Staff Profile:Dr Lorenzo D'Angelo
- Responsibilities:
- Areas of Interest:
- Natural Resources and Extractive Industries
- Environmental and Economic Anthropology
- Colonial History of East and West Africa
- Interplay between human and non-human
- Mining Temporalities
- Global labour history
- Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda
- Research groups / Centres:
Department of International Development
Key Facts:
Lorenzo is a cultural anthropologist interested in natural resources and extractive industries, environmental and economic anthropology. He obtained his PhD in Anthropology of the Contemporary in 2011 from the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). Lorenzo is co-founder and co-convenor of the EASA Anthropology of Mining network and has conducted field research in Sierra Leone and Tanzania. In Sierra Leone he has examined different aspects of artisanal mining (e.g. religion, technology, time, work ethics and morality). In Tanzania his ethnographic research focused on agro-pastoral systems and climate change among Maasai communities.
An assumption behind his anthropological approach is the idea that the environment is not a passive container of resources but a system of relationships that escapes from strict dichotomies between animate and inanimate, human and non-human. Following this line of thought, he has developed a theoretical interest in new materialism and material ecocriticism. In general terms, Lorenzo's work advocates the value of an approach that links together micro- and macro-historical analyses and establishes a dialogue between ethnography and history of practices and imaginaries. Indeed, his ethnographic research in Sierra Leone has been complemented by archival investigations conducted between 2008 and 2015 in various institutions, including the United Kingdom's National Archives, the Selection Trust Archives at the London School of Economics, the British Newspapers Library, and the National Library in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Currently, he works alongside Professor Eleanor Fisher on the EU Horizon 2020 funded NORFACE/Belmont project "Gold Matters: Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: Trans-Regional and Multi-Actor Perspectives "
- Publications:
-
YNumber of items: 14.
2020
- D'Angelo, L. (2020) Oreteti. Connecting humans to God. Visual Ethnography, 9 (1). ISSN 2281-1605 (Video)
- Fisher, E., D'Angelo, L., Twongyirwe, R. and van de Camp, E. (2020) Uganda: Gold as a (Trans)National Treasure. In: The Global Gold Production System Touching Ground: Expansion, Technological Innovation and Informalization. Palgrave Macmillan. (Unpublished)
2019
- D'Angelo, L. (2019) God’s gifts: destiny, poverty, and temporality in the mines of Sierra Leone. Africa Spectrum, 54 (1). pp. 44-60. ISSN 1868-6869 doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039719848509
- D'Angelo, L. (2019) Changing environments, occult protests, and social memories in Sierra Leone. In: Bondarenko, D. M. and Butovskaya, M. L. (eds.) The Omnipresent Past: Historical Anthropology of Africa and African Diaspora. LRC Publishing House, Moscow, pp. 46-65.
2018
- D'Angelo, L. (2018) Diamonds and plural temporalities. Articulating encounters in the mines of Sierra Leone. In: Jan Pijpers, R. and Eriksen, T. H. (eds.) Mining Encounters. Extractive Industries in an Overheated World. Pluto Press, London, pp. 138-155. ISBN 9780745338378
- D'Angelo, L. (2018) From traces to carpets: unravelling labour practices in the mines of Sierra Leone. In: De Vito, C. and Gerritsen, A. (eds.) Micro-spatial histories of global labour. Palgrave-Macmilan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 313-342. ISBN 9783319584898 doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58490-4_12
2016
- D'Angelo, L. (2016) Anthropology as storytelling: fetishism and terror in Michael Taussig’s early works. Polis. Revista de Stiinte Politice, 4 (14). pp. 77-89. ISSN 2344-5750
- D'Angelo, L. (2016) The art of governing contingency: rethinking the colonial history of diamond mining in Sierra Leone. Historical Research, 89 (243). pp. 136-157. ISSN 0950-3471 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12103
2015
- D'Angelo, L. (2015) 'Diamond mining is a chain'. Luck, blessing, and gambling in Sierra Leone’s artisanal mines. Critical African Studies, 7 (3). pp. 243-261. ISSN 2040-7211 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2015.1077467
2014
- D'Angelo, L. (2014) Who owns the diamonds? The occult eco-nomy of diamond mining in Sierra Leone. Africa. Journal of the International African Institute, 84 (2). pp. 269-293. ISSN 1750-0184 doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0001972013000752
2012
- Rossi, A. and D'Angelo, L., eds. (2012) Antropologia, Risorse e Conflitti Ambientali [anthropology, resources, and environmental conflicts]. Mimesis, pp197.
- D'Angelo, L. (2012) Capitalismo e risorse minerarie in una prospettiva ‘sferica’”. In: Rossi, A. and D'Angelo, L. (eds.) Antropologia, Risorse e Conflitti Ambientali. Mimesis.
2011
- D'Angelo, L. (2011) Il duro lavoro ed i soldi veloci. L’economia occulta dell’estrazione mineraria in Sierra Leone”. In: Voltolin, A. (ed.) L’ideologia del denaro. Tra psicoanalisi, letteratura, antropologia. Bruno Mondadori, pp. 97-129.
2008
- D'Angelo, L. (2008) Negare l’ovvietà. Identità, violenza e razzismo attraverso il discorso antropologico. Costruzioni Psicoanalitiche. pp. 87-97. ISSN 1972-5744
