UPDATED NOVEMBER 2024
Jordi Nofre (LXNIGHTS Research Group Coordinator) holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Barcelona (2009). Since 2019 Nofre is FCT Associate Research Professor [Investigador Principal FCT] in Urban Geography at the Interdisciplinary Center of Social Sciences at NOVA University of Lisbon, supported by the Scientific Employment Stimulus Program of the Portuguese Foundation for Science & Technology. His research includes 3 main topics: (i) Nightlife, tourism and urban change; (ii) Social geographies of youth in Euro-Mediterranean countries; and (iii) Environment, society, and global change. He is author of 103 publications, has participated in 13 research grants, and has been Scientific Advisor of the project ‘Geographies of Nightlife in Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona (2018-2020)’, funded by Reina Sofia Centre on Youth & Adolescent Studies (Spain), “SAFE!N Project: Safe Night Out Certification in Lisbon’, a community-focused project funded by the Lisbon City Council (BIPZIP-Ref.0095/2015), and has recently been appointed as Scientific Expert of the Barcelona Time Use Initiative for a Healthy Society (2023) towards new forms of daily organization aiming at enhancing social well-being and a better community life. *Contact: jnofre@fcsh.unl.pt
Manuel García-Ruiz (Fieldwork Coordinator) holds a PhD in Sociology from CIES-IUL and is Associated Researcher at IS-FLUP. He holds an international BA in Communication Sciences from the University of Alicante (Spain) and from the Université Paris Dauphine (2010) and a PGDip in Data Analysis from the ISCTE-IUL (2017). He has a particular interest in Light Festivals as instruments for the territorial development of Portuguese secondary cities (medium and small) through the creation of a highly competitive and specialized creative tourism. He is an advisory member (international festival advisor) of Spectrum Network and frequent festival consultant worldwide. He is the coeditor of Etno.Urb Network blog, and the Director of the Urban Audiovisual Festival (UAF). Manuel is author of dozens of papers and workshops driver on the field of the arts-in-the-public space, cultural policing and cultural management.
João Carlos Martins (Guest Lecturer, Uiversity of Algarve) holds a BA and PhD in Sociology and a Master in Urban Anthropology. He is currently Guest Lecturer in Sociology of Tourism at the University of Algarve. He was also postdoctoral researcher in the H2020 – ROCK grant “Regeneration and Optimization of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge Cities”, at Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa. His main research topicsare related to the multidimensional changes on socially and spatially deprived urban spaces and its relationship with contemporary commodification of cities cultural heritage. Martins been also working on the multiple areas of public and private interest on the urban regeneration of post-recession cities and their former industrial territories. Recently, he has worked as a scientific advisor on some municipally funded pilot projects, under the initiative BIP/ZIP, on the fields of Nightlife (Cais do Sodre, Lisbon) and Social Housing (Marvila, Lisbon).
Daniel Malet (Senior Researcher, CIES-ISCTE/IUL) holds a PhD in Anthropology (2011) from University of Barcelona where I also have graduated with a BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology (2005), and a BA in History (2011). My thesis work puts forward a historical and ethnographic research focused on the most emblematic space in Lisbon’s downtown: Praça do Rossio, and other central neighborhoods. I have been trained through many investigation projects (R&D, Integrated Projects, COST) and research grants (STSM, FPU, BPD-FCT) carrying out ethnographic works on Barcelona (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal) and Santiago Island (Cape Verde). Currently, as a post-doctoral researcher in the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology – University Institute of Lisbon (CIES-IUL) I’m investigating Erasmus students as a short-term youth migration mobility involved on heritagization processes, space production and transnational urban dynamics. In addition, I’m an active member of the Research Group on Exclusion and Social Control – GRECS and of the Observatory for the Anthropology of Urban Conflict (OACU) in the Anthropology Department of the University of Barcelona and of the Catalan Institute of Anthropology.
