Elena Vacchelli
Biographic Data
| ID | 3677091 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elena Vacchelli |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elena |
| FAMILY NAME | Vacchelli |
| SIGNATURE | VACCHELLI E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Greenwich |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6823-2647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 176 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Enunciating menopause narratives through artivism
This article uses artivist methods such as feminist cartooning and body mapping to examine the diversity of racialised women’s menopause knowledge and experiences in the UK, Sweden and India, noting how these are varied and need to be understood contextually against the larger frame of their life experiences. We take as our starting point the menopause discourse prevalent in mainstream media and workplace initiatives in the UK, noting that it is …
Between solidarity and hostility
This paper explores migrants’ experiences of settling in Greenwich, London, using peer research and taking into account the socio-political context and specific place-based politics unfolding in local communities. Resulting from a research collaboration between academic researchers, two civil society organisations, and four people of migrant origins as peer researchers, this paper interrogates community, reflecting on its dichotomous understandin…
Participation and contested forms of citizenship in the City of Sanctuary
The UK-based City of Sanctuary movement claims to create welcoming conditions for those who had to flee their homes. Despite the well-documented efforts to integrate migrants, refugees and asylum seekers at a local level, the movement’s practices have been criticised by scholars as reproducing government-prescribed passivity and exclusion of these groups. Through document analysis and participant observation in a Borough of Sanctuary group in Lon…
We do things that matter
The article explores welfare and health practitioners' representations of work practices and professional values underpinning their engagement with forced migrants within a polyfunctional health service in an Italian metropolitan city. It explores the integrated approach developed to cater for asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection's specific needs. Building on interviews with health professionals and welfare workers, the ar…
Diversity as discourse and diversity as practice
The paper critically examines the way diversity is conceptualised as a dominant discourse and as a paradigm for understanding the present, which has gradually replaced multiculturalism in academic and policy discourse. Using our interviews with third sector practitioners providing mental health support to a wealth of migrant populations in London, the paper offers key examples of how TSOs (Third Sector Organisations) address migrant women’s diver…
Invoking vulnerability
The paper explores London-based third sector practitioners’ engagement with vulnerability in their work with refugee and migrant women during pregnancy and in the post-natal period. Practitioners draw on notions of vulnerability that signal weakness and passivity as a strategy, which enables them to secure resources for the women they support as well as to sustain their own organisational existence in a third sector landscape that has been transf…
Embodied Research in Migration Studies
Embodied Research in Migration Studies
The definition of data in qualitative research is expanding. This book highlights the value of embodiment as a qualitative research tool and outlines what it means to do embodied research at various points of the research process. It shows how using this non-invasive approach with vulnerable research participants such as migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking women can help service users or research participants to be involved in the co-production …
Towards an inclusive and gendered right to the city
From a/topia to topia
Beyond Crisis Talk
Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes …
Telling digital stories as feminist research and practice
In this article, we look at Digital Storytelling (DS) as a specifically feminist epistemology within qualitative social research methods. Digital Storytelling is a process allowing research participants to tell their stories in their own words through a guided creative workshop that includes the use of digital technology, participatory approaches, and co-production of personal stories. The article draws on a 2-day Digital Storytelling workshop wi…
Embodiment in qualitative research
This article draws on the creative methods deployed in the course of a research project aimed at mapping community-based mental health service provision and other specific services migrant, refugee and asylum seeking women regularly access in London. Although the study made use of a mixed method research design, only the art-based approach deployed as part of the focus groups is discussed. The article contributes to developing embodied research m…
Is it Really Just the Cuts? Neo-Liberal Tales from the Women's Voluntary and Community Sector in London
This article analyses the ways in which recent neo-liberal changes in service provision together with much reduced budgets due to austerity policies have affected women’s voluntary and community organisations in London. These organisations provide crucial resources to vulnerable women who are victims of domestic abuse, trafficking, honour-based violence, and so on, and are a primary example of women seeking support at the grassroots level. While …
Re-Thinking the Boundaries of the Focus Group
This article aims at problematizing the boundaries of what counts as focus group and in so doing it identifies some continuity between focus group and workshop, especially when it comes to arts informed and activity laden focus groups. The workshop [1] is often marginalized as a legitimate method for qualitative data collection outside PAR (Participatory Action Research)-based methodologies. Using examples from our research projects in East Afric…
Gender and the city
