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Please Note: Silvia has now completed her PhD

Research Title

Mundane objects of popular geopolitics: An ethnography of political T-shirts in Italy.

More about Silvia

Education

• PhD in Human Geography 鈥� University College London (UCL) (2020-2024) - Successfully defended on 11/07/2024.
• Visiting Researcher in Political and Social Sciences 鈥� European University Institute (EUI) (Sept-Dec 2023)
• MPhil Social Anthropology 鈥� St. John's College, University of Cambridge (2019-2020)
• MSc Global Migration 鈥� UCL (2016-2017)
• BSc Political Economy 鈥� King's College London (2012-2015)
• BSc Exchange Programme (one term) 鈥� National University of Singapore (NUS) (Jan-May 2014)

Honours and Awards

• First Prize in 鈥淩esearch Images as Art / Art Images as Research鈥� Doctoral Competition 鈥� UCL. (Jun 2023)
• LAHP Research Support Fund for fieldwork activities 鈥� Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). (Dec 2022)
• LAHP PhD Studentship (stipend + fees) 鈥� Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). (2020-2023)
• Elected to MPhil Scholar for academic excellence 鈥� St. John's College, University of Cambridge. (Oct 2020)
• MPhil Prize for distinguished academic performance 鈥� St. John's College, University of Cambridge. (Oct 2020)
• Departmental Bursary Award 鈥� Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge. (2019-2020)
• Santander Graduate Internship Scholarship 鈥� King's College London and Santander. (Feb 2016)
• Study Abroad Scholarship 鈥� King鈥檚 College London. (Jan-May 2014)
• Grant for 鈥淐ollege on Wheels鈥� project 鈥� University of Delhi and King鈥檚 College London. (Sept 2013)

Teaching

Teaching and听Mentorship

• 鈥淚ntroduction to the History of Political Ideologies,鈥� BSc in Social Sciences 鈥� Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University (Feb 2024-2025)
• 鈥淐ommunicating Scientific Knowledge,鈥� BSc in Social Sciences 鈥� Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University (Feb 2024-2025)
• Widening Participation Summer School Teacher 鈥� Department of Geography, UCL (Summer 2023 and 2024)
• Exam Tutor for second-year BSc students in Human Geography (Urban Geography; Political Geography and Geopolitics; Development Geography; Environment and Society) 鈥� Department of Geography, UCL (2023-2024)
• 鈥淪pace and Society,鈥� first year BSc course 鈥� Department of Geography, UCL (Jan-May 2023)
• Methodological Advisor (qualitative methods) 鈥� Bentham Brooks Institute, UCL (Jan-Jun 2022)
• 鈥淐omprehending COVID-19鈥� 鈥� final-year course across the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences, Department of Anthropology, UCL (Sept-Dec 2021)
• Postgraduate Mentor 鈥� Connect.ed Society, UCL (Jan-Jun 2021)

Teacher Training

• Data Protection and Freedom of Information, UCL Doctoral School (Nov 2023).
• Summative Marking 鈥� Department of Geography, UCL (Sept 2022).
• Induction to Assessment and Marking 鈥� Department of Anthropology, UCL (Nov 2021).
• Arena One: Teaching Associate Programme 鈥� UCL Doctoral School (Sept 2021).
• Introduction to Research Support and Integrity 鈥� UCL Doctoral School (Apr 2021).
• From research student to undergraduate teacher. Moving into research-led training 鈥� LAHP (Jan 2021).
• Storytelling skills for teachers and presenters 鈥� UCL Doctoral School (Nov 2020).
• Arena One: Gateway Workshop (teacher training programme) 鈥� UCL (Oct 2020).

Publications

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• Binenti, S.听(2023) Review of 鈥淪pectacle and Trumpism: An Embodied Assemblage Approach,鈥� Jacob C. Miller, Bristol University Press, Bristol (2020).听Emotion, Space and Society. Vol. 48.
• Binenti, S.听(2023) 鈥楶eople are going mad鈥�: A disjunctive comparison of rituals of grocery shopping at the beginning of Covid-19 (March-June 2020).听Anuac, 12(1), pp. 29-56.
• Binenti S.听(2022) Grocery Shopping in the Time of COVID-19: National(ist) and Gendered Material Cultures of Care.听Rivista Italiana di Antropologia Applicata.听 Anno VIII, Edizione II, pp. 49-77.
• Binenti, S.听(2021) Rescuing the intimate but awkward relationship between cosmopolitanism and urban anthropology.听Yearbook in Cosmopolitan Studies, Vol. 5.
• De Amicis, L.,听Binenti, S., Maciel Cardoso, F., Gracia-L谩zaro, C., S谩nchez, 脕., & Moreno, Y. (2020) Understanding drivers when investing for impact: An experimental study.听Palgrave Communications, Vol. 6 (86).

