Milan, Italy’s economic capital, continues to experience notable growth, with a projected 1.1% increase in added value for 2024, according to Assolombarda – an association representing entrepreneurs in the metropolitan city and surrounding provinces of Lodi, Monza, Brianza, and Pavia. Despite these positive economic indicators, the city faces conflicting dynamics that disproportionately impact its most vulnerable populations. Processes of financialization, touristification, and urban regeneration have intensified both social and spatial polarisation, creating a stark contrast between the prosperous city centre and increasingly marginalised suburban areas and urban “voids.” These spaces are often subject to gentrification, further displacing low-income residents beyond the urban periphery.
In response to these developments, Milan’s public discourse has increasingly focused on previously neglected issues, such as the conditions of peripheral neighbourhoods, housing crises, and the future of public spaces. These topics have become central in media narratives and political agendas.
Amid this evolving landscape, social scientists face mounting pressure to articulate their perspectives, engage in critical analyses, and align with particular strategies of action. Cultural anthropology, in particular, has seen a rise in social visibility and relevance, evolving from a niche academic field to a dynamic and responsive domain of knowledge applied to pressing contemporary challenges. In Milan, anthropologists are employed both within and beyond academia, taking on roles as educators, social workers, urban planners, and community managers, among others. These roles often involve the application of anthropological insights, underscoring a convergence of public, applied, and professional anthropologies that frequently intersect rather than function as discrete domains.
As anthropologists involved in both research and education, we have often found ourselves drawn into public debates and grassroots social movements addressing issues such as gentrification in Milan. This involvement has required us to negotiate various and sometimes contradictory positions within a continuum that spans public engagement and activism. These experiences have prompted critical reflections on the public dimension of our discipline. In the following sections, we aim to narrate the outcomes of these negotiations, , showing how the liminality of our affiliations can highlight the situated and context-specific nature of anthropological knowledge.
The supposedly ‘expert’ anthropologist and the demand for solutions
In June 2022, following the publication of a monograph on one of Milan’s largest public housing districts (“Barrio San Siro”, Franco Angeli)[1], Paolo, an assistant professor at a Milanese university, was invited to participate in discussions as a specialist on “urban issues”. These invitations were extended by two collectives – one in Milan and the other in Bologna – organising debates on the consequences of gentrification and potential strategies to counter it.
In the book, Paolo does not directly address that issue, which is relatively concerned with the neighbourhood. Rather, the study moved from a relational conception of urban space to interpret the structural violence that affects a periphery of Lombardy’s capital city. However, the release of the book was partly included by some readers in the public debate on the “urban question” that was developing in Milan. Probably due to the lack of other similar products recently published, Paolo was involved in discussions that transcended his expertise, labelled as an “expert” anthropologist, able to bring back an informed point of view on what was happening in the Lombard capital. While this was certainly justified on the one hand (the book, after all, is the result of five years of ethnographic research), on the other hand it questioned the process of defining the figure of the “expert” and the actual possibility of standing in that specific debate as an anthropologist.
On other occasions, Paolo was contacted by local and national radio stations and newspapers to express opinions concerning the city of Milan as a whole. This leap in scale, albeit limited (from the neighbourhood to the city), constitutes another element to be problematised. Paolo’s ethnography expresses knowledge that is certainly not only related to the neighbourhood mentioned above but it is always circumstantial to specific places in the city. Anthropology frequently excels at examining how macro-social processes – such as gentrification – manifest at the micro-scale. However, it remains challenging to perform the reverse operation, translating micro-level findings to broader macro-scale analyses.
Public debates often demand this leap in scale, a transition that social scientists such as sociologists and urban planners are typically more adept at navigating. They are better positioned to address the question: how can a localised case study inform urban-scale dynamics and offer solutions to policymakers? The discomfort generated by these expectations perhaps underscores the unique nature of anthropology. Nevertheless, we contend that grappling with such demands is essential if anthropology is to be genuinely recognised as a “public” discipline.
Between feminist anthropology and political militancy
Sonia’s master’s thesis was an ethnographic study examining the intersections between gender, gentrification, and public spaces in the city of Monza. As a feminist anthropologist, Sonia approached her research field by drawing on personal experiences of navigating urban spaces. Gentrification emerged as one of the initial issues she sought to analyse from a political and activist perspective, given its profound connections to the displacement and exclusion of marginalised populations, including immigrants and economically disadvantaged groups, in urban centres.
When Sonia began studying gentrification through a gender lens, she recognised that its impact extended beyond immigrant and low-income communities to herself as a subject of analysis. As a woman crossing urban environments, she experienced first-hand how the perceived safety or danger of spaces is contingent upon how they are designed and perceived.
Sonia’s research aimed to explore how gentrification transforms women’s experiences of urban life and how it shapes new social habits. She argued that gentrification could function as a mechanism of exclusion but, conversely, might also inspire women to engage with urban spaces in new ways or organise collectively to reclaim their right to the city.
Her feminist political perspective naturally intertwined with her anthropological education, both in theoretical and practical terms. Viewing feminism as both a way of thinking and a set of practices, Sonia adopted feminist ethnography as her primary methodological approach for the thesis. Nonetheless, she sought to maintain a balance, resisting a purely activist research stance, even though many of her interlocutors were comrades from the same political collective.
Following feminist principles and ethnographic methodologies, Sonia aimed to create a safe space for her interlocutors to reflect on issues such as their relationship with public spaces and the challenges urban environments pose for women. She sought to minimise the traditional hierarchical gap between researcher and participant, instead fostering interactions akin to a feminist assembly.
