I am a social anthropologist and Research Fellow at the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University (Germany). I am currently working on the project "Heritage as Placemaking: the Politics of Solidarity and Erasure in South Asia (2021-2025 funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), studying how heritage performance make "places" in the Kathmandu Valley and in the Janakpur area. Previously, I taught at London Metropolitan University and Ruskin College, Oxford. I have a degree in Philosophy and Modern Languages (English and French Languages and Literatures) from the University of Padua (Italy). I completed both an MA in Anthropology of Development (2001) and a PhD in Social Anthropology (2010) at SOAS, focusing on how the arts, and theatre in particular, can create spaces for social transformation in social and political movements as well as through international development projects.

My research focuses on the anthropology of theatre and performance, art and activism, cultural labour, social and labour movements, community mobilisation through cultural performances, gender and sustainable development. I'm also interested in religion, traditional and alternative healing, critical theory, research methods, in particular ethnography, participatory and arts-based research. I have also worked as a development adviser for INGOs in Nepal, focusing on community participation and social inclusion (agriculture, health, education) and in project monitoring and evaluation in South Asia. I have published on theatre and international development and political-cultural work in Nepal.

Italian (native), English (fluent), French and Nepal (intermediate). I occasionally translate English > Italian.