Research: Urban spaces between heterotopias and geographies of solidarity
Rossana Capobianco received her bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Bologna and her master's degree in Philosophical Sciences from the same university, with a thesis entitled “Embodying the Norm. Gender, intersectionality, identity” with supervisor Prof. Sandro Mezzadra.
She carried out thesis research at the Centro de Estudos Sociais (CES) of the University of Coimbra, participating in the “(De)Othering” project. She was also awarded Erasmus+ scholarships at Universidad Complutense de Madrid and at Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, where she co-organized the “Alternatives Intersectionnelles” seminar.
After graduation she was involved in conducting archival and qualitative research on Italian migration in New York and collaborated with the association Witness to Mass Incarceration. Afterwards, she participated for a semester as an auditor at Casa de las Américas in La Habana, Cuba.
Since 2024 she is a PhD candidate in Political Studies at “La Sapienza” University of Rome.
The current research project aims to explore the role of urban space insofar as, participating in the production and reproduction of norms and power relations, it is configured as a complex space in which financial centers and dynamics of violent capitalization coexist with an increasing number of marginalized communities and minority groups. Such groups, through activities, daily practices and social relations, act as nonformal political actors, giving rise to geographies of solidarity and thus transforming the city into a site of political experimentation. On the other hand, the frequent co-option of such spaces, practices and movements by neoliberal market logics raises questions about the relationship between informality, legitimacy and institutionalization in the construction of heterodox spatial models.
Particular attention will be paid to the Ballroom Culture movement, which has contributed to the creation of private and public spaces that are able to escape structural racism and heteronormative violence by creating places of belonging for queer diasporic communities from an intersectional perspective.