Dr Stefano Piemontese

Dr Stefano Piemontese

Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology
Research Fellow

Contact details

Address
Muirhead Tower
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Stefano Piemontese joined the Institute for Research into Superdiversity as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow working on the project Resilience and Resignation among Transnational Roma and non-Roma Youths (2019-2022). Currently, he is a Research Fellow and Member of the Executive Team for the project Improving the Living and Labour Conditions of Irregularised Migrant Households in Europe (2023-2026). His research interests are in the fields of youth, migration, race, homelessness and social movements studies. He uses ethnography as the primary approach to exploring these topics, primarily through collaborative, multimodal, and audio-visual research methods.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, 2017
  • MA in International Migration and Intercultural Relations, University of Osnabrück, 2011
  • BCs in International Studies, University of Torino, 2007

Biography

Stefano graduated in International Studies at the University of Torino, obtained a Masters degree in International Migration and Intercultural Relations at the University of Osnabrück, and holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

During his studies in Germany and Spain, he has been volunteering in several organisations who are fighting the discrimination of asylum seekers and Roma. Previous to his PhD he has been involved in a number of EU-funded research projects carried out by the EMIGRA Research Group on Education, Migration and Childhood (Autonomous University of Barcelona) and the independent research agency Taller de Antropología y Ciencias Sociales Aplicadas (Taller ACSA).

Stefano fulfilled part of his doctoral research in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Initial Training Network INTEGRIM – Integration and International Migration: Pathways and Integration Policies (CEU Center for Policy Studies). Today he is working on the MSCA-IF funded project RETRY – Resilience and Resignation among Transnational Roma and non-Roma Youths, whose goal is to provide a theoretically informed, in-depth ethnographic, multi-sited and collaborative account of the movements into adulthood of underprivileged European youths “affected by mobility”.

Doctoral research

PhD title
Lives on the Move. Experiences and expectations of young ‘Roma’ migrants between Spain and Romania. Co-directors: Prof. Dr. Silvia Carrasco and Dr. Bálint-Ábel Bereményi. Stefano’s doctoral thesis is a collection of publications that investigate the experiences and the expectations of a group of Romanian Roma young people living in poverty between Madrid and a rural village in southern Romania. It addresses the nexus between educational choices, housing problems and transnational mobility in the broader context of the EU policies for “Roma” and the Spanish economic crisis.

Research

Stefano Piemontese Shares Research on Romanian Roma Youths in Spain

'Policies for Roma' have been central to Stefano’s research path and have served as an introduction into various areas of interest, such as social marginalisation, urban diversity, intra-EU mobility, educational policies, homelessness, social work, political participation, and social mobilization. During his doctoral research, the policy-oriented nature of his earliest works has left space to more actor-centred and biographic approaches to the study of the politically constructed 'Roma issue'. This shift has been accompanied by methodological changes and more socially engaged forms of communicating research results. Today, Stefano’s research agenda revolves around three main strands:

  • The practical and conceptual questions associated to the adoption of Roma-specific policies in a context of increasing concern about migration and diversity management in Europe.
  • The interplay of welfare policies, community strategies, and personal ties that shapes the social, geographical and biographical mobilities of underprivileged European youth “on the move”.
  • The methodological and ethical dilemmas related to socially engaged, collaborative and audiovisual research.

During recent years, Stefano participated in the following research projects:

Other activities

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Magazzini, T & Piemontese, S 2019, Constructing Roma Migrants: European Narratives and Local Governance. Springer Science and Business Media B.V. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11373-5

Article

Piemontese, S, Bereményi, BÁ & Carrasco, S 2018, 'Diverging mobilities, converging immobility? Romanian Roma youths at the crossroad between spatial, social and educational im/mobility', Intersections East European Journal of Society and Politics, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 29-56. https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v4i3.388

Magazzini, T & Piemontese, S 2016, 'Roma migration in the EU: The case of Spain between 'new' and 'old' minorities', Migration Letters, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 228-241. <https://www.migrationletters.com/ml/article/view/304>

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Piemontese, S & Leoco, L 2024, Luxa’s Prism: A Collaborative Ethnography of Im/mobilities in Pandemic Times. in M Fotta & P Gay y Blasco (eds), Ethnographic Methods in Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Research: Lessons from a Time of Crisis. 1 edn, Bristol University Press, pp. 109-129. https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529231878.ch008

Piemontese, S 2024, “Ya no tengo futuro, ni allí ni aquí”. Movilidad europea, desalojos forzosos y desvinculación escolar del alumnado “gitano rumano”. in S Carrasco Pons (ed.), Migración, movilidad y educación. Estrategias familiares y respuestas escolares. Editorial Síntesis, pp. 91-124. <https://www.sintesis.com/libro/migracion-movilidad-y-educacion-estrategias-familiares-y-respuestas-escolares Unspecified>

Piemontese, S 2023, Brothers of Italy? Young Racialized Italians Living the ‘British Dream’. in L Lessard-Phillips, A Papoutsi, N Sigona & P Ziss (eds), Migration, displacement and diversity: The IRiS anthology. Oxford Publishing Services, Oxford, pp. 127-131.

Piemontese, S & Maestri, G 2023, Home, migration, and Roma people in Europe. in P Boccagni (ed.), Handbook on Home and Migration. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., pp. 481–492. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800882775.00051

Piemontese, S 2021, Combining Participatory and Audiovisual Methods with Young Roma “Affected by Mobility”. in Visual Methodology in Migration Studies. IMISCOE Research Series, Springer Science and Business Media B.V., pp. 177-196. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67608-7_10

Piemontese, S & Magazzini, T 2019, Roma Westward Migration in Europe: Rethinking Political, Social, and Methodological Challenges. in IMISCOE Research Series. IMISCOE Research Series, Springer Science and Business Media B.V., Cham, pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11373-5_1

Raithelhuber, E, Trott, L & Piemontese, S 2019, Substantial social participation for young people on the move? Welfare institutions and the personal life of marginalized youth in transition. in Teilhabe durch*in*trotz Sozialpädagogik. Beltz Juventa, pp. 146-158.

Digital or Visual Products

Piemontese, S, Alin in the ghost town, 2023, Digital or Visual Products. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zd_-NvmFsc>

Piemontese, S, Lauren's video diary, 2021, Digital or Visual Products. <https://youtu.be/cNtho2zfhSU>

Doctoral Thesis

Piemontese, S 2017, 'Vidas en movimiento experiencias y expectativas de jóvenes ‘gitanos rumanos’ en la migración entre España y Rumania', University Autonoma Barcelona.

Other report

Piemontese, S & Sigona, N 2024, The Legal and Policy Infrastructure of Irregularity: United Kingdom. I-CLAIM. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10966184

Working paper

Piemontese, S 2015 'Leaving 'Roma' Behind: Notes on the Impact of Housing and (Forced) Mobility on Education' INTEGRIM Online Papers, no. 10.

View all publications in research portal