Valerio Donfrancesco

Research overview

I conduct social science research on society-environment relations, focusing on three main themes: (i) political ecologies of socioecological change; (ii) human-carnivore conflict; and (iii) conservation values and approaches.

Under the first theme, my PhD engaged with and developed the critical lenses of more-than-human political ecology, bridging structural understandings of socioecological change and concepts of non-human agency. I'm particularly interested in exploring the production of landscapes, subjectivities and human-wildlife interactions from critical angles, emphasising uneven power relations and winners and losers. 

Under the second theme, my research during the last six years has looked at the issue of conflict between humans and carnivore species, including wolves, dingoes and bears, across different contexts and regions. I use different methodological approaches in leading this work, from multispecies ethnographies to interviews, historical studies and Delphi surveys. I'm particularly interested in unravelling the different aspects shaping conflict, as well as in (re)defining the concept of conflict itself and how to address it.  

Under the third theme, I'm interested in exploring the values underpinning different conservation and wildlife management approaches, informing inclusive, equitable and reflexive practices. In particular, some of my research has explored how notions of 'naturalness' influence the management of wildlife populations, including wild hybrids, leading to different social and conservation outcomes. I'm also interested in navigating the use of lethal control in wildlife management.

Teaching overview

During my PhD, I taught undergraduate students at the University of Cambridge on a range of subjects for BA Geography and BA Natural Sciences. I also assisted in undergraduate field trips and co-led for a year the Political Ecology Seminar Series at the Department of Geography.

I'm currently a Teaching Fellow at the Department of Geography and Environment, at the University of Aberdeen.