Federico Caprotti

Teaching interests
Undergraduate


Year 3

GGH3141: Urban Geography
GGX300: Shanghai Fieldtrip

Year 2

GGX2106: Geographical Research: Principles and Practice (Overseas Fieldwork workshop)
GGX2109: Fieldwork in Geography

Year 1

GGX1101: Tutorials and Key Skills in Geography

Masters 

IMS5101: Research Skills (Qualitative and quantitative methods)

PhD

PhD students

Huw Thomas (second supervisor, with Geoff Wilson)
Leandro Minuchin (at UCL, as second supervisor; PhD commenced 2007, completed 2010)

 

UoP Research group membership

Environment, Society and Governance 

Research degrees awarded to supervised students

PhD students

Huw Thomas (second supervisor, with Geoff Wilson)
Leandro Minuchin (at UCL, as second supervisor; PhD commenced 2007, completed 2010)

External PhD examiner:

Matud, A. El cine documental de NODO (1943-1981) (NODO Documentary Cinema, 1943-1981) Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2007)

 

Grants & contracts

Research Grants

PuP Fund, SoGEES, Plymouth University (2012) Pump-priming grant for eco-mobilities research. (£3,000)

Royal Geographical Society Small Research Grant (2011-12) Grant to enable continued investigation of Tianjin eco-city. (£2,720).

University of Plymouth International Networking and Research Collaboration (2011) Grant to enable a research network on eco-city research with universities in Beijing. Collaboratice with Ian Bailey. (£5,000)

Universities' China Committee in London (2010) Fieldwork Grant for an investigation of cleantech clusters in Tianjin Eco-City, China (£1,000).

Nuffield Foundation (2009) Social Sciences Research Grant to investigate the role of sectoral media, industry bodies and consultancies in influencing investors in cleantech. The grant supports research in 2009-10 in California's Cleantech Corridor, in London, and in Shanghai, Beijing, and Inner Mongolia, China (£8,000).

British Academy / Sino-British Fellowship Trust (2008) Small Research Grant for a comparative project analysing environmental discourse and cleantech sector financing in Shanghai and New York. The project is due to run in 2009-2010 (£7,500)

Royal Geographical Society - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2008) Small Research Grant for preliminary fieldwork in Shanghai (£2,150)

Wolfsonian Institution - Florida International University (2007) Wolfsonian Fellowship for research at the Wolfsonian Institution, Florida International University, Miami, on a project titled Constructing Visual Imaginations of Italian African through Visual Advertising Materials

British Academy (2006) Small Research Grant to study the geographical imaginations of Italian East Africa through visual aviation materials. (£5,850)

Other grants

Beacon Bursary (2009) for collaborative work with Dr. Pushpa Arabindoo on using film as a way to foster community-academic interaction. The grant, administered by the Beacon Bursary scheme at UCL, will involve a film series in collaboration with three London borough councils and the local community associations of Iranian, Iraqi and Chinese communities in the councils involved. (£1,500)

 

Publications

Caprotti F (forthcoming 2012) The discursive logic of sectoral emergence: environmental discourse and the definition of the cleantech sector, 1990-2010. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. EarlyView available here: http://tinyurl.com/d2wuhaz 

Caprotti F (2012) Environment, business and the firm Geography Compass 6(3): 163-174

Caprotti F (2012) Demography and political controls in 1930s Italy: evidence from the Agro Pontino, in Jaworski J (ed) Advances in Sociology Research Nova Science Publishers, New York: 31-56.

Caprotti F (2011) Visuality, hybridity and colonialism: imagining Ethiopia through colonial aviation, 1935-1940 Annals of the Association of American Geographers 101(2): 380-403

Gray M and Caprotti F (2011) Cleantech clusters and the promotion of the low carbon transition: criteria for success and evidence from Copenhagen, Masdar and online platforms Carbon Management 2(5): 529-538

Caprotti F (2011) Overcoming distance and space through technology: connecting fascist Italy with South America Space and Culture 14(3): 330-348

Caprotti F (2011) Profitability, practicality, and ideology: fascist civil aviation and the short life of Ala Littoria, 1934-1943 Journal of Transport History 32(1): 17-38

Caprotti F (2010) From finance to green technology: activist states, geopolitical finance, and hybrid neoliberalism, in Lagoarde-Segot T (ed) The Financial Crisis: Thinking Otherwise Nova Science Publishers, New York: 81-100.

