School of Social & Political Sciences

Dr Giovanni Picker

  • Senior Lecturer (Sociological & Cultural Studies)

Biography

I am currently a Senior Lecturer / Associate Professor in Sociology. I studied Political Science and Cultural Sociology at the University of Milan, and completed a PhD in Sociology and Comparative Urban Studies at the University of Milan-Bicocca in 2010. I conducted my PhD research while based at the Central European University, Budapest.

Before joining the University of Glasgow in 2018, I taught at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, the University of Milan-Bicocca, the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt Oder, and the University of Birmingham. Across these institutions, I designed and delivered courses on cities, ethnography, nationalism, race and racism, social inequalities and critical social theory.

Research interests

 

My work brings together urban studies, critical race scholarship, political anthropology, and historical inquiry. Since 2003, my fieldwork has spanned a number of European countries, including Kosovo, Romania, Italy, France, the UK, and Germany. Working across cities, historical periods, and political contexts, I examine the different ways in which social membership is assigned and contested, with particular attention to the making and remaking of racial and ethnic boundaries.

My scholarship comprises three main strands:

  • A first strand focuses on the governance of Romani people and the making of stigmatized and segregated areas in European cities. This research connects contemporary urban arrangements with longer histories of colonial administration, nationalism and state formation. 
  • A second strand concerns Europe as an object of historical and sociological inquiry. This strand seeks to explain unequal relations by considering forms of knowledge on and from Europe as embedded in global histories of colonial-metropole relations, and socialism-postsocialism.
  • A third strand addresses the urban planning-race nexus in Europe. Through this focus, I develop a broader analysis of how apparently technical decisions acquire political value, and how democratic institutions normalise forms of governance inflected by longue-durée racial formations.

Methodologically, I mainly work with qualitative, field-based inquiry and archival research. I am also interested in the relationship between positionality and the construction of comparable cases, as well as institutional and cultural forms of path-dependency across colony and metropole, pre- and post-WWII.

This work has resulted in a number of interventions including one monograph and two edited volumes. Racial Cities: Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe [Routledge, 2017] explains the post-WWII emergence and persistence of deprived and segregated urban areas across Europe that are stigmatized as "G***y urban areas". I subsequently co-edited Racialized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism [Palgrave, 2019], which interrogates global-local linkages in a semi-periphery economy within Europe, and European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism [Manchester University Press, 2022], which contributes to decentre and rethink dominant approaches to, and theories of, European cities. 

My current book project develops a framework for evidencing racial inequalities where race-based data collection is banned. The book traces a longue-durée genealogy of racial and urban conceptions in Europe and illustrate various ways in which these conceptions contribute to entrench racially unequal conditions in today's Berlin (anti-Black racism), Rome (anti-Roma racism) and Bucharest (anti-Muslim racism).

Alongside research and teaching, I contribute to international research and educational initiatives addressing (in)justice and (anti-)racist politics. I also collaborate with activists, museum curators, artists, and organisations working beyond higher education.

Related research interests

  • Comparative ethnography, archival research methods and academic writing.
  • Nationalism.
  • Policy and administrative knowledge.
  • Camps for civilians.
  • Socialism, postsocialism and histories of the Left.
  • Politics of affect, authoritarianism and fascism.
  • Public sociology and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Research groups

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2027 | 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2022 | 2021 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2006 | 2005
Number of items: 50.

2027

Ramadani, Đuli and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2027) Romani collectives in urban Europe: subjectivities, structures and scholarship. In: Routledge International Handbook of Urban Sociology. Routledge. (In Press)

2026

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2026) The affective politics of planning: longing for Gadjo-than Rome (1994–2017). Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City, (doi: 10.1080/26884674.2026.2701685) (Early Online Publication)

2025

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2025) Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania Across Empires by Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatcă. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022. 261 pp. $34.95 (pbk). ISBN: 9781501766565. European Journal of Social Theory, (doi: 10.1177/13684310251359010)[Book Review] (Early Online Publication)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2025) Planning a European racial city: dealing (with) dread in 21st-Century Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 49(2), pp. 358-75. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.13297)

2024

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2024) Urban revolutions: urbanisation and (neo-)colonialism in transatlantic context , by Stefan Kipfer, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2022, 324 pp., £112.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9789004524903. Ethnic and Racial Studies, (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2024.2348719)[Book Review]

