Gabriele Rizzi Bastiani
Profile
I am currently a PhD student in joint supervision between the University of Warwick and the University of Roma Tre, with a research project on the social history of Italian colonial troops.
I conduct my research in Oxford, London and Rome, in the National Archives, at the Bodleian Library and in the Italian national archives.
Before my PhD, I worked in the humanitarian field as a journalist and media content editor.
I graduated from LUISS University with a degree in Political Science and International Relations with a thesis on migration, pandemics and climate change, which was later published by L'Erma di Bretschneider.
Monograph
Rizzi Bastiani, Gabriele (2022). Are we living in another migration period? : pandemics, migrations and the environmental link : a focus on Europe. Rome:
"L'Erma" di Bretschneider.
Further Research
Political Analyst - PRIN 2022 “Framing visual politics in the platform society: the case of the Italian electoral campaign”
Membership
Italian African Studies Association, Member
Italian Contemporary History Society, Member
Center for American Studies, Junior Fellow
Research project
Tutors: Professor David AndersonLink opens in a new window, Professor Alessandro VolterraLink opens in a new window
The research project aims to reconstruct the social history of Eritrean, Somali, and Ethiopian soldiers enlisted in the Italian colonial army, focusing on the period from the formation of Italian East Africa in 1936 to the decolonisation processes around 1960.
The research addresses multiple objectives: it examines the motivations behind enlistment in the Italian army, investigates the phenomenon of the “irregular bands”, explores the social reintegration of the former askaris, analyses the choice of some former soldiers to emigrate, and studies the political involvement of ex-colonial troops in the Eritrean national movement and in Somalia during the trusteeship period.
Peer-reviewed articles
Conferences
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- Italians, Eritreans or Italo-Africans? The case of the Askari, European Social Science History Conference; Panel: Forms of Power and language of power in African societies and history, University of Leiden, Leiden, 26-9 March 2025.
- Gli ascari del Corno d'Africa dopo il 1941, Postgraduate Political Science Conference, University of Roma Tre, Roma, 8-9 April 202
- The Italian Askari: letters, resistance and citizenship, Warwick History Department Postgraduate Conference, Coventry, 22-23 May 2025.
- Nuova Eritrea Pro-Italia: former ascari and the creation of a football team, Sport Politics. Histories, Media, Identities conference, Università degli Studi La Sapienza, Rome, September 25-26 2025.
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An European Colonial Intermediary: Bastiani, the “White Ras”
'Traversing boundaries: Intermediaries and the path to independence in Africa and the Middle East' -
Between the Negus and the bandits: the Ethiopian askaris after 1941, Durham University, African Studies Association United Kingdom, September 10, 2026, ASAUK Conference; panel: Architectures and Afterlives of Violence
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Negotiating Empire: the secret talks between Italy and Ethiopia, Italian African Studies Association, online, February 12-13, 2026, ASAI Workshop for young scholars, AFRICA/AFRICAE
Organisation of conferences and seminars
Postgraduate conference ofthe Department of Political Science, University ofRoma Tre Member of the Organising Committee
Italian African Studies Association Conference, Università di Pavia “Africa and Its Waters: Flows, Fates and Frameworks” Convenor of the panel: Governing Water, Crossing Empire: Water Policies and Subaltern Agency in the Horn of Africa (1855–1991)
Further Academic activities
AEGIS Summer School - Selected for the AEGIS Summer School “African Prisms" to be held in Cagliari, May 26-29, 2026
Global History and Culture Centre, Warwick University - Member of the GHCC, author of the article “Are we living in another Migration period? Pandemics, migration and the environmental link"Link opens in a new window