Caprotti F (2009) China’s cleantech landscape: the renewable energy technology paradox Sustainable Development Law & Policy 9(2): 6-11

Caprotti F (2009) Financial crisis, activist states and (missed) opportunities Critical Perspectives on International Business 5(1/2): 78-84

Caprotti F (2009) Scipio Africanus: film, internal colonization, and empire Cultural Geographies16: 381-401

Caprotti F and Kaïka M (2008) Producing the ideal fascist landscape: the materiality and cinematic representation of land reclamation in the Pontine Marshes Social and Cultural Geography9(6): 613-634

Caprotti F (2008) Internal colonization, hegemony and coercion: investigating migration to southern Lazio, Italy, in the 1930s Geoforum 39(2): 942-957

Caprotti F (2008) Technology and political legitimation: exploring the representation of aviation in 1930s Italy Journal of Cultural Geography25(2): 181-205

Caprotti F (2007) Mussolini’s Cities: Internal Colonialism in Italy, 1930-1939 Cambria Press, Amherst, NY

Caprotti F (2007) Destructive creation: fascist urban planning, architecture, and New Towns in the Pontine Marshes Journal of Historical Geography 33(3): 651-679

Caprotti F (2006) Malaria and technological networks: medical geography in the Pontine Marshes, Italy, in the 1930s. The Geographical Journal172(2): 145-155

Caprotti F (2006) Patologías de la ciudad: hipocondría urbana en el fascismo italiano. (Pathologies of the city: urban hypochondria in Italian fascism). Bifurcaciones: Revista de Estudios Culturales Urbanos, 6 [Spanish; also available in English]

Caprotti F (2005) Information management and fascist identity: newsreels in fascist Italy. Media History11(3): 177-191

Caprotti F (2005) Fetishising violence, marginalising the human dimension. Antipode37(4): 633-637

Caprotti F (2005) Italian fascism between ideology and spectacle. Fast Capitalism1(2) Available online at <http://www.fastcapitalism.com>

 

Reviews and other publications

Caprotti F (2011) Air Empire: British Imperial Civil Aviation, 1919-1939 (Review) African Affairs 110(438): 147-149

Caprotti F (2010) Legal Aspects of Carbon Trading: Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Beyond (Review) McGill International Journal of Sustainable Development Law & Policy 6(1): 89

Caprotti F (2010) The Politics of the Piazza (Review) Space & Polity 14(2): 209-210

Caprotti F (2009) Review Essay - Invented Edens, Techno-Cities of the Twentieth Century Reviews in History of the Institute of Historical Research (Urban History Month special edition), Review 765.

Caprotti F (2009) Reproductive Disruptions: Gender, Technology and Biopolitics in the New Millennium (Review) Gender, Place & Culture 16(1): 117-119

Caprotti F (2006) The Sharing Economy: Solidarity Networks Transforming Globalization (Review) European Spatial Research and Policy 13(1): 151

Caprotti F (2006) The Most Typical Avant-Garde: History and Geography of Minor Cinemas in Los Angeles (Review). Journal of Cultural Geography 24(1): 116

Caprotti F (2005) European Economic Integration and Italian Labour Policies (Review) European Spatial Research and Policy 12(2): 181

Caprotti F (2003) Fascist Spectacle: the Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy (Review) H-Net Humanities and Social Sciences Online Available online at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/

Caprotti F (2003) Re-viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-1943 (Review) H-Net Humanities and Social Sciences Online Available online at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/

 

Conference Papers, Panels and Colloquia

 

Caprotti F (2011) Sectoral emergence and the cultural economy: the cleantech sector, 1990-2010 University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, 4 May 2011.

Gaya K and Caprotti F (2011) Redeeming citizens, redeeming the marshes: an urban political ecology of small spaces in Sabaudia, Italy, 1934-43 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Seattle, 12-16 April 2010.

Caprotti F (2010) Teaching sustainability and eco-city research Geography Head Teachers Conference, Plymouth, 15 November 2010.