2022

Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2022) European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester. ISBN 9781526158437

Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2022) Introduction: rethinking the European urban. In: Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni (eds.) European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester, pp. 1-34. ISBN 9781526158437

2021

Ghebremariam Tesfau', Mackda and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2021) The Italian postracial archive. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(2), pp. 195-214. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1730924)

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2021) Racist morbidities: a conjunctural analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic. European Societies, 23(sup1), S307-S320. (doi: 10.1080/14616696.2020.1825767)

2019

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2019) Special Issue: Racial and Post-racial Senses of Place. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 39(11/12) [Edited Journal]

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Race and place. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 39(11/12), pp. 913-922. (doi: 10.1108/IJSSP-10-2019-0203)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Sovereignty beyond the state: exception and informality in a Western European city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 43(3), pp. 576-581. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.12704)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (Eds.) (2019) Racial Urbanities: Toward A Global Cartography. Social Identities. [Edited Journal]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (2019) Racial urbanities: towards a global cartography. Social Identities, 25(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.1080/13504630.2017.1418606)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Anti-gitanismo, conocimiento racial y amnesia colonial. Sociología Histórica, 10(1), pp. 237-246.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Vivaldi, Elisabetta (2019) Racial segregation: camps for Roma and slums in Italy. In: Cortés Gómez, Ismael and End, Markus (eds.) Dimensions of Antigypsyism in Europe. Series: ENAR Anti-Racism in Focus, 3. European Network Against Racism aisbl (ENAR) and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma: Brussels, Belgium, pp. 180-197. ISBN 9782960130829

2018

Vincze, Enikő, Petrovici, Norbert, Raț, Cristina and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2018) Racialized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism. Series: Neighborhoods, communities and urban marginality. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham. ISBN 9783319762722

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2018) Conclusion: (re)centring labour, class, and race. In: Vincze, Enikő, Petrovici, Norbert, Raț, Cristina and Picker, Giovanni (eds.) Radicalized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism. Series: Neighborhoods, communities and urban marginality. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 207-226. ISBN 9783319762722 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-76273-9_8)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2018) Kristina Graaf and Noa Ha (eds). 2015. Street Vending in the Neoliberal City: A Global Perspective on the Practices and Policies of a Marginalized Economy. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Urbanities, 8(1), pp. 80-81. [Book Review]

2017

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Social inclusion/exclusion. In: Turner, Bryan S., Chang, Kyung-sup, Epstein, Cynthia F., Kvisto, Peter, Ryan, J. Michael and Outhwaite, William (eds.) The Wiley Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Series: Wiley Blackwell encyclopedias in social sciences (2908). Wiley-Blackwell: West Sussex, United Kingdom. ISBN 9781118430866 (doi: 10.1002/9781118430873.est0532)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Post-socialist Europe and its “Constitutive Outside”: ethnographic resemblances for a comparative research agenda. In: Krase, Jerome and Uherek, Zdeněk (eds.) Diversity and Local Contexts: Urban Space, Borders, and Migration. Series: Palgrave studies in urban anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 39-53. ISBN 9783319539515 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-53952-2_3)

Pasquetti, Silvia and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2017) Confined Informality: Global Margins, Statecraft, and Urban Life. International Sociology. 32(4) [Edited Journal]

Pasquetti, Silvia and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Urban informality and confinement: toward a relational framework. International Sociology, 32(4), pp. 532-544. (doi: 10.1177/0268580917701605)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Rethinking ethnographic comparison: two cities, five years, one ethnographer. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 46(3), pp. 263-284. (doi: 10.1177/0891241614548105)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Racial Cities: Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe. Series: Routledge advances in sociology. Routledge: London ; New York. ISBN 9781138808782

2016

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2016) ‘That neighbourhood is an ethnic bomb!’ The emergence of an urban governance apparatus in Western Europe. European Urban and Regional Studies, 23(2), pp. 136-148. (doi: 10.1177/0969776413502659)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2016) Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian G. Shuttleworth, and David W. Wong (eds), Social-spatial segregation. Concepts, processes and outcomes. Urban Research and Practice, 9(2), pp. 226-228. (doi: 10.1080/17535069.2016.1190511)[Book Review]