Despite this approach, Sonia found it challenging to set aside her role as a political militant and fully embrace an anthropological perspective. Her preconceived views about gentrification and urban policies, which she initially viewed solely through a negative lens, were difficult to overcome. However, this intellectual struggle prompted her to engage more attentively with the perspectives of her interviewees. This analysis from below allowed her to consider people not only as victims of political and economic choices but also as protagonists in some urban processes.
One significant finding emerged from Sonia’s research on a gentrified area in Monza, colloquially known as the “movida street”. Interviews with middle-aged male residents revealed their perception of contributing positively to the street’s gentrification and beautification. Conversely, Sonia’s feminist comrades, primarily young women, critiqued the gentrification process while simultaneously acknowledging certain benefits, particularly for women and other marginalised individuals navigating the streets alone.
The realisation that gentrification might have positive aspects led Sonia to question whether her research was still aligned with her political activism and whether her comrades would value her findings, even if they diverged from collective political narratives. These reflections also raised broader questions: how can anthropology meaningfully engage with political militancy? Can anthropology itself be conceived as an inherently militant act?
The choice of not being identified as an “ethnographer”
Gabriele approached the issues related to housing and gentrification as a private citizen, through an informal group called “Abitare in Via Padova” (Living in Padova Street). This group brought together various civic associations from the Milanese suburbs to fight the rising rental and property prices in the neighbourhood. The association’s primary objective was to promote a political agenda focused on ensuring the right to decent housing for all residents of Milan.
During Gabriele’s first meeting with the group, after introducing himself, he was immediately asked: “Are you here as a researcher or as an activist?”. This question highlighted the persistent issue of “positioning” – a challenge not limited to ethnographic fieldwork but one that permeates various social contexts, networks, and moments in an individual’s life. Ethnographers, given their theoretical and professional training, are particularly attuned to these complexities of social engagement.
Gabriele positioned himself explicitly as an activist, asserting he had no academic intentions. This decision allowed him to avoid adopting an “identity” that would place him either “above” or “alongside” the people with whom he interacted. Framing his involvement outside conventional anthropological terms enabled him to bypass several methodological challenges associated with participant observation. He was also relieved from the obligation to produce academic findings, interpret social dynamics through the confines of disciplinary categories, or limit his interactions to committee members, residents, and politicians encountered during his experience with Abitare in Via Padova.
Nonetheless, a critical question lingered in the background: what is the added value of an anthropologist when they are not acting explicitly as an anthropologist? What specific skills can anthropologists bring to the social arena when their objectives are political rather than scholarly?
This question prompted Gabriele to explore pathways for transitioning from cultural analysis to cultural production. Drawing on his expertise in narrative studies, acquired through research on return migration from the Central Mediterranean to Senegal[2], Gabriele engaged not only in analysing the gentrification rhetoric perpetuated by real estate agencies – one of the primary drivers of rising housing costs in the neighbourhood – but also in crafting a counter-narrative through the development of a podcast.
The podcast itself[3] was developed using ethnographic techniques, including the recording of nineteen in-depth interviews. This endeavour demonstrated that even when anthropologists are not formally conducting research, they carry with them a set of professional skills adaptable to other social and political purposes.
However, this shift toward cultural production raises significant ethical questions, particularly when such projects begin to resemble ethnographic restitution. Anthropological scholarship from the 1980s and 1990s underscored the constructed nature of the “ethnographic field” as a temporally and spatially meaningful frame defined by the ethnographer within the continuum of social reality. As such, the social arena always holds the latent potential to be framed and interpreted as an ethnographic field.
Conclusions
Our experiences reveal the inherently fluid identity of the anthropologist who moves between the roles of expert, activist, and researcher. This fluidity is both a strength and a source of tension, often leaving anthropologists feeling “out of place” and prompting them to question their position and purpose in the contexts they engage with.
Our experiences illustrate how anthropological and ethnographic knowledge and skills can be applied in different ways and for different purposes, depending on the chosen positioning, even while addressing the same subject. Yet, a persistent sense of being “in-between” fosters critical reflection on their identity, raising questions about the boundaries of their expertise, the ethics of their engagement, and the expectations placed upon them.
However, it is not only the anthropologist who reflects on their positioning. Other actors in the field also engage with this fluidity. Paolo Grassi’s experience demonstrates how the ‘expert’ role often comes with expectations of providing solutions that extend beyond the researcher’s domain. Similarly, feminist comrades expected Sonia Imbrici to use her research as a tool for advancing a shared struggle. Gabriele Masi, on the other hand, was able to leverage his expertise – even as a “simple activist” – to gain credibility as a spokesperson for the ideas of Abitare in Via Padova through the podcast.
Whether contributing to public debates, engaging in activism, or conducting research, anthropologists must constantly navigate these shifting roles, adapting their methodologies and perspectives to the social and political demands of the moment.
Ultimately, this fluidity underscores the unique potential of anthropology to bridge diverse domains of knowledge and practice. It challenges anthropologists to embrace their liminal position not as a constraint but as a vantage point – one from which they can question, critique, and meaningfully contribute to the complex realities they seek to understand and transform. This continuous negotiation of roles highlights the discipline’s versatility, compelling anthropologists to redefine their place within society while pushing the boundaries of what anthropology can achieve.
[1] https://www.francoangeli.it/Libro/Barrio-San-Siro?Id=27366
[2] https://www.edizioniarcoiris.it/home/236-fallire-la-migrazione.html