Title: Martyrs Do Not Die: Commemorating Internationalist Volunteers Fallen in Rojava
Expected Completion Date: 2025
PhD Supervisor & Co-Supervisor: Michelle Weitzel & Jonathan Luke Austin
My PhD project interrogates the political roles played by the commemoration of internationalist militants who lost their lives in Rojava within the European radical Left. Speifically, I focus on the ways in which the anarchists Anna Campbell and Lorenzo Orsetti are remembered in the radical left-wing commemorative landscapes of their respective countries of birth and residence (Italy and the UK). In order to address this question, I rely on the conceptual notion of ‘commemorative landscapes.’ Methodologically, in order to empirically unpack this notion, I am conducting unstructured interviews, visiting lieux de memoire and participating in commemorative events, as well as analysing artefacts of commemoration. As a result, the project will offer significant insights into the political significance of commemoration and into internationalism within the European radical Left, which remain conceptually and empirically understudied and underappreciated subjects despite their centrality in mobilising generations of militants across time and geographies.
Massimiliano is a PhD student in International Relations and Political Science at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He holds a bachelor's degree in International Development and Cooperation from the University of Bologna and a master's degree in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute. He has been working on violence within radical social movements, with a specific interest in the notion of self-defence developed within the PKK and the YPG/YPJ in Syria.
Teaching Experience
Teaching Assistant for the MINT programmes