Research: Tracing Nonviolence in the Mediterranean: From a Polysemic Idea to Prefigurative Politics
Virginia Fiume is a PhD Researcher in Peace Studies at Sapienza University of Rome, where she is conducting the project "Tracing Nonviolence in the Mediterranean: From a Polysemic Idea to Prefigurative Politics." Her interdisciplinary research based on a qualitative approach aims at a new theorization of nonviolence specific to the Mediterranean region, studying how nonviolence as an idea has transformed the narratives and practices of different social movements between 1970 and today. .
Her work merges academic research with two decades of practical experience in democracy and civil rights activism.
From September 2023 to June 2024, she served as a Policy Leader Fellow at the School of Transnational Governance of the European University Institute (EUI). Her project focused on the political-digital ecosystem and the influence of direct action and deliberative democracy on policy-making processes.
In 2019, she co-founded the pan-European citizens’ movement Eumans, where she was later elected Co-President. She coordinated numerous participatory democracy processes, including the European Citizens’ Initiative stopglobalwarming.eu, various experiments with sortition-based citizens' assemblies, and the promotion of democratic innovation in collaboration with the Citizens Take Over Europe coalition.
Her activism includes coordinating the signature collection for the Referendum on Legal Euthanasia, spearheading initiatives for digital signatures in political participation, and engaging in civil disobedience actions regarding end-of-life decisions.
Her academic background includes a BA in Modern Humanities from the University of Milan and an MA in Anthropology of Media from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, where she developed a critical perspective on agency and power dynamics. Between 2008 and 2010, she lived and worked in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a volunteer for the White Helmets Project (Corpi Civili di Pace) and later for her Master's ethnographic research. These experiences were crucial for her understanding of structural violence in the Mediterranean and the transnational dimension of solidarity movements.
Her previous professional experience is in journalism and digital media in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain.