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Department of Business Humanities and Law
- Governance, Culture & Learning Unit

Lara Monticelli holds a master’s degree in Economics and Social Sciences (Bocconi University, Milan) and a Ph.D. in Economic Sociology (University of Brescia). Before joining Copenhagen Business School as an Assistant Professor and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow in September 2018, she has been awarded a grant by the Italian Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lombardia to conduct an explorative project on ecological and utopian communities in collaboration with the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT), Erasmus University (Rotterdam). Prior to this, Lara worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (Italy). The research she conducted during her post-doc was focusing on the study of political engagement among young precarious workers, combining perspectives from the sociology of work, social movement, and political participation studies.
Her ongoing Marie Skłodowska-Curie project (2018-2021), titled ‘EcoLabSS – Ecovillages as Laboratories of Sustainability and Social Change’, focuses on the (re)emergence of community-based, prefigurative social movements (e.g. sustainable communities, eco-villages, transition towns, solidarity networks) as living laboratories experimenting with practices of resilience and resistance to environmental, economic and societal challenges. Lara is especially interested in how these movements re-politicize and re-configure everyday life, thus representing radical attempts to embody the critique to contemporary capitalism and prefigure alternative, sustainable futures. Lara is also involved in a number of parallel research and editorial projects in collaboration with non-governmental organizations like the Global Ecovillage Network and ECOLISE – the European Network for Community Led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability.
In the past years, she has co-chaired two mini-conferences within the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (Berkeley 2016, Lyon 2017), creating a vibrant and international forum for the discussion of the emerging, interdisciplinary research field focusing on prefigurative politics, alternative futures and radical imagination in grassroots, community-based social movements. Since 2017, she is the co-founder and co-chair of the research network 'Alternatives to Capitalism' within the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE).
Since 2021, she is the co-editor, together with Torsten Geelan (University of Copenhagen) of the book series “Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century” published by Bristol University Press.
She is also affiliated researcher at the CoresNet research network for the study of consumption networks and practices of sustainable economies and member of the collective “Women on the Verge” that gathers female scholar-activists from Australia, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, the UK and the US.
At CBS, she is a member of the research initiative “Transformational economies and societies” and one of the coordinators of the new Cand.soc. Minor “Transforming Business and Organizations to Build Sustainable and Democratic Economies”.
Link to personal website: www.laramonticelli.com
EcoLabSS explainer video: EcoLabSS - Ecovillages as Laboratories of Sustainability and Social Change (Lara Monticelli, CBS)
- Contemporary capitalism, current trends and future developments
- Capitalism and the future of democracy
- Collective action, grassroots social movements and alternative forms of organizing (intentional communities, eco-villages, co-operatives, new municipalism)
- Radical and prefigurative politics
- Non-conventional forms of political and civic participation
- Alternative and sustainable futures
- Critical social theory, economic and political sociology, political economy
- Course Coordinator: “Re-Imagining Capitalism” (elective, Master level)
- Course Coordinator: “Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (mandatory, M.Sc. Organization, Innovation, Entrepreneurship)
- Bachelor in Business and Sociology: Final Project Coordinator
- Supervisor of several Bachelor projects and Master Theses (various study programs)
EcoLabSS explainer video: EcoLabSS
Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics
SASE research network “Alternatives to Capitalism”
CISTAS - The Civil Society in the Shadow of the State
Alternatives to capitalism in the 21st century
ECOLISE - European Network for Community Led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability
CoresNet - Consumption Networks and Practices of Sustainable Economies
I have supervised a number of Master theses focusing on the following themes: worker owned cooperatives, grassroots sustainability, implementation of degrowth measures, online platforms for recycling and upcycling, voluntary organizations, alternative forms of organization.
Lara Monticelli (Ed.) The Future is Now. An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022.
Lara Monticelli. Introduction. In: The Future is Now. An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022, p. 1-12.
Lara Monticelli. Prefigurative Politics Within, Despite and Beyond Contemporary Capitalism. In: The Future is Now. An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2022, p. 15-31.
Abstract from 17th Organization Studies Summer Workshop, 2023
In: Possibilità negate: Per una critica del capitalismo. . ed. /Michele Longo. Lecce : Edizioni Bepress 2023, p. 7-11
In: Ephemera: Theory & politics in organization, 1.2.2023
In: Ephemera: Theory & politics in organization, 1.2.2023
In: Sustainability Science, Vol. 17, No. 4, 7.2022, p. 1171-1182
In: The Future Is Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics. . ed. /Lara Monticelli. Bristol : Bristol University Press 2022, p. 1-12 (Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century)
In: Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, No. 3, 7.2022, p. 729-749
In: The Future Is Now: An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics. . ed. /Lara Monticelli. Bristol : Bristol University Press 2022, p. 15-31 (Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century)
Bristol : Bristol University Press 2022, 246 p. (Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century)
In: Thesis Eleven, Vol. 167, No. 1, 12.2021, p. 99-118
In: Emancipations, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2021
In: Ephemera. Theory and Politics in Organization, Vol. 20, No. 1, 2020, p. 233-239
In: Atlas of Social Innovation: A World of New Practices. . ed. /Jürgen Howaldt; Christoph Kaletka; Antonius Schröder; Marthe Zirngiebl. Vol. 2, München : Oekom Verlag 2019, p. 70-74
In: Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, Vol. 49, No. 1, 3.2019, p. 99-113
Paper presented at SASE 31st Annual Conference 2019, 2019, p. 10
In: International Social Security Review, Vol. 71, No. 4, 10.2018, p. 91-109
In: tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2018, p. 501-517
In: tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2018, p. 406-414
In: The Oxford Handbook of Political Consumerism. ed. /Magnus Boström; Michele Micheletti; Peter Oosterveer. Oxford : Oxford University Press 2018, p. 773-792
In: Acta Politica, Vol. 53, No. 2, 4.2018, p. 204–230
In: Contemporary Social Science: Journal of the Academy of Social Science, Vol. 12, No. 3-4, 2017, p. 316–332
In: Partecipazione e Conflitto, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2016, p. 824-856
In: Experiencing Long-Term Unemployment in Europe: Youth on the Edge. . ed. /Christian Lahusen; Marco Giugni. London : Palgrave Macmillan 2016, p. 139-169
In: La ricerca sociologica e i temi del lavoro: Giovani ricercatori italiani a confronto. . ed. /Michele La Rosa. Milano : Edizioni FrancoAngeli 2011, p. 150-167 (Sociologia del Lavoro)
Milano : Edizioni FrancoAngeli 2011, 144 p.
London : openDemocracy 2019
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