fellowship at the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Social Economy at the University of Liège (Belgium). She also collaborated with Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises) and participated in several international projects. Her research interests include social and solidarity economy, indigenous peoples’ organizations, social movements, local development.