Faculty member
Laura Volpi is RTT at the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” (University of Milan) where she teaches Cultural Anthropology. Her ethnographic research centers on the intersections between the body and scientific practices, with a special focus on how disciplines such as forensic genetics and taxonomy engage with local cosmologies and indigenous understandings of corporeality.
She conducted fieldwork among the kichwa runakuna of the Upper Peruvian Amazon rainforest, analyzing the social and political uses of genetic research. In particular, she explored how scientific discourse is translated, appropriated, and reinterpreted in relation to indigenous understandings of humanity, body, and belonging. She also carried out ethnographic research in Euskal Herria on the exhumation of bodies from mass graves dating back to the Spanish Civil War, examining how biomolecular data intersect with genealogies, family memories, and local knowledge in the process of reconstructing the identity of human remains. She is currently involved in an international research project investigating the relationship between ethnotaxonomies and scientific classifications in the conservation of stingless bees (meliponini) in the Amazon. The project explores traditional knowledge related to these insects, their products, and their role within indigenous food and healing systems.
She has participated as a speaker in numerous national and international conferences. Her publications include the monograph La Selva instabile. Indigeni e genetisti nell’Amazzonia Peruviana (Milano: Cortina, 2023).
Personal webpage: https://www.unimi.it/it/ugov/person/laura-volpi