ALBANESE VALENTINA ERMINIA

The most recent lines of research are situated within the field of economic and political geography and are developed through critical, feminist, and decolonial approaches, adopting a comparative and international perspective. Research activities examine the processes of production, regulation, and representation of space, with a strong emphasis on gender and intersectional perspectives as key analytical lenses for understanding socio-spatial inequalities and power asymmetries across urban and territorial contexts. Within this framework, the body and movement are addressed as privileged scales of analysis through which norms, hierarchies, and power relations are spatially inscribed and negotiated in terms of access, visibility, and legitimacy. A central theoretical and methodological axis is the development of a geography of dance, conceived as a field of inquiry that investigates bodily movement and choreographic practices as spatial practices and epistemic devices. This perspective enables the analysis of how public space is regulated through gendered norms and security regimes, and how performative practices can challenge dominant spatial orders and contribute to the production of more equitable and inclusive spaces. Dance and performance are therefore examined not merely as artistic expressions, but as forms of situated action that generate spatial knowledge and make power relations materially and perceptually visible. The main areas of investigation focus on spatial justice, urban safety, and inequalities of access, visibility, and recognition, with particular attention to the lived experiences of women and marginalized subjectivities. These issues are explored through qualitative, participatory, and performative methodologies that foreground embodied experience and the collective re-signification of space. A further line of research addresses critical tourism, understood as a field of conflict and negotiation among territorial practices, imaginaries, and governance dispositifs. In this area, analyses adopt a gender-sensitive and intersectional perspective, interrogating how tourism practices and representations reproduce or contest social and spatial hierarchies. The research also integrates contributions from media and communication geographies and digital geographies, with specific attention to the role of media, digital platforms, and online environments in shaping spatial imaginaries, public participation, and feminist and intersectional forms of activism. Particular emphasis is placed on the intersections between embodied practices, digital communication, and public space, examining how media environments extend, transform, or redistribute the spatial effects of performative and collective actions. Finally, a specific line of research focuses on cultural sustainability, well-being, and events, with particular attention to food events as territorial dispositifs that connect cultural practices, social relations, and local development processes. This line of research is developed in collaboration with international research groups affiliated with the Universities of Oxford, Hertfordshire, and Gothenburg, and investigates the role of events in fostering collective well-being, social inclusion, and sustainable territorial development. Research activities are complemented by institutional engagement as co-founder of the We‑WISER Observatory, dedicated to promoting gender equity and epistemic justice within academic research.