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Cosmos

The Centre on Social Movement Studies

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Three FIREworks fall seminars

These seminars are a space for the presentation and discussion of ongoing research at the intersection of gender, social movements, feminist theory, and intersectionality

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The FIREworks Seminars offer a space for the presentation and discussion of ongoing research at the intersection of gender, social movements, feminist theory, and intersectionality. With a focus on work-in-progress presentations, the series aims to foster critical dialogue across disciplines, perspectives, and methodological approaches.

Seminars will take place both in Palazzo Strozzi and Palazzo Vegni

Seminar Programme

22 October 2025, 3:00 pm
Sala del Consiglio, Palazzo Vegni – Via San Niccolò 93, Firenze
Feminists Debate the Family: Challenges to Right-Wing Familialism from Turkey
Speaker: Özlem Altan-Olcay, Koç University

10 November 2025, 3:00 pm
Simone del Pollaiolo, Palazzo Strozzi – Piazza Strozzi, Firenze
Tunisia Uprising: Feminisms and Queerness on the Streets and Online
Speakers: Guendalina Simoncini and Maria Nicola Stragapede, Scuola Normale Superiore;
Henda Chennaoui, journalist and activist

10 December 2025, 3:00 pm
Aula Dottorandi, Palazzo Vegni – Via San Niccolò 93, Firenze
Breaking Up with Love. Constance Debré as a Literary and Sociological Phenomenon
Speaker: Aletta Diefenbach, Freie Universität Berlin

News

20/10/2025

Armed conflicts in the world, an alarming trend
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14/10/2025

Europe and Ukraine, two different views at the Summer school on War, Peace and the world order
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06/10/2025

"Il no al genocidio si intreccia con le preoccupazioni per il futuro."
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02/10/2025

Israel and Palestine at the War&Peace Summer School
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02/10/2025

Israele e Palestina alla Summer School su guerra, pace e ordine mondiale
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18/09/2025

War, Peace and the World Order: scholars and activists at the SNS summer school
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Publications

Journal Article - 2025

Communication creates partial organization: A comparative analysis of the organizing practices of two climate action movements, Youth for Climate and Fridays for Future Italy
Marco Deseriis, Lorenzo Zamponi, Diego Ceccobelli
This article focuses on a neglected aspect of the climate action movement Fridays for Future, namely, the relationship between its mediated communication practices and its early organizational processes. Drawing from a strand of organizational communication that underscores the constitutive dimension of communication to organizing processes, we analyze the significance of mediatized leadership and networked communication for the foundation and early development of two national chapters of Fridays for Future: Youth for Climate (YFC) Belgium and Fridays for Future Italy (FFFI).

Journal Article - 2023

Resisting right-wing populism in power: a comparative analysis of the Facebook activities of social movements in Italy and the UK
Niccolò Pennucci
This paper aims to present a comparative study of the civil society reaction to right-wing populism in power through social media, by looking at cases in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Journal Article - 2023

Emotions in Action: the Role of Emotions in Refugee Solidarity Activism
Chiara Milan
This article investigates the different types of emotions that result from participation in refugee solidarity activism, investigating how they change over time and to what extent they explain why individuals remain involved in action in spite of unfavorable circumstances.

Journal Article - 2023

‘Love is over, this is going to be Turkey!’: cathartic resonance between the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil
Batuhan Eren
This study addresses the question of why and how a protest can inspire individuals in distant countries. Taking the June 2013 protests in Turkey and Brazil as cases, it investigates the reasons why the Turkish protests were framed as one of the inspirational benchmarks by some Brazilian protesters.

Journal Article - 2023

Mutual aid and solidarity politics in times of emergency: direct social action and temporality in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic
Lorenzo Zamponi
From the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures introduced created a series of social problems and needs that were partially addressed in Italy as well as in other countries by grassroots mutual aid initiatives. While many of these initiatives were strongly rooted in the Italian social movement and civil society landscape and the choice to engage in mutual aid activities was the result of long years of reflection and planning, the article shows how strongly the temporality of emergency affected the nature of these initiatives, their development and their outcomes, in particular with regard to the extraordinary number of people who volunteered and their relationship with politicisation processes.

Monograph - 2023

Populism and (Pop) Music
Manuela Caiani, Enrico Padoan
The book provides a detailed account of the links between production of popular culture to the rise of populism and contributes to studies on populism and popular culture in Italy, using a comparative approach and a cultural sociology perspective

Monograph - 2022

Labour conflicts in the digital age
Donatella della Porta, Riccardo Emilio Chesta, Lorenzo Cini
From Deliveroo to Amazon, digital platforms have drastically transformed the way we work. But how are these transformations being received and challenged by workers? This book provides a radical interpretation of the changing nature of worker movements in the digital age, developing an invaluable approach that combines social movement studies and industrial relations. Using case studies taken from Europe and North America, it offers a comparative perspective on the mobilizing trajectories of different platform workers and their distinct organizational forms and action repertoires.

Monograph - 2022

Resisting the Backlash: Street Protest in Italy
Donatella della Porta, Niccolò Bertuzzi, Daniela Chironi, Chiara Milan, Martín Portos & Lorenzo Zamponi
Drawing interview material, together with extensive data from the authors’ original social movement database, this book examines the development of social movements in resistance to perceived political "regression" and a growing right-wing backlash.

Journal Article - 2021

Learning from Democratic Practices: New Perspectives in Institutional Design
Andrea Felicetti
Drawing from literature on democratic practices in social movements and democratic innovations, the article illustrates three ways to advance institutional design in the wake of the systemic turn.

Journal Article - 2021

Populism between voting and non-electoral participation
Andrea Pirro & Martín Portos
The article focuses on a neglected aspect of populist mobilisation, i.e. non-electoral participation (NEP), and elaborates on the extent to which populist party voters engage politically outside the polling station. While challenging common understandings of populism as inherently distrustful and apathetic, and protest as an exclusive practice of the left, the study critically places NEP at the heart of populism in general, and populist right politics in particular.
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Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Scuola Normale Superiore Palazzo Strozzi Piazza degli Strozzi 50123 Firenze Italy
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