معرفی
Lucia Michelutti is a Professor of Anthropology at University College London (UCL), where she conducts ethnographic research on caste/race, popular democracy, violence, crime, and politics. Her extensive fieldwork in North India (Uttar Pradesh) and Venezuela has established her as a leading expert on mafia systems of governance ('Mafia Raj') and charismatic political movements.
Her primary research interests include the ethnography of caste and race, the dynamics of popular democracy, and the interplay between violence, crime, and political authority. Michelutti also investigates cultures of leadership, authority, and masculinity, with a focus on how these manifest in South Asian and Latin American contexts. Her work bridges anthropology and political science, emphasizing grounded, comparative perspectives.
Recent publications reveal a strong thematic focus on criminal political economies, electoral manipulation, and dynastic politics in South Asia. Michelutti's articles consistently explore the entanglement of state and non-state actors in governance, particularly through the lens of 'Mafia Raj' and extortion practices, while also examining charisma in movements like Chavismo in Venezuela.
Michelutti has received several prestigious awards and grants:
- ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2002)
- ERC Starting Investigator Grant (2012)
- ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2017)
- ERC Advanced Grant (2020)
She has directed multiple significant research projects, including an ERC Advanced Grant (2021-2025) on cross-cultural extortion practices and the development of the Ethnographically Driven Risk Analysis Framework (EDRAF) to assess political criminal economies. Her work has been supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, Nuffield Foundation, and European Union funding programs.
Michelutti collaborates with an international team of scholars, including Ashraf Hoque, Nicolas Martin, and David Picherit, on comparative studies of organized crime and political systems in South Asia and Latin America.