Otávio Raposo (Senior Researcher, CIES-ISCTE/IUL) graduated in sociology at Nova University Lisbon and holds a PhD in anthropology from the University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL). His research is focused on four different topics: 1) youth culture and arts: hip hop, lifestyles and creativity; 2) urban studies: marginalised neighbourhoods, social inequalities, urban segregation and public policies; 3) race and ethnicity: migration, racism, identities and youth of African descent; 4) visual anthropology: ethnographic films, social photography and video. He has co-coordinated the project “The work of art and the art of work: creative paths of training and labour inclusion of immigrants in Portugal”, funded by the European Comission (2014-15), and is currently PI of CREATIVEGHETTO research grant, funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science & Technology (2023-2026). He is co-founder of ETNO.URB, an important international network of researchers in urban ethnography, also is also member of several multidisciplinary research networks (GEAC, RAIU, LXNIGHT, and Afroeurope@s). Finally, he is filmmaking a series of 27 micro-documentaries addressing the links between art, creativity, and political agency, being available on social media.
Begoña Aramayona (University of Sheffield) holds an International PhD in Social Psychology obtained at Autonomous University of Madrid in 2019, and currently is MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Sheffield (UK) conducting a 2-year individual research grant on informal economies in the urban night of southern European cities. She was also a postdoctoral fellow iat Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). She explores the field of Urban studies through qualitative methodologies, with special interest on urban nightlife, securitisation, informality, displacement and visual-based methodologies. She coordinated the project “The Displacement of Informality: Geographies in the city of Madrid” (funded by the Urban Economy Area, Madrid’s City Council, 2018-2019) and she lead the project “Geographies of the Nocturnal City: A comparative and policy-oriented research on nocturnal leisure practices of young people in Lisbon, Barcelona and Madrid” (funded by Centre of Young Studies Reina Sofía, 2018-2020: ). Her research has been awarded with the 1st prize at II Heritales Sustainable Communities in 2017, organized by ‘UNESCO Chair in Intangible Heritage’ and University of Evora, and the I YERUN Research Mobility Award in 2018. Recently awarded with a post-doc visiting fellowship at CURA (Centre of Urban Research on Austerity; DMU, Leicester) in 2020. Based on her desire of disseminating academic outcomes to broader audiences, she has also directed some ethnographic documentaries, such as “Next Stop: La Latina” (2017) and “Carmen: Memorias Vivas del Rastro” (2018).
Marco Roque de Freitas is an ethnomusicologist (PhD) based in Lisbon and Madeira island, Portugal. His is a researcher at Instituto de Etnomusicologia: Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança (INET-md) at the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, having completed his PhD in Musicology (specialisation in Ethnomusicology) in May 2019. He also collaborates with the Musicology Department of NOVA FCSH as a Visiting Assistant Professor. His academic production focuses on the following themes: Nation-building and nationalism in postcolonial Africa; Expressive behaviour, gender and sexuality; Popular music and the study of music industries; Music, propaganda and conflict; Digital humanities and research infrastructures; and History of Ethnomusicology. He has published two books, including A Construção Sonora de Moçambique (1974-1994), book chapters and journal articles. In April 2023, I started a new individual six-year research project – ‘Battle of Frequencies’(2022.03938.CEECIND; Individual Scientific Employment Stimulus Program, 5th edition, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology). HIS CEECIND project aims to explore the place of music, radio broadcasting and political propaganda during the liberation war in Mozambique (1964-1974). For more information, including a comprehensive publication list, public outreach, and teaching activities, please visit my website: https://marcofreitas.weebly.com/
Miguel Neiva (Erasmus University, NL) is M.A. in Cultural Economics & Entrepreneurship from the Erasmus University Rotterdam and is currently an FCT International Doctoral Fellow at the same institution. His publications have tackled the topics of creative entrepreneurship and cultural policy at transnational (EU) and city (Porto) levels. His research focuses on the spatial and social dynamics of the creative sector and he is enthusiastic about the night-time economy, regional and urban policy, ecosystem frameworks, as well as the intersection of art and design with technology. His curriculum includes professional experience in the cultural sector, particularly in music and film.
