Education
Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, Universita' di Bologna - Bologna, Italy

Biography

Valentina Peveri is an Adjunct Professor for the MA in Food Studies at The American University of Rome (AUR). She has a research collaboration with a University Consortium for Socio-Economic and Environmental Research (Consorzio Universitario per la Ricerca Socioeconomica e per l’Ambiente – CURSA) for the Green Communities PNRR project “Community Sustainable Resonance (CSR) – Alta Sabina”; with a focus on qualitative/participatory mapping of Ecosystem Services, the local agrofood system, and the implementation of agroecological practices in an inner area of the Latium region, Italy.

 

Valentina Peveri was a lecturer and research fellow at the University of Bologna between 2007 and 2015. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Research Scholarship, which she spent at the African Studies Center, Boston University, MA. In 2017, she was awarded a Hunt postdoctoral fellowship by the Wenner-Gren Foundation (2018-19) for the creation of a book entitled The Edible Gardens of Ethiopia. An Ethnographic Journey into Beauty and Hunger. From 2004 to 2015, she conducted intensive ethnographic fieldwork on home gardening and polycultural farming in Southern Ethiopia. Her ethnographic background has been complemented over time by appointments as an international consultant for the Global Water Partnership (GWP), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) Research Program, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and occasionally the FAO; with a special focus on the role gender and other axes of power play in natural resource and environmental policies. 

 

Selected Publications

Peveri, Valentina (2024). "Biodiversity is Alive, Biodiversity is Lost: Memories of an Ethiopian Plant from Homegardens to the Green Legacy Campaign." In Embodying Biodiversity: Sensory Conservation as Refuge and Sovereignty, edited by T.V. Gagnon, 182-217. Tuscon: The University of Arizona Press, ISBN: 9780816553983

 

(with D. Joshi, A. Nicol, and A. Mitra. 2024). Special Issue for Frontiers in Human Dynamics, Changing the Discourse: From the Rhetoric on Women and Water to a Feminist Water Agenda. https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/47538/changing-the-discourse...
 

Peveri, Valentina (2022). Il Giardino dei sensi e i numeri del potere: biodiversità (plurali) fra resistenza e riscrittura. L'UOMO, vol. 12, p. 183-210, ISSN: 1125-5862
 

Peveri, Valentina (2021). Inside the Ensete Garden, Beyond the Plantation: Perennial Polycultures for Radically Sustainable Food Systems. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD, vol. 27, p. 141-159, ISSN: 0798-1759, doi: 10.48416/ijsaf.v27i1.85
 

Peveri, Valentina (2021). Flavouring the Nation: The Rhetoric of Nutrition Policies in Ethiopia. In: (a cura di): Abbink Jon, LaTosky Shauna, Rhetoric and Social Relations: Dialectics of Bonding and Contestation, p. 253-282, Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, ISBN: 978-1-78920-977-8, doi: 10.3167/9781789209778

Peveri, Valentina (2020). The Edible Gardens of Ethiopia. An Ethnographic Journey into Beauty and Hunger. TUCSON:The University of Arizona Press, ISBN: 9780816541157
 

Peveri, Valentina (2019). In Praise of a Fermented Bread: An Ethiopian Recipe for Frugal Sustainability. In: (a cura di): Collinson Paul, Young Iain, Antal Lucy, Macbeth Helen, Food and Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, p. 157-171, Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, ISBN: 978-1-80073-916-1, doi: 10.3167/9781789202373
 

Peveri Valentina (2015). The Exquisite Political Fragrance of Enset. Silent Protest in Southern Ethiopia through Culinary Themes and Variations. PARTECIPAZIONE E CONFLITTO, vol. 8, p. 555-584, ISSN: 2035-6609, doi: 10.1285/i20356609v8i2p555