Tommaso Petrucci

PhD candidate, University of Bologna

My academic work has always been grounded in a strong critical approach to the mechanisms of functioning of the contemporary globalization and more precisely, the devices of capture of global capitalism. My BA thesis at the University of Bologna (School of Political Sciences) focused on the colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar, whose theories supply important advances to the postcolonial studies. Along with his work, I tried to deconstruct the discourse of development as installed by the international institutions in order to unveil its ideological use to canalize capitals from western countries to the so called "South of the world"; further more, through the case of afro-colombian communities in Tumaco, Colombia, I explored how the hegemonic capitalist mode of production can be subverted and re-used to create perspectives for a non-capitalist mode of production and a post-development discourse. For my MA thesis at University of Bologna (School of Political Sciences), which I am now finalizing, I have decided to shift my focus on critical urban studies and queer theories: thrugh a recollection of cases of european capital cities sponsoring themselves as "gay-friendly" touristic spaces, I analyze how the extraction of LGBT capitalist value in the processes of urban gentrification is necessary to the construction of a homonationalist and islamophobic regime. The self-positioning as a queer subjectivity is the core of the entire work and is the point of departure of my PhD project, which focuses on the role of HIV-positivity as a means of control of the gay male body.