Throughout the 1970s Milan was a laboratory for social and political practices. In Milan, before other Italian cities, the 1968 students and workers movement had attempted to subvert local institutions by challenging them through protest and other forms of action. Revolutionary neighbourhood committees and anti-authoritarian schools were self-managed by activists themselves ; like in other Italian cities such as Turin, in Milan factories were the…
Introduction
This special issue on Gender, Religion and Migration builds on a symposium at Middlesex University held in November 2011 to explore comparisons and contrasts across different religious communities ranging from Muslim, Catholic, Pentecostal to Buddhist. This collection of articles brings together empirical research from different academic disciplines in the social sciences, including sociology, geography and anthropology and uses a range of method…
Mothering through Islam
This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgroundsin London to explore how these women use ‘conservative’ interpretations ofIslamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particularthe paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of andgive meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest thatthe women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for teaching…
Gendered Perspectives on Integration Discourses and Measures
This article focuses on gendered discourses in integration policy and the problems immigrants pose in the reproduction of inequalities in a number of European countries. There has been little consideration of how gender categories operate in relation to broader political discourses around the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the constitution of national social and political communities and identities. Yet gender issues have become significant …
Mothering Through Islam
This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgrounds in London to explore how these women use 'conservative' interpretations of Islamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particular the paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of and give meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest that the women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for tea…
Shifting religions and cultures in london's east end
This article considers the ways in which well-established “traditional“ religious communities-particularly Christianity but, to a lesser extent, Islam and Judaism-attempt to construct and minister to religious communities in east London in an age of super-diversity, multiculturalism, and globalization, where religious attendance and affiliation is in no way determined and cannot be taken for granted. We focus particularly on the ways in which rel…
Geographies of subjectivity
This article explores activist women's changing subjectivities and how they sought to challenge the political and spatial order of gender relations in Milan from the late 1960s onwards. Feminist subjectivities have been shaped through the collective practice of consciousness-raising. The relational context of the narratives they established became important as a means of defining their political subjectivity and helped them to make sense of their…
Beyond Crisis Talk
Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes …
Embodiment in qualitative research
This article draws on the creative methods deployed in the course of a research project aimed at mapping community-based mental health service provision and other specific services migrant, refugee and asylum seeking women regularly access in London. Although the study made use of a mixed method research design, only the art-based approach deployed as part of the focus groups is discussed. The article contributes to developing embodied research m…
Gendered Perspectives on Integration Discourses and Measures
This article focuses on gendered discourses in integration policy and the problems immigrants pose in the reproduction of inequalities in a number of European countries. There has been little consideration of how gender categories operate in relation to broader political discourses around the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the constitution of national social and political communities and identities. Yet gender issues have become significant …
Invoking vulnerability
The paper explores London-based third sector practitioners’ engagement with vulnerability in their work with refugee and migrant women during pregnancy and in the post-natal period. Practitioners draw on notions of vulnerability that signal weakness and passivity as a strategy, which enables them to secure resources for the women they support as well as to sustain their own organisational existence in a third sector landscape that has been transf…
Re-Thinking the Boundaries of the Focus Group
This article aims at problematizing the boundaries of what counts as focus group and in so doing it identifies some continuity between focus group and workshop, especially when it comes to arts informed and activity laden focus groups. The workshop [1] is often marginalized as a legitimate method for qualitative data collection outside PAR (Participatory Action Research)-based methodologies. Using examples from our research projects in East Afric…
From a/topia to topia
Is it Really Just the Cuts? Neo-Liberal Tales from the Women's Voluntary and Community Sector in London
This article analyses the ways in which recent neo-liberal changes in service provision together with much reduced budgets due to austerity policies have affected women’s voluntary and community organisations in London. These organisations provide crucial resources to vulnerable women who are victims of domestic abuse, trafficking, honour-based violence, and so on, and are a primary example of women seeking support at the grassroots level. While …
Geographies of subjectivity
This article explores activist women's changing subjectivities and how they sought to challenge the political and spatial order of gender relations in Milan from the late 1960s onwards. Feminist subjectivities have been shaped through the collective practice of consciousness-raising. The relational context of the narratives they established became important as a means of defining their political subjectivity and helped them to make sense of their…
