Luca Ruggiero

Prof Dr Luca Ruggiero is full Professor of Economic and Political Geography at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Catania (IT). He has received an MA from the University of Warwick (UK) and a PhD from the University of Sassari (IT). He is member of the steering committee of the Italian Geographical Society (SGI) in Rome. He has been visiting scholar (2019; 2025) at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (University of Amsterdam); (2008) the School of Environment and Development (University of Manchester); (2006) the School of Geography and the Environment (University of Oxford). His research focuses on land financialization, competing visions and politics of the smart city, urban and social conflicts for environmental and climatic justice. He is currently member of the academic staff of the:

International Marie Curie Doctoral Network “Anthropology of Global Climate Urgency - C-Urge” (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Università di Catania, University of Edinburgh, Uppsala Universitet);

HORIZON research project “Biodiversity and Transformative Change for Plural and Nature-Positive Societies – BIOTraCes”;

PRIN PNRR 2022 “Social infrastructures in question: Local communities, social reproduction and habitability in the Italian South”;

National project "ReCITY: Resilient City-Everyday Revolution" (PNR 2015-2020)
financed by the Italian Ministry of University and Research.

JUSTLA project (Justice in the XXI Century: A Perspective from Latin America) A Marie-Curie Staff Exchanges project that explores justice
in the 21st century with a perspective from Latin America

From 2014 to 2018 was the coodinator of the MA programme in Global Politics and Euro-Mediterranean Relations, a joint degree programme in collaboration with the University of Liege (Belgium), UPEC (Paris) and University of Flensburg (Germany). In 2018 he received the Jim Lewis prize for the most innovative article published in 2016 in the academic journal European Urban and Regional Studies. Has collaborated with prof. Maria Kaika (University of Amsterdam) and received funding from the British Academy in 2007 for the project “Iconic Buildings and the Changing Ethnography or Urban Patronage in the 21st Century”.

He has recently published (with Prof. Maria Kaika, University of Amsterdam) the book 'Class Meets Land. The Embodied History of Land Financialization' (Publication Date: Nov 2024) (https://www.ucpress.edu/books/class-meets-land/paper).

His latest books are: 'Tardo industrialismo. Energia, ambiente e nuovi immaginari di sviluppo in Sicilia' (2021; Meltemi, Milan; ed. with M Benadusi et al.); 'La dipendenza energetica dell’Unione Europea: Strategie geopolitiche e scenari innovativi' (2016; Aracne, Rome); 'Temi di Geografia economica' (2012; Giappichelli, Torino; ed. with L Scrofani) and 'Turismo e competitività urbana' (2011; Franco Angeli, Milano; ed. with L Scrofani).