Amedeo Policante (471C-7120-BD2B)

Curriculum Vitae

Amedeo Policante

Amedeo Policante is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History at the Nova University in Lisbon. In previous years, he has worked as researcher and lecturer at the University of Nottingham, the University of Warwick, and the University of Oldenburg’s Helmholtz Centre for Marine Functional Biodiversity. His recent research has focused on political economy, political ecology, and the entangled histories of scientific, legal, and political thought. He is the author of several scientific articles, contributing to critical debates on global issues such as: the history and politics of genomic science, genome editing, and the biotech industry; climate change, forestry, and carbon capture initiatives; ocean politics, maritime security, and the shifting cartographies of the submarine cable web; the politics of logistical systems and global infrastructures. He authored three books. Mutant Ecologies: Manufacturing Life in the Age of Genomic Capital (Pluto Press, 2022 [co-authored with Erica Borg]) is a critical cartography of the shifting landscapes of capital accumulation conjured by recent developments in genomic science, genome editing, and the biotech industry. The Pirate Myth: Genealogies of an Imperial Concept (Routledge, 2016) focuses on shifting conceptions of ocean spaces in the context of early modern imperialism and the logistical revolution. These interdisciplinary works have contributed to current debates across several disciplines, including global politics, science and technology studies, and the history of political and legal thought. I Nuovi Mercenari: Mercato Mondiale e Privatizzazione della Guerra (Ombre Corte, 2013) investigates the history of the private security industry in Europe since the second half of the nineteenth century. He is currently working on a new research project provisionally titled “Networking the Ocean: Entangled Histories and Geographies of the Submarines Cable Network as a Global Critical Infrastructure” — Hosted by the IHC and funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (2021.03779.CEECIND).

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Identification

Personal identification

Full name: Amedeo Policante

Citation names

Policante, Amedeo

Author identifiers

Ciência ID: 471C-7120-BD2B
ORCID iD: 0009-0003-7189-5147
Google Scholar ID: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xfHSHV8AAAAJ&hl=it

Email addresses

policante@fcsh.unl.pt (Professional)

Addresses

Institute of Contemporary History, Nova University of Lisbon, Avenida de Berna, 26 C, 1069-061, Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal (Professional)

Websites

https://ipri.academia.edu/AmedeoPolicante (Scholar)
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=xfHSHV8AAAAJ&hl=en (Scholar)
https://www.routledge.com/authors/i9349-amedeo-policante (Scholar)
https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745344522/mutant-ecologies/ (Professional)

Knowledge fields

Social Sciences - Political Sciences
Social Sciences - Law
Social Sciences - Economic and Social Geography
Humanities - History and Archaeology - History

Education

	Degree	Classification
2014/09/01 - 2016/11/17 Concluded	Associate Fellowship to the Higher Education Academy, UK (Postgraduate Certificate) University of Nottingham, United Kingdom	Certificate Awarded with merit
2010/10/01 - 2013/02/28 Concluded	Doctor of Philosophy (Politics and International Relations) (Doctor of Philosophy) Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom "Hostis Humani Generis: Genealogies of an Imperial Concept" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	without amendments
2009/10/01 - 2010/10/01 Concluded	Master in Cultural Studies (Master) Goldsmiths University of London Centre for Cultural Studies, United Kingdom "The Logistical Ocean: Shifting Constructions of the Global Commons" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	Distinction
2007/10/01 - 2009/10/01 Concluded	MA in History and International Relations (Laurea Specialistica) Università degli Studi di Bologna Scuola di Scienze Politiche, Italy "La Sicurezza come Industria: Mercato Mondiale e Privatizzazione della Guerra" (THESIS/DISSERTATION)	110 cum laude
2004/10/01 - 2007/10/01 Concluded	BA in Politics and International Relations (Bachelor) Università degli Studi di Bologna Scuola di Scienze Politiche, Italy	110 cum laude

Affiliation

Science

	Category Host institution	Employer
2022/10 - Current	Researcher (Research)	Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
	Instituto de História Contemporânea, Portugal
2021 - 2022	Principal Investigator (Research)	Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Germany
	Helmholtz-Institut für Funktionelle Marine Biodiversität an der Universität Oldenburg, Germany
2017/10/01 - 2020/01/30	Postdoc (Research)	University of Warwick, United Kingdom
	University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2014/10/01 - 2017/12/31	Researcher (Research)	University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

2010/10/01 - 2012/09/30	Research Assistant (Research)	Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom

Teaching in Higher Education

	Category Host institution	Employer
2018 - 2021	Lecturer (University Teacher)	University of Warwick, United Kingdom
	University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2018/01/01 - 2018/01/31	Visiting Professor (University Teacher)	Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany
	Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany
2016/09/01 - 2017/07/31	Lecturer (University Teacher)	University of Nottingham Department of History, United Kingdom
	University of Nottingham Department of History, United Kingdom

Projects

Grant

	Designation	Funders
2025 - Current	Radical Urban Cultures. Exploring the political ecologies of urban-food-soil entanglements in the Anthropocene through Natural Wine 2024.15482.PEX Research Fellow Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing
2025 - Current	PETROSINES — Peripheral Petromodernity. A Global Microhistory of the Sines Area Project (1971-1999) 15078 Research Fellow Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing

