Giovanna has been trained as a Social Anthropologist in Cagliari, Italy, at the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, and at the University of St Andrews.
Her main research has focused on a remote insular community in Chiloé, where she has been conducting ethnographic research for 15 years. Her interests range from sociality – the intricate ways people build and develop to relate to each other – to kinship and religion. For what concerns religion, she has written about conversion to evangelical Christianity, Catholic missionisation as well as a local cult of a miraculous Catholic saint.
More recently she has been interested in investigating indigenous modernity and children’s processes of learning.
Her second, more recent stream of research has been on kinship and particularly international adoption. She is focussing on a specific episode of intercountry adoption where Chilean-born children have been adopted by Italian families. Main themes of this project are ethnic and national identity, ideas of kinship ties and of motherhood on adoptees as well as adoptive parents, and biological parents.
Academic Degrees:
Ph.D in Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews.
MSc in Social Anthropology, London School of Economics.
Professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.