Chapters in Edited Volumes

• Binenti, S.听and Dittmer, J. (forthcoming, 2025) Doing political geographies: Popular culture. In V. Mamadouh, J. Agnew, N. Koch and C. Y. Woon (eds.)听The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography, Second Edition. Wiley.
• Binenti, S.听(2023) Cosmopolitanism as an empirically grounded framework in urban ethnography. In N. Rapport and H. Wardle (eds.)听Cosmopolitan Moment, Cosmopolitan Method. London: Routledge.

Opinion Pieces

• Binenti, S.听and Dittmer, J. (2022) Italy鈥檚 fantasy politics: A possible answer to the shamelessness of UK politics. POLITICO, 18th July.

Working Papers and Online Articles

• Binenti, S.听(2018)听. Veterans for Peace UK Website.
• Binenti, S.听(2018) Branding Remembrance: The Symbolic and Material Imaginaries of the Poppy.听UCL MRU.

Conferences and Public Engagement Talks

• 鈥淭erritories and Identities" Conference听鈥� Dept of Social and Political Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore (Nov 2023, Florence (IT))
  • Paper: "Politically Claiming Space through T-shirts: An Assemblage Approach."
• Political Behavior Colloquium听鈥� Department of Political and Social Sciences, EUI (Nov 2023, Fiesole (IT))
  • Paper: "The Minister's New Clothes: An Assemblage Approach."
• RGS-IBG Annual International Conference听鈥� The Royal Geographical Society (Sept 2023, London (UK))
  • Paper: 鈥淲eekend at Benito鈥檚: What ethnographic fieldwork in Mussolini鈥檚 hometown has taught me about the lack of political pluralism in Human Geography.鈥�
• 鈥淎esthetics and Politics鈥� Conference听鈥� Arts and Humanities Faculty, King's College London (Nov 2022, London (UK))
  • Paper: 鈥淒esigning Politics: The T-Shirts of Italian Politicians.鈥�
• Interdisciplinary PhD Research Panel听鈥� UCL Connect.ed Society (Feb 2021, online)
  • I shared my academic journey and PhD experience with students (especially first-gen) interested in pursuing a PhD.
• Lightning Graduate Talks听鈥� St John鈥檚 College, University of Cambridge (Jan 2020, Cambridge (UK))
  • I presented my PhD project in front of members of the College.
• 鈥淢emories of the Future鈥� Conference听鈥� School of Advanced Study, University of London (Mar 2019, London (UK))
  • Paper: 鈥淏randing Remembrance: The Symbolic and Material Imaginaries of the Poppy.鈥�
• Public Annual Conference听鈥� Veterans for Peace UK (Nov 2018, London (UK))
  • I presented my research on war remembrance at the organisation鈥檚 annual gathering.
• 鈥淏etween Borders鈥� 6^th听Annual Conference听鈥� UCL Migration Research Unit (Jun 2017, London (UK))
  • I chaired a panel on "Border Spatialities" and helped organise a photography exhibition on in-between spaces of refuge.

Research Interests

By drawing on Deleuzean principles of assemblage thinking, my thesis looks at the way political t-shirts form and perform political affect, discourse, and action across different political assemblages. The project consisted of a one-year assemblage-inflected ethnography in Italy engaging with different realities across the political spectrum. This research paid particular attention to t-shirts with political slogans and prints as the most compelling and accessible political object found in the mundanity of everyday life, with a well-established symbolic and material history within social movements. As an accessible and easy-to-print form of popular culture enabled by fast consumerism, t-shirts enable the vehement activist, the fashionista, or the one-off wearer to send up-to-date memos of political partisanship at the level of the everyday. When a particular political t-shirt travels to a square where protesting masses are gathered, into the closet of the current Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, appears on the camera of a local TV station or a satirical meme page, and makes its way into the crypt where Benito Mussolini is buried, the act of following this object productively captures the spatial, territorial and affective complexity of the different modes, places, and scales of politics. Furthermore, my PhD developed and operationalised an innovative ethnographic approach in assemblage thinking. Given the surge of interest in assemblage theory across the social sciences, this conceptual and methodological proposition has implications beyond the scope of this research by encouraging a rethinking of political comparativism. Ultimately, this analysis helped break political dichotomies between formal and informal, public and private, macro and micro, bottom-up and top-down, not only adding to literature on popular geopolitics but also helping rethink the very idea of the political and the way we can study it.听