Sustainable mobility is encouraged to tackle the environmental crisis in cities. However, it is largely acknowledged that men and women do not move in the same way and persistent socio-spatial constraints prevent women to be equally socially and spatially mobile. My PhD thesis wants to broaden established thinking on urban mobility, showing how and why mobility is gendered, understanding the interconnections between spatial and social mobility. It aims to reveal how everyday experiences of female mobilities modify gender and subjective identities and are a category to conceptualize how space is built, reproduced and represented. A special attention will be done to mobility behaviors within the recent transformations in the labour market, such as Remote Worker Arrangements. Through an intersectional approach the study will count on a mixed methods research methodology in Bologna. Results of the research will provide a deep understanding to rethink feminist and sustainable cities.
Keywords: urban mobility, gender, experiences, intersectionality
In Europe, the increasing concentration of students belonging to the same social or ethnic group within the same schools has led to an intensification of studies on school segregation. However, despite an increasing number of publications on the topic in Southern Europe, there are still few analyses on segregation conducted within the Italian context. Furthermore, a solid strand of research oriented to investigating the relationship between school dropout and school segregation seems not to have been developed yet. With a focus on the municipal area of Bologna, the research explores the presence and extent of school segregation in primary and low secondary schools and examines its correlation with the phenomenon of school dropout. By adopting a mixed-methods approach, the aim is to observe: (I) the characteristics of students who prefer schools in the reference school catchment area, according to their area of residence, immigrant origin, economic-cultural capital of their families, and the educational offer of each school; (II) the relationships between the levels of school segregation found and the drop-out rates of the schools studied.
Keywords: school segregation, early school leaving, Bologna, georeferenced analysis
This research examines how climate knowledge is produced and legitimized in Euro-African adaptation projects, focusing on epistemic hierarchies within participatory processes. Often framed as a purely technical issue, adaptation overlooks the epistemological dimensions and power relations inherent in knowledge production. Using the Horizon Europe ALBATROSS project as a case study and adopting an internal researcher-practitioner positioning, the study explores tensions between standardized institutional logics and the co-construction of local solutions in Madagascar. Grounded in the premise that science and social order are co-constitutive, the thesis utilizes situated qualitative methodologies (community mapping, transect walks) to analyze how data translation either reproduces asymmetries or creates agency for local knowledge. The research aims to document epistemic frictions and ongoing negotiations, ultimately contributing to more equitable and situated adaptation practices.
Keywords: co-production, climate adaptation, Madagascar, epistemic hierarchies, ALBATROSS
In Italy, renewed institutional attention to marginal territories has taken shape through the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI). However, this policy framework still presents several critical issues that have only been partially explored. First, the SNAI classification relies on a unidimensional notion of municipal marginality, defined in terms of limited access to essential services and distance from service hubs. Applied uniformly across the national territory, this approach imposes a binary centre-periphery framework whose empirical validity may vary significantly across Italian regional contexts, that are characterized by pronounced territorial and socio-economic heterogeneity. Moreover, the involvement of local communities, central in place-based approaches, remains insufficiently investigated, particularly regarding both its forms and its actual influence on the definition of development priorities. Taking Italy as a case study and adopting a mixed-methods approach, this research develops along two main lines of inquiry. On the one hand, it seeks to assess the extent to which a service-access-based understanding of marginality corresponds to a broader, multidimensional concept of territorial vulnerability. This is operationalized through indicators combined into composite indices and represented cartographically, while also testing the robustness of the centre-periphery divide along the North-South axis. On the other hand, the study examines the degree to which SNAI aligns with the place-based paradigm by analysing local community participation through a documentary analysis of preliminary drafts and final strategies produced by the 72 “project-areas” selected in the first programming cycle.
Keywords: SNAI, inner areas, territorial inequalities, participation