Post-doc research fellow in Urban Planning and Human Geography.
PhD in Urban and Regional Planning at the Department of Architecture, University of Palermo.
I'm interested in analogic photography and on the use of it as means for the representation of the urban space. I manage a personal blog (http://simonetulumello.wordpress.com/) and write for collective ones about Italian politics and cities. More generally, I'm committed in exploring the possibilities of non-accademic means of communication/representation for planning scholars and practitioners.

General research interests

I'm interested in the interface between critical urban theories and planning theory, and in the "de-parochialization" of urban theories. For such reasons I'm focussing my research on Southern Europe cities for their ongoing dynamics of change.
With my main research project, I'm developing a critical approach to urban security in planning, on the search for multi-faceted paradigms that should be aware of the use of discourses of fear as instruments of power in (institutional) planning.
I'm also interested in EU policies of Territorial Cohesion, their implementation in Southern Europe and implications for the restructuring of institutional planning systems.

PhD/Postdoctoral Research Title

Which “secure cities”? A critical approach to security and feelings of fear in urban planning in Southern Europe

PhD Abstract

The danger in the city and, above all, the perception of the danger in it seems to be taking everyday more and more space on the agendas of politicians. And there is some evidence that this crescendo has begun around the end of the 80s.
Is there any relationship between the transformations which characterised the Western cities in the last decades of the XX century and the growing of the relevance of the discussions on security? I suggest this relationship exists and I propose to call Fearscapes the growing spaces of fear in the contemporary city.
Furthermore, is the urban fear an unavoidable consequence of the contemporary urban life? Or does some political use of it exist? Are discourses of fear used as instruments of power? I suggest they are and that they might be analysed following John Forester's concept of misinformation.