Carlo Nicoli Aldini

Research Areas

• Legal mobilization
• Legal anthropology and the law in everyday life
• Legal pluralism
• Comparative law and legal culture

Current Research

My research focuses on understanding 1) how several legal systems coexist in the same social arena, how they interact, change and affect each other, 2) how individuals, social groups, and communities partake in these processes, and the intermediary role of lawyers and organizations in shaping these practices, 3) how these interactions vary between cultures and political contexts.

My doctoral research investigates how citizens of Taranto, a city in the south of Italy where one of the largest European steel factories is located, have resorted to laws and courts to fight against the environmental decay caused by the activities of the local industry. The project explores how and why the local citizenry has taken action to seek legal protection for their rights, and the role that lawyers and intermediary organizations have had in this process. This research is grounded in the socio-legal theoretical tradition of legal mobilization studies and its connection to practices of social resilience. The project is funded by the Agenda 2030 Graduate School established at the Faculty of Social Science, Lund University, and accordingly, it aims to provide new understandings of social groups’ legal strategies to obtain redress for the health and socio-economic consequences caused by environmental disasters.