Department of Cultures, Politics and Society

Selected research products

Articles

M.M and Xolisa Ngubelanga. 2023. Entrance fees: Black youth and access to artistic production in Gqeberha. South Africa. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement. Vol. 16,1. DOI: 10.5130/ijcre.v16i1.8249.

M.M. 2022. L’impossible musée. Controverses et protestations autour du projet du Red Location Museum, à Port Elizabeth. Histoire urbaine, 63. DOI : 10.3917/rhu.063.0173.

M.M. 2020. The “creative township” in the post-Apartheid: globalisation, nation building or gentrification?. International Journal of Cultural Policy. 6. DOI: 10.1080/10286632.2020.1811247.

M.M. 2017. Equality without redistribution. Development politics and heritage commodification in Red Location, South Africa, Sociétés Politiques Comparées. 42, May-August. ISSN 2429-1714. http://www.fasopo.org/sites/default/files/varia2_n42.pdf

M.M. 2017. Voicing the intangible: urban development and citizens ownership strategies in Red Location. Territorio. 81. DOI: 10.3280/TR2017-081009.

Books

Carbone, G. and Montanini, M. 2015. Leoni d'Africa. Come l'Italia può intercettare la crescita Subsahariana. [African Lions. How Italy can catch the waves of African growth] Milano: Università Bocconi Editore. ISBN 9788883502170.

Carbone, G., Calchi Novati G.P., Bruno, G. and Montanini, M. 2013. Scommettere sull’Africa emergente. Opportunità e scenari della presenza italiana in Africa Subsahariana. Milano: ISPI. ISBN: 978-88-909499.

Book chapters

(forthcoming) MM e Dansero, E. 2024. Addressing knowledge production inequalities in university international cooperation projects: bridging the gap between decolonial thinking and university praxis. In De Simone, S. e Pezzano, A (eds.). Academic Knowledge, International Cooperation and African Societies. Napoli: Unior.

(forthcoming) MM and Leon Tsambu. 2024. Producing the urban: how Kinshasa groove factories reinvent the megacity. In Jedlowski, A., Bono, I. (eds.), Nation on Demand: Imagined Sovereignties in African Cultural Industries.

(forthcoming) Bignante, E e MM. 2024. La partecipazione nella cooperazione internazionale: teorie, pratiche, orizzonti. In Elisa Bignante, Valerio Bini, Isabella Giunta, Paola Minoia (eds.), Geografie della cooperazione internazionale, Torino : UTET.

M.M. 2017. Planning the intangible: urban development and ownership strategies in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth. In A. Gussman and C. Pennacini (eds.). Urban Africa, l’Africa delle città. Torino: Accademia University Press.

Calchi Novati , G. and Montanini, M. 2016. Energy and the regional players: the odd rivalry between Eu and China in Africa’, in J. Godzimirski (ed.). EU Leadership in Energy and Environmental Governance. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

M.M. 2012. Bernard Lewis e Edward Said, chi aveva ragione? [Bernard Lewis and Edward Said, who was right?]. in Calchi Novati, G.(ed.). Verso un nuovo Orientalismo. Roma: Carocci.

Working papers/policy briefs/reports

(forthcoming) M.M. and Leon Tsambu. 2024. Les ateliers du groove de Kinshasa entre création, innovation et enracinement. Working paper, Agence Français de Développement (AFD).

Servillo, L., M.M., Mangione, E. Postiglione, M. e Grasso, G.. 2023. Vivere, convivere, far vivere la notte a Torino. Analisi, scenari strategici e proposte per una governance partecipata delle aggregazioni notturne. Report finale del progetto "Mover la Movida", Full, Polito.

M.M and Leon Tsambu. 2022. Produire Kinshasa : réinventer la ville par son industrie musicale. Research report produced for the Agence Français de Développement (AFD).

M.M. 2018. Mitigazione del rischio e preparazione nei progetti di mobilità studentesca [Risk mitigation and training in student mobility projects]. Department of Cultures, Politics and Society. Internal report.

Calchi Novati, G. and Montanini, M. 2015. Eds. La Nigeria in Africa e la politica dell’Italia [Nigeria in the African context and the Italian politics]. Milano: ISPI.

Montanini, M. and Varvelli, A. 2014. How does Mediterranean Instability Affect the EU’s Security and Energy Policy?. Policy Brief, GR:EEN. https://cris.unu.edu/how-does-mediterranean-instability-affect-eus-security-and-energy-policy.

Frappi, C. and Montanini, M. 2014. How does China’s thirst for oil and gas impact on EU's energy policies? The Africa and Central Asia test cases. Policy Brief, GR:EEN. https://cris.unu.edu/how-does-chinas-thirst-oil-and-gas-impact-eus-energy-policies-africa-and-central-asia-test-cases.

M.M. 2013. Supporting tertiary education, enhancing economic development. ISPI Working Paper. 49. https://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/wp_50_africa_2013.pdf.

Carbone, G., Bruno, G.P., Calchi Novati, G.P. and Montanini, M. 2013. La politica dell’Italia in Africa (Italian politics towards Africa), for the Italian Ministry of foreign affairs (MAE). Milano: ISPI. ISBN 978-88-909499. https://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/pubblicazioni/rapporto_ispi-mae_litalia_in_africa_0.pdf

Encyclopedic entries

Atlante Geopolitico Treccani, 2016. Entries of Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Africa and South Sudan.

Atlante Geopolitico Treccani. 2015. Subsaharan Africa: entries of all countries, in collaboration with ISPI team.

Research topics

Current project (MSCA Global Fellowship: from 01/01/2024 to 31/12/2026)

The proposed research explores the day-to-day relationships that have developed between South African researchers and social movements from the last years of Apartheid (1980-) to the present, in order to understand how these relationships have given rise to distinctive forms of collaboration, based on shared knowledge production and plural understanding of societal problems, which have underpinned pioneering action-research projects, and which are still at the hearth of South African transformative research praxis.

Drawing on extensive archival research, narrative interviews and participant observation, TiR will provide an in-depth ethnographic and historical analysis of the debates, relational modes and research methods that shaped the collaboration between researchers and movements in Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB), South Africa, and will create an original Repository of Transformative Research Practices.

Based on collected data, and using elicitation and performative techniques, South African researchers and members of social movements will be involved in a self-reflective practice focused on their personal and collective experience. This practice will be the starting point of a process of collective writing that will translate the salient elements of South African transformative research praxis into ethical and methodological guidelines. By sharing and discussing these guidelines with Italian academic community and social movements, TiR aims to foster a dialogue on research-movement collaboration in order to innovate transformative research praxis in Europe and beyond. The ER will learn-through-research and strengthen the theoretical and methodological knowledge on participatory and performative action research at Nelson Mandela University, NMB (South Africa) and UNITO, Turin (Italy), and will receive training in visual methods and in participatory video making through a secondment to the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester (UK).

Academic bodies

• Consiglio di Dipartimento