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Miria Gambardella holds a MA in Anthropology from the University of Neuchâtel and is currently Marie Curie Doctoral Researcher at CCI (Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale - Trento), within a PhD program in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her main areas of research include economic and political anthropology, anthropology of social movements, militant ethnography, and socio-anthropology of development and international cooperation. She conducted multiple fieldworks in Europe and Mexico, studying informal economic practices as forms of anti-systemic resistance. Her doctoral investigation examines transnational solidarity networks between European radical left collectives and zapatista communities in Chiapas, focusing on the ethics and politics of coffee distribution. She is co-convenor of the EASA Network Anthropology and Social Movements, part of the GRAFO research group, and a member of the editorial board of Perifèria: Journal of Research and Training in Anthropology. Within PRESILIENT, she serves as the elected representative of the PhD fellows.
RESEARCH PROJECT
Informality and Innovation: Building Post-Pandemic Resilient Communities in Mexico.
An Anthropological Inquiry on the Ethics and Politics Behind Zapatista Coffee Exchange.
I study how informal economic practices are enacted to sustain transnational solidarity relations between Zapatista communities in Chiapas and European activist networks through coffee distribution, highlighting their role in building autonomous alternatives to capitalist economies.
CV Miria Gambardella 2026.pdfCV
PUBLICATIONS
Gambardella, M., Isaev, A., & Andrias, B. (2026). Excellence regimes in precarious times: Exhaustion, exclusion, and structural discrimination in early-career academic lives. Narodna Umjetnost, 63(1), 121–144. https://doi.org/10.15176/vol63no17
Gambardella, M. (2026). The Ethics of Immersion: Militancy, Reflexivity, and Knowledge Production in Transnational Activism. Public Anthropologist, 8(1), 63-87. https://doi.org/10.1163/25891715-bja10084
Open access AAM available on UAB institutional repository at: https://ddd.uab.cat/record/328475
Gambardella, M. (2026). Circulación de ideologías: Redes de activismo transnacional en solidaridad con la rebelión zapatista. Perifèria: Revista de Recerca i Formació en Antropologia, 38–62. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/periferia.1003
Gambardella, M. (2026). “I’m already autonomous!” Intersectional ethnography of a space for women’s empowerment. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-008x/cgp/a225
Gambardella, M. (2026). [Review of the book Embodying exchange: Materiality, morality and global commodity chains in Andean commerce, by J. Müller]. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale, 34(1), 125–126. https://doi.org/10.3167/saas.2026.340107
Gambardella, M. (2025). Networked Alternatives Against the State: Zapatista Autonomy and Informality as Resistance. Dialectical Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-025-09802-x
Gambardella, M. (2025). “Our Fight is for Life”: Encountering Arts and Rebellions in the Zapatista Struggle Against Capitalism. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2025.2563741
Gambardella, M. (2025). Revolutionary Grounds: Political Ontology of Zapatista Land Relations. Visions for Sustainability, 24, 12716, 427-445. https://doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/12716
Gambardella, M. (2025). [Review of the book Esperanza en tiempos de desesperanza, by J. Holloway]. Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 87(4), 943–949. https://doi.org/10.22201/iis.01882503p.2025.4
Gambardella, M., Baquero Melo, J., Maclean, K., & Polese, A. (Eds.). (Under review). What is informality and what could be? Examples from the Latin American region [Special Issue]. Journal of Latin American Studies.
Gambardella, M. (Under review). Moral Economies of (In)formality or the Socio-political Life of Coffee From Chiapas. In A. Polese, I. Fredejas Garcia, A. Isaev, & J. P. Helou (Eds.), Flavours of informality. An exploration of the grey areas between the legal–illegal and moral–immoral boundaries. Palgrave Macmillan.
Gambardella, M. (Forthcoming). Another Possible World Already Exists in the Mountains of the Mexican Southeast: Critical Political Economy of the Zapatista Experience. In B. Akbulut, M. Dufour, S. Elias-Pinsonnault, A. Laurin-Lamothe and S. Tremblay-Pepin, Handbook on Postcapitalist Political Economy (pp. XX). Edward Elgar.
Gambardella, M. (Forthcoming). La presencia que expone: Riesgos diferenciales y ética política de la investigación con comunidades zapatistas. In A. Estalella & A. Ayala (Eds.), Ética de la investigación en ciencias sociales. Bellaterra.
Gambardella, M. (2024). Epistemologías radicales: éticas económicas en las redes de distribución de café zapatista. ARIES, Anuario de Antropología Iberoamericana. https://doi.org/10.11156/aries/2025.AR0000803
Gambardella, M. (2025). Comparative Horizon Scanning Report - Informality and Innovation: Building Post-pandemic Resilient Communities in Mexico. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16541809
Molina, J. L., Pulgar Corrotea, M., Polese, A., Fradejas-García, I., Ianole-Călin, R., Isaev, A., Mengato, S., Nguyen, M., Carracedo, D., De Lombaerde, G., Avesani, M., Sasikornwong, N., Gambardella, M., Andrias, B., Massera, M., Lima, J. P., Cisagara, B., Rahman, A., Kabaghe, W., & D'Urso, D. (2024). PRESILIENT Horizon Scanning Dataset [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14285318
OTHER RESEARCH OUTPUTS
Gambardella, M., & D’Urso, D. (2026). “Rethinking Informality: A conversation with Alena Ledeneva.” Mergers & Acquisitions, Society for Economic Anthropology (SEA) Podcast, Season 5. [Podcast episode]. Spotify | SEA website
Gambardella, M. (2026, July). Alternatives enxarxades per fer front a l’estat: L’autonomia zapatista i la informalitat com a resistència. UAB Divulga. https://ddd.uab.cat/record/335390
Gambardella, M., & Grau Rebollo, J. (2026). El café como pretexto: Ética política e infraestructura especulativa de las solidaridades zapatistas [Video recording]. Seminaris GRAFO, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. https://ddd.uab.cat/record/328797
2025 | “Cronache di un caffè ribelle” – L’Antronauta: Podcast per l’Antropologia del Futuro.
2025 | “Economías de la resistencia: experiencias de trabajo de campo con cooperativas de café zapatista y redes de activismo europeo”. Public conference in streaming [Video recording]. Youtube channel of the Anthropology Department UAM-Iztapalapa (Mexico City).
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