Biography

Cristiano Gianolla is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra (UC), where he is part of the research unit on Democracy, Citizenship and Law. He obtained a PhD in Sociology and Political Science (cum Laude, Coimbra and Rome-Sapienza) by way of a dissertation on Gandhi's democratic theory and a comparative study of emerging political parties in India and Italy. Cristiano is the Principal Investigator of the UNPOP project (FCT, 2021-2024) and is a team member of the ECHOES (H2020, 2018-2021) and ALICE (ERC, 2011-2016) European projects. He is a founding member of the "Inter-Thematic group on Migrations" and co-coordinates the research group "Epistemologies of the South" at CES. He is coordinating editor of the Alice News, editor of e-cadernos scientific journal and Rightsblog, and a referee for other scientific journals. Cristiano coordinates the PhD course "Democratic Theories and Institutions", the MA course "Critical Intercultural Dialogue" (both at the Faculty of Economics of the UC), and the virtual course "The Challenges to Democracy in the XXI Century" (Latin American Council of Social Sciences). He has authored two books, and various articles and chapters elaborating on democratic theory, populism, postcolonialism, intercultural dialogue, heritage processes, movement-parties, citizenship, human rights, migrations, and cosmopolitanism. His current research interests focus on emotions and narratives in democratic processes.