2015

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Pasquetti, Silvia (Eds.) (2015) Durable Camps: The State, the Urban, the Everyday. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action. 19(5) [Edited Journal]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2015) Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Urban Studies, 52(9), pp. 1742-1745. (doi: 10.1177/0042098015580755)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Greenfields, Margaret and Smith, David (2015) Colonial refractions: the ‘Gypsy camp’ as a spatio-racial political technology. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 19(5), pp. 741-752. (doi: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1071123)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Pasquetti, Silvia (2015) Durable camps: the state, the urban, the everyday. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 19(5), pp. 681-688. (doi: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1071122)

2014

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2014) Gypsies and Travellers in Housing: the Decline of Nomadism, by David Smith and Margaret Greenfields. Bristol: Policy Press, 2013. Roma Rights, 2014(1), pp. 113-114. [Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Roccheggiani, Gabriele (2014) Abnormalising minorities. The state and expert knowledge addressing the Roma in Italy. Identities, 21(2), pp. 185-201. (doi: 10.1080/1070289X.2013.854719)

2013

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) “Ţiganu-i ţigan”: verbal icons and urban marginality in a post-socialist European city. Civilisations, 62(1 & 2), pp. 51-70. (doi: 10.4000/civilisations.3271)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) Policy logic and the spatial segregation of Roma in Europe. The cases of Florence and Cluj-Napoca. In: Zincone, Giovanna and Ponzo, Irene (eds.) How European Cities Craft Immigrant Integration: Something to Learn. Foundation for European Progressive Studies, pp. 40-57. ISBN 9788889988688

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) Sedentarisation and 'the right to nomadism': the urban and regional fabric of nomad camps in Italy (1967-1995). Zeitgeschichte, 40(5), pp. 276-286.

2012

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) La biopolitica della differenza. Un'antropologia delle politiche dei campi nomadi a Firenze. DADA Rivista di Antropologia post-globale, 2(2), pp. 93-110.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century by Salvatore Palidda. Critical Sociology, 38(2), pp. 333-335. (doi: 10.1177/0896920511435762)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Left-wing progress? Neo-nationalism and the case of Romany migrants in Italy. In: Stewart, Michael (ed.) The Gypsy ‘Menace’: Populism and the New Anti-Gypsy Politics. Hurst & Co.: London, pp. 81-94. ISBN 9781849042192

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(4), pp. 780-781. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2011.639792)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Territori postcoloniali ai limiti. I campi per rom in Italia e Francia tra doxa e storia. In: Ceva, Emanuela and Galeotti, Anna Elisabetta (eds.) Lo spazio del rispetto. Series: Ricerca. Bruno Mondadori: Milano, pp. 96-121. ISBN 9788861598126

2011

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Rom e Sinti in Italia. Tra stereotipi e diritti negati, and Politiche possibili. Abitare le città con i Rom e i Sinti. Modern Italy, 16(3), pp. 398-401. (doi: 10.1080/13532944.2011.586546)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Inclusione, esclusione, enclusione. Per un'etnografia della governance di rom migranti in Italia. In: Baldin, Serena and Zago, Moreno (eds.) Il mosaico Rom: specificità culturali e governance multilivello. Series: Collana ISMU (46). Franco Angeli: Milano, pp. 77-87. ISBN 9788856844719

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Nomads’ land? Political cultures and nationalist stances vis-à-vis Roma in Italy. In: Stewart, Michael and Rövid, Márton (eds.) Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Romany Studies. Central European University Press: Budapest, pp. 211-227. ISBN 9786155053160

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Tra inclusione ed esclusione. Una storia sociale dell'educazione dei rom e dei sinti in Italia. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5), pp. 735-737. (doi: 10.1080/1354571X.2011.622488)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Welcome ‘in’. Left-wing Tuscany and Romani migrants (1987–2007). Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5), pp. 607-620. (doi: 10.1080/1354571X.2011.622469)

2010

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2010) Romani Politics in Contemporary Europe. Poverty, Ethnic Mobilization and the Neoliberal Order. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(9), pp. 1677-1679. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2010.510902)[Book Review]

2009

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2009) Inclusionary Rhetoric / Exclusionary Practices. Left-wing Politics and Migrants in Italy. Davide Però, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84545-157-8. Anthropology in Action, 16(3), pp. 69-70. (doi: 10.3167/aia.2009.160307)[Book Review]

2006

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2006) Fieldwork between distance and intimacy: reflections on a photo exhibition on the streets. Achab: Rivista di Antropologia, 9, pp. 33-42.

