Email: e.fusarpoli@unisg.it
Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche
Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, 9
fraz. Pollenzo – 12042 Bra (Cn)
BIOGRAPHY
Elena Fusar Poli is an anthropologist and research collaborator at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, where she is engaged in the “SAFWA – Best Integrated Pest Management for Safe Water” project.
In 2023, she earned her Ph.D. in “Philosophy and Human Sciences” from the University of Milan with a thesis in anthropology entitled “(Re)Learning from the Pandemic: hacer comunidad facing Covid-19,” dedicated to the social effects of Covid-19 among indigenous and mestizo communities in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. To carry out her doctoral research, she conducted nine months of ethnographic fieldwork during the health emergency. The thesis explored local conceptions of viruses, health, and illness, as well as the strategies implemented in rural municipalities to prevent contagion and address the secondary consequences of the viral outbreak. These strategies can be summarized by resorting to the historical memory of defensive measures taken over the centuries whenever an external danger has threatened the survival of the pueblos; in a massive return to the land and community (including the revitalization of traditional agricultural techniques such as the Milpa-system and agroecological innovations); in active experimentation and promotion of indigenous medicine; the new value given to communitarian education and autonomy.
She has been involved in teaching and mentoring at the University of Milan (courses in Cultural Anthropology and Social Sciences for Globalization) and at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart – Brescia (courses in Nursing Sciences). She is a member of the Departmental Laboratory UNIMI “FUEL – Feminist and Queer Philosophy.”
In 2017, she graduated with honors from the University of Milan with a thesis in Cultural Anthropology, and in 2015, she obtained a three-year degree in Political Philosophy.
SPECIFIC RESEARCH TOPICS
- Anthropology of development, within development, beyond development
- Rural development and sustainability of agricultural productions
- Medical anthropology
- Anthropology of Latin America (focus: Mexican anthropology)
UNISG RESEARCH PROJECTS
- SAFWA – Alternative Biopesticides for SAFe Integrated Pest and WAter Management around Mediterranean