Contract

	Designation	Funders
2022/09/15 - 2028/09/14	Networking the Ocean: Entangled Histories and Geographies of the Submarines Cable Network as a Global Critical Infrastructure 2021.03779.CEECIND/CP1657/CT0025 10.54499/2021.03779.CEECIND/CP1657/CT0025 Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal	Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia Ongoing

Outputs

Publications

Book	Policante, Amedeo; Erica Borg. Mutant Ecologies: Manufacturing Life in the Age of Genomic Capital. LONDON, United Kingdom: Pluto Press. 2022. Published Policante, Amedeo. The Pirate Myth: Genealogies of an Imperial Concept. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. 2015. Published • https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315757223 Policante, Amedeo. I Nuovi Mercenari: Mercato Mondiale e Privatizzazione della Guerra. Verona, Italy: Ombre Corte. 2012. Published
Book chapter	Policante, Amedeo. "The Pirate States: Oceanic Orientalism and the Shifting Boundaries of the International Community". In Corsairs and Pirates in the Eastern Mediterranean, 15th-19th century, edited by David Starkey; Harlaftis, Gelina; Dimitris Dimitropoulos. Athens, Greece: ADSA, 2016. Published Policante, Amedeo. "The New Pirate Wars: Imperial Control Over the Oceanic Commons". In The Crisis of the Twenty-First Century: Empire in the Age of Austerity, edited by Russell Foster; Matthew Johnson; Mark Edward. London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2014. Published Policante, Amedeo. "After the event: Securitization and the Mythical Representation of Violence". In Situating Global Resistance: Between Discipline and Dissent, edited by Lara Montesinos Coleman; Karen Tucker. London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2013. Published
Journal article	Policante, Amedeo. "Editorial: On Junk.". Lo Squaderno: Explorations in Space and Society 71 (2025): https://www.losquaderno.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/losquaderno71.pdf. Open access • Published Borg, Erica; Policante, Amedeo. "The Gene Editing Business: Rent Extraction in the Biotech Industry". Review of Political Economy (2024): 1-36. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09538259.2024.2401480. Open access • 10.1080/09538259.2024.2401480 Policante, Amedeo. "Boring stories: What connects 18th-century shipping to today’s global media network?". The Sociological Review Magazine (2024): https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.chdk2322. Open access • Published • 10.51428/tsr.chdk2322 Policante, Amedeo. "Cybergenetics: Life in the Control Loop". Lo Squaderno: Explorations in Space and Society 68 (2024): 9-14. http://www.losquaderno.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/losquaderno68.pdf. Open access • Published Policante, Amedeo; Borg, Erica. "Engineering Living Infrastructures: The Biopolitical Economy of Poplar Architectures in the Anthropocene". Scienza & Politica 35 69 (2024): 89-112. https://scienzaepolitica.unibo.it/article/view/19052/17536. Open access • Published • https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1825-9618/19052 Policante, Amedeo; Borg, Erica. "CRISPR futures: Rethinking the politics of genome editing". Human Geography 16 2 (2023): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/19427786231215673. Open access • Published • https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786231215673 Policante, Amedeo; Borg, Erica. "Mining the Ocean Genome: Global Bioprospecting Expeditions and Genomic Extractivism on the Oceanic Frontier". Archivio antropologico mediterraneo 25 1 (2023): http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/aam.6994. Open access • Published • 10.4000/aam.6994 Policante, Amedeo. "Ursine Wars: Alpine Imaginaries and Animal Genealogies in the Trentino Region". Anima Loci: A Journal of Images in Place 2 1 (2020): https://animaloci.org/ursine-wars-alpine-imaginaries-and-animal-genealogies/. Open access • Published Policante, Amedeo. "Narcocapitalism and its Discontents: Towards a Biopolitical Economy of the Opioid Crisis". Radical Philosophy 2 5 (2019): 63-67. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/individual-reviews/narcos-and-their-discontents. Published Policante, Amedeo. "The Return of the Pirate: Post-colonial Trajectories in the History of International Law". Política Común 5 20200129 (2016): http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/pc.12322227.0005.005. Open access • Published • 10.3998/pc.12322227.0005.005 Policante, Amedeo. "The New Pirate wars: the World Market as Imperial Formation". Global Discourse 3 1 (2013): 52-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.804760. Open access • Published • 10.1080/23269995.2013.804760 Policante, Amedeo. "Foucault, Subjectivity and flight: Witchcraft, possession and the resistance of the flesh". Materiali Foucaultiani 1 1 (2012): 235-259. http://www.materialifoucaultiani.org/images/pdf/policante%20en.pdf. Open access • Published Policante, Amedeo. "Of Cameras and Balaclavas: Violence, Myth, and the Convulsive Kettle". Globalizations 8 4 (2011): 457-471. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2011.585848. Published • 10.1080/14747731.2011.585848 Policante, Amedeo. "Vampires of Capital: Marx's Gothic Metaphors". Cultural Logic: A Journal of Marxist Theory & Practice 17 1 (2010): 1-20. https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/clogic/article/view/191528. Open access • Published • https://doi.org/10.14288/clogic.v17i0.191528 Amedeo Policante. "War against Biopower - Timely Reflections on an Historicist Foucault". Theory & Event 13 1 (2010): http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/tae.0.0123. Open access • 10.1353/tae.0.0123
Magazine article	Policante, Amedeo. "Power Relations: Where the personal becomes political (an interview with Amedeo Policante)", Pharos: University of Warwick's Philosophy Magazine, 2020, https://pharosmagazine.org/2020/04/20/power-relations-where-the-personal-becomes-political/. Policante, Amedeo. "Game of Drones: Cubicle Warriors and the Drudge of War", Nyx, 2014, https://www.scribd.com/document/140868433/Nyx-a-noctournal-Issue-7-Machines.