2005

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2005) Le due rive di Mitrovica: il ponte sul fiume Ibar/Ibër come frontiera interna. Conflitti Globali(2), pp. 119-129.

This list was generated on Fri Oct 9 17:38:20 2026 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Edited Books | Edited Journals
Number of items: 50.

Articles

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2026) The affective politics of planning: longing for Gadjo-than Rome (1994–2017). Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City, (doi: 10.1080/26884674.2026.2701685) (Early Online Publication)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2025) Planning a European racial city: dealing (with) dread in 21st-Century Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 49(2), pp. 358-75. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.13297)

Ghebremariam Tesfau', Mackda and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2021) The Italian postracial archive. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(2), pp. 195-214. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1730924)

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2021) Racist morbidities: a conjunctural analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic. European Societies, 23(sup1), S307-S320. (doi: 10.1080/14616696.2020.1825767)

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Race and place. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 39(11/12), pp. 913-922. (doi: 10.1108/IJSSP-10-2019-0203)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Sovereignty beyond the state: exception and informality in a Western European city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 43(3), pp. 576-581. (doi: 10.1111/1468-2427.12704)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (2019) Racial urbanities: towards a global cartography. Social Identities, 25(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.1080/13504630.2017.1418606)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2019) Anti-gitanismo, conocimiento racial y amnesia colonial. Sociología Histórica, 10(1), pp. 237-246.

Pasquetti, Silvia and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Urban informality and confinement: toward a relational framework. International Sociology, 32(4), pp. 532-544. (doi: 10.1177/0268580917701605)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Rethinking ethnographic comparison: two cities, five years, one ethnographer. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 46(3), pp. 263-284. (doi: 10.1177/0891241614548105)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2016) ‘That neighbourhood is an ethnic bomb!’ The emergence of an urban governance apparatus in Western Europe. European Urban and Regional Studies, 23(2), pp. 136-148. (doi: 10.1177/0969776413502659)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Greenfields, Margaret and Smith, David (2015) Colonial refractions: the ‘Gypsy camp’ as a spatio-racial political technology. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 19(5), pp. 741-752. (doi: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1071123)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Pasquetti, Silvia (2015) Durable camps: the state, the urban, the everyday. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 19(5), pp. 681-688. (doi: 10.1080/13604813.2015.1071122)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Roccheggiani, Gabriele (2014) Abnormalising minorities. The state and expert knowledge addressing the Roma in Italy. Identities, 21(2), pp. 185-201. (doi: 10.1080/1070289X.2013.854719)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) “Ţiganu-i ţigan”: verbal icons and urban marginality in a post-socialist European city. Civilisations, 62(1 & 2), pp. 51-70. (doi: 10.4000/civilisations.3271)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) Sedentarisation and 'the right to nomadism': the urban and regional fabric of nomad camps in Italy (1967-1995). Zeitgeschichte, 40(5), pp. 276-286.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) La biopolitica della differenza. Un'antropologia delle politiche dei campi nomadi a Firenze. DADA Rivista di Antropologia post-globale, 2(2), pp. 93-110.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Welcome ‘in’. Left-wing Tuscany and Romani migrants (1987–2007). Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5), pp. 607-620. (doi: 10.1080/1354571X.2011.622469)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2006) Fieldwork between distance and intimacy: reflections on a photo exhibition on the streets. Achab: Rivista di Antropologia, 9, pp. 33-42.

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2005) Le due rive di Mitrovica: il ponte sul fiume Ibar/Ibër come frontiera interna. Conflitti Globali(2), pp. 119-129.

