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Martina Locorotondo is undertaking her PhD in the Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) at the Department of Politics, People and Place. 

Her PhD project intersects the areas of Critical Urban Studies, Grassroots Social Movements and the Commons. Specifically, it looks at the processes of urban transformation in Naples between neoliberal urbanisation and the alternative of the Freed urban Spaces. Those latter are being analysed in their everyday practices through ethnographic and participatory methodologies. 

The Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA)

Book chapter

Cirillo R. and Locorotondo M. (2021) Making Community in a Time of Social Distancing: An Auto-Narration Enquiry into La Tela, in Cirillo R. and De Tullio M.F. (eds.)  “Healing culture, reclaiming commons, fostering care”, Cultural Creative Spaces & the City, Italian Institute For The Future ().

Blog post

Locorotondo, M. (2020) El Cambalache – connecting decolonialism, diverse economies and intersectional feminism in Chiapas, Mexico. [Online] Centre for Urban Research on Austerity. Available at: .

Non-academic

Locorotondo, M. (2018) Tracce di Storia a Porto M, Alias, Il Manifesto, 18.08.2018.  

• Urban Studies
• Touristification and Urban Transformation Processes
• Urban Commons and Social Movements
• (others) Art History, Grassroots Art and Museum Studies 

Introduction to Globalisation (seminars, Â鶹ƵµÀ, 2020)

Cities’ Touristification (guest lecture, University of Manchester, 2021)

- BA Art History
- MA Contemporary Art History
- MA Museum Studies

‘Ethnographic research on self-governing communities in shared urban spaces: The urban commons in Naples’, at the Interdisciplinary Research Student Conference, Centre for Law, Justice and Society (CLJS), Â鶹ƵµÀ, 8^th of November 2021.

‘New Municipalist Naples: a case study between the urban commons and the local government’, as part of the panel ‘Beyond “new municipalism”: state-social movement relations towards state transformation?’, at the PAC 2021 Annual Conference ‘How Place Matters? Leadership, Governance & Public Administration’ at the Local Governance Research (LGRC), Â鶹ƵµÀ, 7^th and 8^th of September 2021. 

‘La Tela: Resisting Isolation Through The Arts in “Common”’, at ‘Contemporary Issues in Participant Geographies: Challenges, Opportunities and New Directions’, held by PYGYRG, Royal Geographical Society with IBG, 13^th and 14^th of May 2021.

‘El Cambalache: a Decolonial Feminist Economy in San Cristobal de Las Casas (Chiapas, Mexico)’, at ‘Gender, Equality and Voice’, New Directions in Media and Sociology Research, University of Leicester, 18^th of September 2020.

‘PortoM in Opposition to the Category of the Migration Museum: A denial of the Museum in A Postcolonial Perspective’, at ‘Museums (em)Power, A Multidisciplinary Conference on Art and Cultural Institutions’,  School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester, 13^th and 14^th of September 2018.

Title

Crafting a Common City: Experimental Community Practices and the Construction of the Freed Urban Space in Naples

Abstract

Martina's PhD project investigates the urban dynamics in Naples as a contested arena between processes of touristification/privatisation/housing financialisation and the experimentation of the commons. Her focus is on the political, social and cultural practices developed by a network of grassroots organisations called “Spazi Liberati” (Freed Spaces) and how those are shaping the urban space from below by building concrete alternatives to neoliberal urbanism. In order to answer to her research questions, Martina is adopting participant and ethnographic methodologies and a Decolonial Feminist theoretical standpoint. 

Dr Adam Fishwick (first supervisor), Professor Julia J.A. Shaw (second supervisor)