Role
Michele Grigolo is Senior Lecturer in Sociology. He teaches Political Sociology in the BA Sociology course. He is also Course Leader of the MA Sociology and Subject Lead for Internationalisation in Sociology.
Career overview
Michele Grigolo has an international academic career. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy) and the European Masters Degree on Human Rights and Democratisation from the University of Padua (Italy), which is currently awarded by the European Inter-University Centre on Human Rights and Democratisation (EIUC). After completing his PhD, and before joining NTU in 2014, he worked as postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Michele Grigolo has an international research experience. He has been visiting student at New York University between 2005 and 2006, and then visiting scholar at the University of Essex, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and the University of Pittsburgh. In 2003, he was awarded the Robert Schuman Scholarship of the European Parliament, which he spent at the DG Research in Luxembourg. In 2002, he spent five months at the Danish Centre for Human Rights to complete his Masters thesis. He has collaborated with practitioners on a variety of projects, including as a consultant.
Research areas
Michele Grigolo’s research interests revolve around issues of human rights, cities, and equality. His early research focused on the international and legal dimension of human rights and looked critically at the development of LGBT rights within the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. Beginning with his PhD, he has shifted his attention on the connection between human rights and cities, through theoretical and empirical explorations of the concept of human rights city. In that respect, he looks critically at how agents of human rights cities and in particular local governments approach and use human rights in practice, from their definition to their implementation through urban policy, at the macro- but also micro-level of construction of human rights. Much of this research has been disseminated through a variety of publication, including his monograph The Human Rights City: New York, San Francisco, Barcelona, published in 2019 by Routledge. Michele Grigolo is interested in supervising doctoral projects in the area of rights and human rights, urban sociology, cities and local government, urban governance, and social movements.
External activity
As an expert in human rights and cities, Michele Grigolo has done consultancy, either alone or as part of a team, for projects commissioned by international organisations and agencies, including the European Parliament, the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union and United Cities and Local Governments. He is also regularly invited to events and meetings with practitioners developing action around human rights cities. In this respect, he has collaborated also with Amnesty International, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights, as well as civil society and local government organisations in Washington, Pittsburgh, Vienna and Cologne.
He is a member of the British Sociological Association (BSA). Since 2014 he is co-convenor of the BSA Sociology of Rights study group.
Publications
Books
- 2019, The Human Rights City: New York, San Francisco, Barcelona, London, New York: Routledge.
- 2016, Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Co-edited with B. Oomen and M. Davis.
- 2013, Fighting discrimination in Europe: The case for a race-conscious approach, New York, London: Routledge. Co-edited with C. Hermanin and M. Möschel.
Journal Articles
- 2017, “Local governments and human rights: some critical reflections”, in Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 49(1): 67-98.
- 2011, "Incorporating cities into the EU anti-discrimination policy: between racial discrimination and migrant rights", Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34(10): 1751-1769. Special issue “Should and does Race and Ethnic Origin Count in Fighting Discrimination?”.
- 2011, "Introduction: How does race 'count' in fighting discrimination in Europe?”, Ethnic and Racial Studies,34(10): 1635-1647. With C. Hermanin and M. Möschel. Special issue "Should and does Race and Ethnic Origin Count in Fighting Discrimination?".
- 2010, "Human rights and cities: the Barcelona Office for Non-Discrimination and its work for migrants", The International Journal of Human Rights, 14(6): 894-912. Special issue on "Sociology and human rights: confrontations, evasions and new engagements".
- 2010, "Shifting from academic 'brain drain’ to ‘brain gain'", European Political Science, 9(1): 118-130. With M. Lietaert and R. Marimon.
- 2009, "Towards the 'Fifth Freedom': Increasing the Mobility of Researchers in the European Union" Higher Education in Europe, 34(1): 25 – 37. With R. Marimon and M. Lietaert.
- 2003, "Sexualities and the ECHR: Introducing the Universal Sexual Legal Subject", European Journal of International Law, 14(5): 1023-44.
Book Chapters
- 2019, "Understanding the right to the city as the right to difference", in E. Garcia-Chueca and L. Vidal (eds.) Advancing Urban Rights: Equality and Diversity in the City, CIDOB: Barcelona, pp.23-31.
- 2017, “Towards a sociology of the human rights city: Focusing on practice”, in M. Davis, T. Gammeltoft Hansen and E. Hanna (eds.) Human Rights Cities and Regions: Swedish and International Perspectives, Lund: Raoul Wallenberg Institute, 11-21.
- 2016, "Towards a sociology of the human rights city", in B. Oomen, M. Davis and M. Grigolo (eds.), Global Urban Justice: The Rise of Human Rights Cities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 2013, “"Incorporating cities into the EU anti-discrimination policy: between racial discrimination and migrant rights", in M. Möschel, C. Hermanin and M. Grigolo (eds.) Fighting discrimination in Europe: The case for a race-conscious approach, New York, London: Routledge, 115-133.
- 2013, "Introduction: How does race ‘count’ in fighting racial and ethnic discrimination in Europe?", in M. Möschel, C. Hermanin and M. Grigolo (eds.) Fighting discrimination in Europe: The case for a race-conscious approach, New York, London: Routledge. With C. Hermanin and M. Möschel, 1-12.
- 2013, “Conclusion. Rethinking the fight against discrimination: the case for a race-conscious approach”, with C. Hermanin and M. Möschel, in M. Möschel, C. Hermanin and M. Grigolo (eds.) Fighting discrimination in Europe: The case for a race-conscious approach, New York, London: Routledge, 134-145.
- 2011 "Human rights and cities: the Barcelona Office for Non-Discrimination and its work for migrants", in P. Hynes, M. Lamb, D. Short and M. Waites (eds.) Sociology and human rights: new engagements, New York, London: Routledge.
Encyclopaedia articles
- 2012, "Italia", Dicionário das crises e das alternativas, Coimbra: Medina.
- 2009, "Italy”, with F. Jörgens, in C. Stewart (ed.) The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of LGBT Issues Worldwide, Westport: Greenwood Press, pp- 251-268.
Press expertise
- Human rights issues
- European Convention of Human Rights
- European anti-discrimination legislation
- Discrimination issues – including sexual, racial, religious and employment discrimination
- Inequality issues
- LGBT issues