Books

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Racial Cities: Governance and the Segregation of Romani People in Urban Europe. Series: Routledge advances in sociology. Routledge: London ; New York. ISBN 9781138808782

Book Sections

Ramadani, Đuli and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2027) Romani collectives in urban Europe: subjectivities, structures and scholarship. In: Routledge International Handbook of Urban Sociology. Routledge. (In Press)

Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2022) Introduction: rethinking the European urban. In: Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni (eds.) European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester, pp. 1-34. ISBN 9781526158437

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Vivaldi, Elisabetta (2019) Racial segregation: camps for Roma and slums in Italy. In: Cortés Gómez, Ismael and End, Markus (eds.) Dimensions of Antigypsyism in Europe. Series: ENAR Anti-Racism in Focus, 3. European Network Against Racism aisbl (ENAR) and the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma: Brussels, Belgium, pp. 180-197. ISBN 9782960130829

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2018) Conclusion: (re)centring labour, class, and race. In: Vincze, Enikő, Petrovici, Norbert, Raț, Cristina and Picker, Giovanni (eds.) Radicalized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism. Series: Neighborhoods, communities and urban marginality. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 207-226. ISBN 9783319762722 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-76273-9_8)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Social inclusion/exclusion. In: Turner, Bryan S., Chang, Kyung-sup, Epstein, Cynthia F., Kvisto, Peter, Ryan, J. Michael and Outhwaite, William (eds.) The Wiley Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Series: Wiley Blackwell encyclopedias in social sciences (2908). Wiley-Blackwell: West Sussex, United Kingdom. ISBN 9781118430866 (doi: 10.1002/9781118430873.est0532)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2017) Post-socialist Europe and its “Constitutive Outside”: ethnographic resemblances for a comparative research agenda. In: Krase, Jerome and Uherek, Zdeněk (eds.) Diversity and Local Contexts: Urban Space, Borders, and Migration. Series: Palgrave studies in urban anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 39-53. ISBN 9783319539515 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-53952-2_3)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2013) Policy logic and the spatial segregation of Roma in Europe. The cases of Florence and Cluj-Napoca. In: Zincone, Giovanna and Ponzo, Irene (eds.) How European Cities Craft Immigrant Integration: Something to Learn. Foundation for European Progressive Studies, pp. 40-57. ISBN 9788889988688

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Left-wing progress? Neo-nationalism and the case of Romany migrants in Italy. In: Stewart, Michael (ed.) The Gypsy ‘Menace’: Populism and the New Anti-Gypsy Politics. Hurst & Co.: London, pp. 81-94. ISBN 9781849042192

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Territori postcoloniali ai limiti. I campi per rom in Italia e Francia tra doxa e storia. In: Ceva, Emanuela and Galeotti, Anna Elisabetta (eds.) Lo spazio del rispetto. Series: Ricerca. Bruno Mondadori: Milano, pp. 96-121. ISBN 9788861598126

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Inclusione, esclusione, enclusione. Per un'etnografia della governance di rom migranti in Italia. In: Baldin, Serena and Zago, Moreno (eds.) Il mosaico Rom: specificità culturali e governance multilivello. Series: Collana ISMU (46). Franco Angeli: Milano, pp. 77-87. ISBN 9788856844719

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Nomads’ land? Political cultures and nationalist stances vis-à-vis Roma in Italy. In: Stewart, Michael and Rövid, Márton (eds.) Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Romany Studies. Central European University Press: Budapest, pp. 211-227. ISBN 9786155053160

Book Reviews

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2025) Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania Across Empires by Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatcă. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022. 261 pp. $34.95 (pbk). ISBN: 9781501766565. European Journal of Social Theory, (doi: 10.1177/13684310251359010)[Book Review] (Early Online Publication)