Caprotti F (2010, invited speaker) Geographies of transition: a cultural political economy of the 'Cleantech Revolution'. Department of Geography, Seoul National University, Seoul, 14 April 2010.

Caprotti F (2010, invited speaker) Between environmental discourse and materiality: the discursive logic of sectoral emergence in the cleantech sector, 2003-2010, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, February 2010.

Caprotti F (2009, invited speaker) Cleantech: a new sector in the low carbon economy, Estonian School of Business, Tallinn, 16 November 2009.

Caprotti F (2009, invited discussant) Come Clean: Barriers and Opportunities for Cleantech industry colloqium, London, September 2009.

Caprotti F (2009) Energy technonatures: producing technology landscapes in Shanghai and London RGS-IBG International Annual Conference, Manchester, UK, 26-28 August 2009

Owen M, Caprotti F and Haklay M (2009) Olympics, mapping 2.0 and the production of space RGS-IBG International Annual Conference, Manchester, UK, 26-28 August 2009

Caprotti F (2009, invited speaker) Throwing money at the wind? Sectoral emergence, networks and decision-making in wind power financing in China, the US and the UK, Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University, 12 May 2009.

Caprotti F (2009) Talking ‘bout a revolution: environmental discourse and the rise of the cleantech sector, 2003-2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Las Vegas, 22 March 2009

Caprotti F (2008, invited speaker) Natura, LUCE y la crisis de la modernidad en Italia [Nature, the LUCE Institute, and the Crisis of Modernity in Italy] VII Jornadas Internacionales de Historia y Cine, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, 12-14 November 2008

Caprotti F (2008) Techno-natural imaginations of empire: colonial aviation in fascist Italy Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Boston, 15-19 April 2008

Caprotti F (2008, invited discussant) Geography’s ‘Colonial Present’ and Postcolonial Scholarship session, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Boston, 15-19 April 2008

Caprotti F (2008) Planning for utopia: New Towns in fascist Italy, lecture given to the Oxford High School for Girls, 31 January 2008.

Caprotti F (2008) Environmental discourse and technology investment in the cleantech sector Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 8 January 2008

Caprotti F (2007, invited speaker) Hegemony and technological legitimation: aviation in fascist Italy. Promethean Landscapes Seminar, UCL (CASE/Royal Academy/UCL Urban Laboratory)

Caprotti F (2007, invited speaker) Città nuove e propaganda in Italia, 1930-1939 [New Towns and Propaganda in Italy, 1930-1939]. Kellogg College, Oxford University, 17 February 2007.

Caprotti F (2006) Co-organizer of the RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group Postgraduate Forum in Urban Geography conference session at the RGS-IBG International Annual Conference, London, 30 August - 1 September 2006.

Caprotti F (2006) Organizer of the Hegemony and Control in Public and Social Urban Space in Asia 1: Spaces of Representation session at the East Asian Regional Conference in Alternative Geography. National Taiwan University, Taipei, June 2006

Caprotti F (2006) Organizer of the Hegemony and Control in Public and Social Urban Space in Asia 2: Representations of Space session at the East Asian Regional Conference in Alternative Geography. National Taiwan University, Taipei, June 2006.

Caprotti F (2006) Nature, imperialism and film: Scipio Africanus. Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, 10 March 2006

Caprotti F (2004) Fascist urban planning and the 21st Century: the Case of Bolzano, Italy, 1919-2003. Emerging Urban Geographies: Connecting Theories, Politics and Practice, 27 November 2004, Queen Mary, University of London

Caprotti F and Kaika M (2002) Cinematography as an ideological apparatus: newsreel Rrepresentations of fascist New Towns. Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Los Angeles, 19-23 March 2002

 

Other academic activities

Ongoing projects

Theme 1: Constructing the environment: cleantech investments and environmental discourse

This research, in its preliminary stages, investigates the role that environmental discourse(s) play in investment decisions in the cleantech sector, a new sector of investment focused on a broad range of technologies, from renewable energies to fuel cells and energy storage systems.

Phase 1 (2008): Cleantech and wind power deals in Shanghai, China

This project consists of preliminary fieldwork in Shanghai, China, in 2008. The focus is a sub-sectoral investigation of wind power funding deals in the Chinese market.

