Dr Giulia Torino

Junior Research Fellow in Urban Studies, Peterhouse

Biography

Career

• Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy
• 2021–   Junior Research Fellow, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge
• 2021–   Affiliated Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
• 2021–   Teaching Associate, Centre for Latin American Studies, University of  Cambridge
• 2016–2020, Ph.D. Urban Studies, University of Cambridge

Selected awards, grants and prizes

• 2022–24 “Extending Urbanisation: Migration, Labour and the Struggle for Place in the Black Mediterranean”. British Academy Small Research Grant no. SRG22\220651. Principal Investigator.
• 2022 Postdoctoral Research Prize, Society of Latin American Studies UK.
• 2021–22 “In War’s Wake: Mobility, Belonging and Becoming in the Aftermath of Urban Conflict”. CRASSH Research Fund, University of Cambridge. Co-Investigator.
• 2020 Doctoral Research Award, Cambridge Political Economy Society.
• 2017–19 “Urbanism in the Global South Inter-Departmental Network”, Department of Geography, Department of Architecture and Department of Politics, University of Cambridge. Co-Investigator.
• 2018 Doctoral Research. Travel Awards, Kettle’s Yard
• 2017 Doctoral Research, Santander Mobility Grant
• 2016–19 Doctoral Studentship, King’s College, University of Cambridge
• 2016–19 Doctoral Studentship, Arts and Humanities Research Council

Research

1. Transnational migration and mobile inhabitation

How do global migration, border regimes, labour, and the politics of dwelling converge to shape contemporary urban life? Funded by the British Academy and a Junior Research Fellowship at Peterhouse (University of Cambridge), this project focuses on new forms of precarious and transient urbanisation in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean — from migrant encampments to informal and itinerant dwelling connected to migrant labour in the agro-industry. Drawing on timely and novel debates on the ‘Black Mediterranean‘, and the making of new processes of peripheralisation, the research draws nearer common histories of coloniality and racialisation between different ‘Souths‘ to enquire into growingly mobile, transnational and unsettled forms of inhabiting the urban. Early outputs include my 2023 article ‘Geographies of Un/settlement: Unsettling Europe from the Black Mediterranean‘; a 2023 article on ‘Inhabiting the extensions‘, and a 2023 podcast for Urban Political on ‘peripheralisation‘.

2. Race, racism and multiculture in Latin American cities

Funded by a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant (2016-2020) and a Cambridge Political Economy Society Writing Grant (2020), this project rethinks common narratives on cities in Latin America from an underexplored perspective informed by race theories and practices. In exploring the geographies and necro-politics of ‘race’ in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city, the research counters the myth of Latin America’s ‘racial democracy’ (and mestizaje) and its alleged equality from a missing urban perspective, with a critical focus on multicultural urban policy-making and governance (see my 2021 articles: ‘The governmentality of multiculturalism‘ and ‘Governing ethnic diversity through urban planning in Bogotá‘), civic participation, marginalised dwelling, and everyday social struggles for spatial and racial justice. At the same time, the research emphasises the spatial agencies of Black urban communities in Bogotá and discusses their implications for conceiving city-making otherwise, on the basis of ‘relational urban territories’ (forthcoming article). I continue to develop these lines of enquiry in two forthcoming articles and in my first monograph, as well as in ongoing collaborations with grassroots organisations in Bogotá.

3. Urban digital infrastructures

Part of the “Ban the Scan” project, this research explores how digital technologies impact urban dwellers’ capacity to access the right to the city. Through the situated analysis and critical mapping of New York City’s digital surveillance infrastructure, this project shows how police facial recognition technology constraints New Yorkers’ freedom of movement in the city, affecting non-white urbanites disproportionately. By developing open-access digital and interactive maps, an international report and a series of guides and toolkits for public use and knowledge, this project raises public awareness on the intertwining between facial recognition technologies and human rights abuses, setting the grounds for subsequent studies.

4. Conflict afterlives: women, displacement and ‘territorial peace’ in and from the city

Another strand of my research stems from my work on Colombia’s ‘territorial peace‘ (paz territorial), displacement, and intersectional violence, with a particular focus on women’s grassroots reparation initiatives in the city. I have collaborated for several years with the grassroots social organisation ‘Costurero de la Memoria’ in Bogotá, counter-mapping war, reconciliation and (anti) racism. I have explored these issues further by co-founding the interdisciplinary, multi-lingual and transnational Research Network ‘In War’s Wake’, to steer debates on urban conflict that cut across disciplinary and regional silos, among activists, artists and academics. This project examines how political violence reshapes human lives, imaginations of urban futures, movement, belonging, and hope across several cities worldwide.

Publications

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Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

• Lecturer, Paper 4 (“Citizenship, cities and civil society”), Part IB Tripos, Department of Geography

Postgraduate teaching

• Primary supervisor, MPhil dissertations, Centre for Latin American Studies (CLAS)
• Lecturer, “Racial Cities”, MPhil in Latin American Studies, Centre for Latin American Studies (CLAS)
• Lecturer, “Ethnographic Research”, M.Phil. in Anthropocene Studies, Department of Geography

Previous teaching

• Lecturer, “The Politics of Conflict and Peacebuilding” (Pol 16), Part IIB HSPS Tripos, Department of Politics
• Lecturer, “Peripheral Urbanism”, MPhil in Urban Studies, Department of Architecture
• Lecturer, “Theories in 20th Century Architecture”: (1) “Critical Race Theory”, (2) “Post-colonialism”, (3) “Decoloniality”, (4) “Gender and Intersectionality”, RIBA Part IB, Department of Architecture

I have been a Guest Lecturer at the University of Sheffield, Basel, ETH, UC Santa Barbara, Externado Colombia, Pontificia Javeriana, and Venice, among others.

External activities

• Founder (with Dr Surer Mohamed) of the CRASSH Research Network “In War’s Wake”. Twitter: @InWarsWake
• Founder and former convenor (with Dr Noura Wahby and Dr Shreyashi Dasgupta) of the “Urbanism in the Global South” Research Network at the Department of Geography, Department of Architecture and Department of Politics
• Committee Member of the Latin American Geographies (LAG-UK) Research Group, Royal Geographical Society with IBG
• Member of the Colombian grassroots organisation Costurero de la Memoria (Memory Stitchers) working for anti-racism and intersectional peace in Colombia’s post-conflict