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2024) Urban revolutions: urbanisation and (neo-)colonialism in transatlantic context , by Stefan Kipfer, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2022, 324 pp., £112.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9789004524903. Ethnic and Racial Studies, (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2024.2348719)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2018) Kristina Graaf and Noa Ha (eds). 2015. Street Vending in the Neoliberal City: A Global Perspective on the Practices and Policies of a Marginalized Economy. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Urbanities, 8(1), pp. 80-81. [Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2016) Christopher D. Lloyd, Ian G. Shuttleworth, and David W. Wong (eds), Social-spatial segregation. Concepts, processes and outcomes. Urban Research and Practice, 9(2), pp. 226-228. (doi: 10.1080/17535069.2016.1190511)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2015) Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy. Urban Studies, 52(9), pp. 1742-1745. (doi: 10.1177/0042098015580755)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2014) Gypsies and Travellers in Housing: the Decline of Nomadism, by David Smith and Margaret Greenfields. Bristol: Policy Press, 2013. Roma Rights, 2014(1), pp. 113-114. [Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Racial Criminalization of Migrants in the 21st Century by Salvatore Palidda. Critical Sociology, 38(2), pp. 333-335. (doi: 10.1177/0896920511435762)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2012) Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 35(4), pp. 780-781. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2011.639792)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Rom e Sinti in Italia. Tra stereotipi e diritti negati, and Politiche possibili. Abitare le città con i Rom e i Sinti. Modern Italy, 16(3), pp. 398-401. (doi: 10.1080/13532944.2011.586546)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2011) Tra inclusione ed esclusione. Una storia sociale dell'educazione dei rom e dei sinti in Italia. Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 16(5), pp. 735-737. (doi: 10.1080/1354571X.2011.622488)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2010) Romani Politics in Contemporary Europe. Poverty, Ethnic Mobilization and the Neoliberal Order. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33(9), pp. 1677-1679. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2010.510902)[Book Review]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (2009) Inclusionary Rhetoric / Exclusionary Practices. Left-wing Politics and Migrants in Italy. Davide Però, New York: Berghahn Books, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84545-157-8. Anthropology in Action, 16(3), pp. 69-70. (doi: 10.3167/aia.2009.160307)[Book Review]

Edited Books

Ha, Noa K. and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2022) European Cities: Modernity, Race and Colonialism. Manchester University Press: Manchester. ISBN 9781526158437

Vincze, Enikő, Petrovici, Norbert, Raț, Cristina and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2018) Racialized Labour in Romania: Spaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global Capitalism. Series: Neighborhoods, communities and urban marginality. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham. ISBN 9783319762722

Edited Journals

Murji, Karim and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2019) Special Issue: Racial and Post-racial Senses of Place. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 39(11/12) [Edited Journal]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139, Murji, Karim and Boatcă, Manuela (Eds.) (2019) Racial Urbanities: Toward A Global Cartography. Social Identities. [Edited Journal]

Pasquetti, Silvia and Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 (Eds.) (2017) Confined Informality: Global Margins, Statecraft, and Urban Life. International Sociology. 32(4) [Edited Journal]

Picker, Giovanni ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5789-9139 and Pasquetti, Silvia (Eds.) (2015) Durable Camps: The State, the Urban, the Everyday. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action. 19(5) [Edited Journal]

This list was generated on Fri Oct 9 17:38:20 2026 BST.

Grants

Shaping a World-Class University Summer School Joint Grant, University of Padova, 2025.

International Partnership Development Fund Grant, University of Glasgow School of Social and Political Sciences, 2024.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Research Fellowship - European Commission, 2016-2018.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Co-Fund BRAIN Fellowship - European Commission and Brandenburg Land, 2015-2016.

Junior Research Fellowship, Central European University Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest, 2014.

Supervision

I would be happy to hear from students who are considering to pursue a PhD research looking at any aspects of my research interests.

Current PhD students:

  • Joshi, Siddhi - Mirroring GalGael: An Ethnography of Repair and Belonging.

  • Rao, Rohit
    Black Students Matter: Racialised School Experiences
  • Santagata, Nichelle
    Black Women's Mental Health and Healing Through Autoethnography and Arts-Based Methods

Students I co-supervised who have successfully completed their PhD:

  • Chase Beecrof - Janus-Faced Liberalism: Race and the Modern World-System (2026). 
  • Concetta Smedile (University of Cordoba) - La ideología de la virginidad, las identidades y la educación contemporánea de las jóvenes gitanas discriminadas (2026).
  • Leslie Molina - Between Mediation and Facilitation: Immigration Legal Practitioners and the Racial State in Trump’s US and Brexit Britain” (2025).
  • Haritha Venu - Experiences and Negotiation of Climate Change in three coastal fishing villages of Kerala (2025).

Teaching

2026-2027

Global Inequalities (BA) Level 1 Contributor - Semester 1

Level 1 Tutorials (BA) - Semester 1

Critique and Criticism (PhD) - Semester 2

Additional information

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I am active in a number of international research and educational networks, including the Just City by the Med Network, the Black Europe Summer School (Amsterdam), and the Postgraduate Summer School on Anti-Racism, Social Justice and the European City (Padua). 

 I am the School of Social and Political Sciences Ethics Convenor.

More information on my work is available on my website.


Giovanni Picker

Dr Giovanni Picker on Bluesky