Telling digital stories as feminist research and practice
In this article, we look at Digital Storytelling (DS) as a specifically feminist epistemology within qualitative social research methods. Digital Storytelling is a process allowing research participants to tell their stories in their own words through a guided creative workshop that includes the use of digital technology, participatory approaches, and co-production of personal stories. The article draws on a 2-day Digital Storytelling workshop wi…
Towards an inclusive and gendered right to the city
Introduction
This special issue on Gender, Religion and Migration builds on a symposium at Middlesex University held in November 2011 to explore comparisons and contrasts across different religious communities ranging from Muslim, Catholic, Pentecostal to Buddhist. This collection of articles brings together empirical research from different academic disciplines in the social sciences, including sociology, geography and anthropology and uses a range of method…
Participation and contested forms of citizenship in the City of Sanctuary
The UK-based City of Sanctuary movement claims to create welcoming conditions for those who had to flee their homes. Despite the well-documented efforts to integrate migrants, refugees and asylum seekers at a local level, the movement’s practices have been criticised by scholars as reproducing government-prescribed passivity and exclusion of these groups. Through document analysis and participant observation in a Borough of Sanctuary group in Lon…
Gender and the city
Throughout the 1970s Milan was a laboratory for social and political practices. In Milan, before other Italian cities, the 1968 students and workers movement had attempted to subvert local institutions by challenging them through protest and other forms of action. Revolutionary neighbourhood committees and anti-authoritarian schools were self-managed by activists themselves ; like in other Italian cities such as Turin, in Milan factories were the…
Mothering Through Islam
This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgrounds in London to explore how these women use 'conservative' interpretations of Islamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particular the paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of and give meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest that the women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for tea…
Shifting religions and cultures in london's east end
This article considers the ways in which well-established “traditional“ religious communities-particularly Christianity but, to a lesser extent, Islam and Judaism-attempt to construct and minister to religious communities in east London in an age of super-diversity, multiculturalism, and globalization, where religious attendance and affiliation is in no way determined and cannot be taken for granted. We focus particularly on the ways in which rel…
Geographies of subjectivity
This article explores activist women's changing subjectivities and how they sought to challenge the political and spatial order of gender relations in Milan from the late 1960s onwards. Feminist subjectivities have been shaped through the collective practice of consciousness-raising. The relational context of the narratives they established became important as a means of defining their political subjectivity and helped them to make sense of their…
Introduction
This special issue on Gender, Religion and Migration builds on a symposium at Middlesex University held in November 2011 to explore comparisons and contrasts across different religious communities ranging from Muslim, Catholic, Pentecostal to Buddhist. This collection of articles brings together empirical research from different academic disciplines in the social sciences, including sociology, geography and anthropology and uses a range of method…
Mothering through Islam
This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgroundsin London to explore how these women use ‘conservative’ interpretations ofIslamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particularthe paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of andgive meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest thatthe women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for teaching…
Gendered Perspectives on Integration Discourses and Measures
This article focuses on gendered discourses in integration policy and the problems immigrants pose in the reproduction of inequalities in a number of European countries. There has been little consideration of how gender categories operate in relation to broader political discourses around the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the constitution of national social and political communities and identities. Yet gender issues have become significant …
Mothering Through Islam
This paper draws upon research with mothers of diverse Muslim backgrounds in London to explore how these women use 'conservative' interpretations of Islamic beliefs and practices to underpin their parenting strategies. In particular the paper looks at how mothers use religion as a frame to make sense of and give meaning to their experiences and encounters in Britain. We suggest that the women use Islam in four key ways: (i) as a framework for tea…
Shifting religions and cultures in london's east end
This article considers the ways in which well-established “traditional“ religious communities-particularly Christianity but, to a lesser extent, Islam and Judaism-attempt to construct and minister to religious communities in east London in an age of super-diversity, multiculturalism, and globalization, where religious attendance and affiliation is in no way determined and cannot be taken for granted. We focus particularly on the ways in which rel…
Gender and the city
Throughout the 1970s Milan was a laboratory for social and political practices. In Milan, before other Italian cities, the 1968 students and workers movement had attempted to subvert local institutions by challenging them through protest and other forms of action. Revolutionary neighbourhood committees and anti-authoritarian schools were self-managed by activists themselves ; like in other Italian cities such as Turin, in Milan factories were the…