Maria Teresa Lacerda is a musician and PhD candidate at the Instituto de Etnomusicologia – Centro de Estudos de Música e Dança (INET-md). Previously, she worked as a music teacher (piano and musical expression) in different music schools. In 2015, she earned a degree in Musicology at the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA FCSH). A few years later, she completed her Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology (2020) at the same institution, with the dissertation “Music and tourism in Estado Novo: Musical activity in Vidago, a thermal village (1933-1974)“. Currently, she is a PhD student in Ethnomusicology at NOVA FCSH. Her dissertation, entitled “«A cidade está deserta»: Ecologias da música ao vivo em tempos de crise”, explores the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Lisbon’s live music scenes. She was part of the team of research projects such as Timbila, Makwayela and Marrabenta: one century of musical representation of Mozambique (PTDC/CPC-MMU/6626/2014) Sounds of Tourism (PTDC/ART-PER/32417/2017) and YouSound (EXPL/SOC-SOC/0504/2021).
José Angulo is a predoctoral researcher in the Department of Geography and History at the University of Lleida, where he is a member of the SENSCLUSION research group. He studied Sociology at the University of Granada and specialized in the Study of Religions at the Pablo de Olavide University. His doctoral research focuses on the construction of resistance tools within marginalized urban neighborhoods, drawing on affective methodologies and participatory ethnography.In parallel, he investigates the religious-spiritual and political dimensions of electronic dance music. His Master’s thesis was based on a six-month ethnography within the European free party circuit, analyzed through the work of authors such as Foucault, Agamben or Tiqqun. He is currently expanding his research on electronic music festivals and their potential geopolitical and neocolonial implications.
Norman Ornelas Jr. (PhD Candidate, Geography and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies – Pennsylvania State University) holds a Master’s in Urban Planning from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from California State University, Long Beach. Through his research he examines the intersections between economics, urban policy, and community building amongst LGBTQ+ populations. As part of his dissertation, he is focusing on the influence of transnational capital in nightlife spaces in Los Angeles and Mexico City. Outside of his doctoral work, he contributes to the Los Angeles based, Gender Equity Policy Institute as an ad hoc research fellow, and serves on the Board of the New York City grassroots nonprofit, the Audre Lorde Project. Prior to pursuing doctoral work, he was a practicing urban planner in Los Angeles.
Jaime Puig is Researcher & Lecturer at the University of Seville (Spain) in Language and Literature Education. His PhD was focused on the Poetic Nocturne in Modern Mexican Poetry. He has studied literature from different approaches such as comparatism or gender and has organized conferences such as DIVERYGEN (Sexual Diversity and Gender in Education, Philology and the Arts). He has been visiting professor at Boston University, LMU-Munich, UNAM, University of Iceland, Universitá degli Studi di Bergamo or Babes-Bolyai University. He also works in Cultural and Youth Activism and Cooperation for Development in the Saharawi refugee camps.
Paloma Elvira holds an International PhD in Psychology from the Autonomous University of Madrid (2024), with a thesis on the political transformations of contemporary feminisms in the Spanish context. Since 2018 she has been associated with the Centre of Discourse Studies (Barcelona), where she is now leading an international project on the discursive legitimation of territorial inequalities and different forms of extractivism, in partnership with the Solidarity Network for Social Transformation (Red de Solidaridad para la Transformación Social, REDS) and funded by the Catalan Agency for Cooperation and the Generalitat de Catalunya. Her research interests include grassroots student and youth movements, (re)productive labour and territorial struggles, and her work is informed by critical ethnographic approaches as well as applied linguistics and discourse studies.
Visiting Researchers hosted @ LXNIGHTS
Julia Trzcińska, Erasmus student (University of Warsaw, PL)
Álvaro Mazorra, PhD student (Universidad Nacional a Distancia, ES)
Víctor Riesgo, PhD student (Universidad Nacional a Distancia, ES)
Ronni David, MA student (Utrecht University, NL)
Enrico Petrilli, postdoc (L’Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, IT)
Alec Roth, PhD student (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, BEL)
Robert Pawlusiński, PhD (Jagiellonian University in Krakow, PL)
Magdalena Kubal-Czerwińska, PhD (Jagiellonian University in Krakow, PL)
Tomás Rojas, PhD student (Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, ES)