The project was funded by a Royal Geographical Society - Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Small Research Grant, and ran in June-September 2008.

 

Phase 2 (2009-10): A comparative analysis of the role of environmental discourse in cleantech finance: renewables in China and the USA

This part of the project sees a comparative analysis of environmental discourse at the level of investors, industry groups and cleantech companies, in New York, Shanghai, and Beijing. The project focuses on renewables investments within the cleantech sector, at the venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) levels.

The project is funded by a British Academy/Sino-British Fellowship Trust Small Research Grant for 2009-2010.

Fieldwork in New York and Detroit was completed in May 2009. Fieldwork in London is underway. A secon round of interview and survey research in Shanghai and Beijing will commence in early 2010.

Phase 3 (2010-11): Assessing the role of information mediation in the cleantech sector: sectoral media, industry bodies, and service firms in the US, China and the UK

This stage takes research further by exploring the specific consequences of a universe of firms allied to the technology/finance nexus in the cleantech sector. The research maintains a focus on wind, and on renewables more generally, and analyzes the role of sectoral media firms, industry bodies, environmental consultancies, and environmental public relations firms in mediating environmental discourse between technology firms, policy actors, and investors.

The project closely focuses on cleantech decision-making hubs in California, Shanghai, Beijing, and London.

This research phase is funded by a Nuffield Foundation Social Sciences Grant, which enables extensive field research in San Francisco, Shanghai, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, and London.

Outputs: research

The project has, so far, resulted in:

- Analysis of the barriers to cleantech investing in China, focusing on the renewable energy sector

Outputs: public engagement

• In December 2009, I was invited to be an accredited observer at COP15, the UN's Climate Conference in Copenhagen. I was an observer on behalf of the Global Observatory Project.
• In November 2009 I was invited to present my cleantech research at the Estonian School of Business, Tallinn.
• In September 2009, I was invited to participate in an industry event focused on the barriers to the development of cleantech in the EU. The event, Come Clean: Barriers and Opportunities for Cleantech, was held at the London headquarters of global PR firm Weber Shandwick.
• I am committed to engaging with public discourse on climate change and environmental technologies. In 2009 I was invited to contribute to a special issue of SEED Magazine, a US science publication, debating the issue of Green IP (Intellectual Property) and Greentech. 
• I was invited to write an op-ed column for The Street on green technology investment. The article can be found here
• I am also committed to utilizing a range of media to communicate research findings. In the summer of 2009 I gave an interview on Italian national radio (Radio 3), on the daily science news feature, speaking about green patenting, and wind power in China and India. The interview can be found here.
  

Theme 2: Nature and geographical imaginations in fascist Italy (1922-43)

Most of my work to date has been on fascist Italy, and in particular on analyzing the most prominent socionatural public works project produced by the fascist regime: the Pontine Marshes land reclamation and urbanization project. My analysis to date has attempted to use a variety of ‘ways of looking’ at socionatural products – in this sense, I am interested in working out the connections between the material and representational components of nature-society relations.

Phase 1: Investigating the urban landscape of the Pontine Marshes (2001-7)

This project focused on an in-depth excavation of the nature-society relations which contributed to the urban and rural development of the Pontine Marshes, a large wetland area in central Italy, in 1928-39. The project focused on the following themes:

- Nature, modernity, and landscape

- Film, Italian colonialism and empire

- Urban planning, architecture and New Towns in the Pontine Marshes

- Internal colonization and coerced migration 

- The social construction of malaria

- Marketing New Towns and the Pontine Marshes through propaganda newsreels

Phase 2: Geographical imaginations of Italian East Africa (2006-present)

An investigation into the cultural construction of geographical imaginations associated with the Italian colonies of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland, collectively known as Italian East Africa. The formation of geographical imaginations has been researched through the images and visual materials associated with colonial aviation in Italy's colonies; this focus was funded by a British Academy Small Research Grant (2006-2008).

The project focuses on the following themes:

- Aviation and geographical imaginations

- Constructing nature and the indigenous 'Other' through visual aviation materials (advertisements, posters) in Italian East Africa - modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia

- Narrating aviation and fascist modernity