Is it Really Just the Cuts? Neo-Liberal Tales from the Women's Voluntary and Community Sector in London
This article analyses the ways in which recent neo-liberal changes in service provision together with much reduced budgets due to austerity policies have affected women’s voluntary and community organisations in London. These organisations provide crucial resources to vulnerable women who are victims of domestic abuse, trafficking, honour-based violence, and so on, and are a primary example of women seeking support at the grassroots level. While …
Re-Thinking the Boundaries of the Focus Group
This article aims at problematizing the boundaries of what counts as focus group and in so doing it identifies some continuity between focus group and workshop, especially when it comes to arts informed and activity laden focus groups. The workshop [1] is often marginalized as a legitimate method for qualitative data collection outside PAR (Participatory Action Research)-based methodologies. Using examples from our research projects in East Afric…
Embodied Research in Migration Studies
Embodied Research in Migration Studies
The definition of data in qualitative research is expanding. This book highlights the value of embodiment as a qualitative research tool and outlines what it means to do embodied research at various points of the research process. It shows how using this non-invasive approach with vulnerable research participants such as migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking women can help service users or research participants to be involved in the co-production …
Towards an inclusive and gendered right to the city
From a/topia to topia
Beyond Crisis Talk
Commencing with some recent examples drawn from Anglophone media, this introductory article reflects on the multiple ways in which crisis and migration have been interconnected over the last decade in public discourse, political debates and academic research. It underlines how crisis has not simply become a key descriptor of specific events, but continues to operate as a powerful narrative device that structures knowledge of migration and shapes …
Telling digital stories as feminist research and practice
In this article, we look at Digital Storytelling (DS) as a specifically feminist epistemology within qualitative social research methods. Digital Storytelling is a process allowing research participants to tell their stories in their own words through a guided creative workshop that includes the use of digital technology, participatory approaches, and co-production of personal stories. The article draws on a 2-day Digital Storytelling workshop wi…
Embodiment in qualitative research
This article draws on the creative methods deployed in the course of a research project aimed at mapping community-based mental health service provision and other specific services migrant, refugee and asylum seeking women regularly access in London. Although the study made use of a mixed method research design, only the art-based approach deployed as part of the focus groups is discussed. The article contributes to developing embodied research m…
Diversity as discourse and diversity as practice
The paper critically examines the way diversity is conceptualised as a dominant discourse and as a paradigm for understanding the present, which has gradually replaced multiculturalism in academic and policy discourse. Using our interviews with third sector practitioners providing mental health support to a wealth of migrant populations in London, the paper offers key examples of how TSOs (Third Sector Organisations) address migrant women’s diver…
Invoking vulnerability
The paper explores London-based third sector practitioners’ engagement with vulnerability in their work with refugee and migrant women during pregnancy and in the post-natal period. Practitioners draw on notions of vulnerability that signal weakness and passivity as a strategy, which enables them to secure resources for the women they support as well as to sustain their own organisational existence in a third sector landscape that has been transf…
We do things that matter
The article explores welfare and health practitioners' representations of work practices and professional values underpinning their engagement with forced migrants within a polyfunctional health service in an Italian metropolitan city. It explores the integrated approach developed to cater for asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection's specific needs. Building on interviews with health professionals and welfare workers, the ar…
Participation and contested forms of citizenship in the City of Sanctuary
The UK-based City of Sanctuary movement claims to create welcoming conditions for those who had to flee their homes. Despite the well-documented efforts to integrate migrants, refugees and asylum seekers at a local level, the movement’s practices have been criticised by scholars as reproducing government-prescribed passivity and exclusion of these groups. Through document analysis and participant observation in a Borough of Sanctuary group in Lon…
Enunciating menopause narratives through artivism
This article uses artivist methods such as feminist cartooning and body mapping to examine the diversity of racialised women’s menopause knowledge and experiences in the UK, Sweden and India, noting how these are varied and need to be understood contextually against the larger frame of their life experiences. We take as our starting point the menopause discourse prevalent in mainstream media and workplace initiatives in the UK, noting that it is …
Between solidarity and hostility
This paper explores migrants’ experiences of settling in Greenwich, London, using peer research and taking into account the socio-political context and specific place-based politics unfolding in local communities. Resulting from a research collaboration between academic researchers, two civil society organisations, and four people of migrant origins as peer researchers, this paper interrogates community, reflecting on its dichotomous understandin…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (14 works) · Gender Studies (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (10 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Social science (7 works) · Anthropology (6 works)