Activities

Oral presentation

	Presentation title	Event name Host (Event location)
2025/09/19	Anthropocene in the Cell: Histories of the Mutagenic Century	IHC Conference Institute of Contemporary History, Nova University of Lisbon (Lisbon, Portugal)
2025/07/27	The Necroeconomy of Artificial Intelligence	The Politics of AI Ozora Festival (Budapest, Hungary)
2025/05/29	Piracy and the capitalist world sytem: Reflections on Jatin Dua's 'Captured at Sea'	Histories of Piracy from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Aden Museo del Mare (Museum of the Sea) (Palermo, Italy)
2025/01/31	Neoliberal Fires: Forest Plantations and the Privatisation of Fire-Fighting Infrastructure	8th Encontro Anual de Economia Política Coimbra University (Coimbra, Portugal)
2025/01/06	Engineering the Carbon Plantation: Molecular Hyper-Modernism and the Real Subsumption of the Forest Commons	O Efeito Scott: Poder e Resistência no Mundo Contemporaneo Portugal National Library (Lisbon, Portugal)
2024/12/10	Engineering the Carbon Fix: Genomic Forestry and Carbon Markets	Counting Carbon: Natural Climate Solutions, Low-Carbon Landscapes, and Environmental Justice Geneva Graduate Institute (Geneva, Switzerland)
2024/11/04	“Climate-Smart” Poplars and the Carbon Plantation: Genomic Forestry and the Real Subsumption of the Forest Commons	Comuns: Encontro De Ecologia Política Icste - Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal)
2024/06/12	Genomic Forestry in the Anthropocene	The Political Ecology Network conference (POLLEN24) Lund University (Lund, Sweden)
2024/05/09	Bioengineering the Earth: The Global Politics of Genome Editing	Bioengineering the Earth: The Global Politics of Genome Editing CES - Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra (Coimbra, Portugal)
2024/02/07	"Communism is the Scream of Life". Fragments of a Workerist Political Ecology in Antonio Negri's Writings	Ao Encontro de Antonio Negri Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (Lisbon, Portugal)
2023/11/12	Naturally Cool Cattle? Metabolic Rifts, Climate Shifts and Genomic Fixes in the Global Factory Farm	Historical Materialism Conference School of Oriental and African Studies (London, United Kingdom)
2023/06/09	Oceanic Infrastructures: Submarine Cables and the Internet	Global Infrastructures: The Production of the Modern World Bologna University (Bologna, Italy)
2023/04/20	Mutant ecologies: manufacturing capitalogenic life-forms and securing the reproduction of capital	Historical Materialism Confererence, Athens Panteion University of Athens (Athens, Greece)
2022/07/27	‘Technofixes and Carbon Sinks: Geoengineering the Anthropocene Ocean’.	European Association of Social Anthropologists, 17th Biennal Conference. 26-29 July 2022. University of Belfast
2020/05	Genomic Post-Ecologies: Biopolitical Economy and Real Subsumption after CRISPR’	Genomic Political Ecology Conference King's College, Geography Department (London, United Kingdom)
2020	The Biopolitical Economy of AquAdvantage: Manufactured Metabolisms, Genome Editing and the Real Subsumption of Life at Sea	Seminar of the Contemporary Marxism Research Group King's College, London (London, United Kingdom)
2019/10/16	Capital, Biopower and the Anthropocene: Critical Reflections on the Earth Bank of Codes¿	Marx Nu University of Copenaghen (Copenaghen, Denmark)
2019/10	Capital, Biopower and Genomic Big Data: Critical Reflection on the Earth BioGenome Project	Historical Materialism Conference School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (London, United Kingdom)
2019/06/06	The Biopolitical Economy of the Opioid Crisis: Towards an Archeology of the Permanent State of Exception	What is Philosophy? University of Warwick (University of Warwick, United Kingdom)
2019/05	Birth of Anthropolitics: Geo-security, Earth-System, Bio-capital’	5th World Ecology Conference University of San Francisco (San Francisco, United States)
2019	Producing Cramped Spaces: Logistical and Counter-Logistical Networks in the Mediterranean	8th International Conference of Critical Geography University of Athens (Athens, Greece)
2018	Marginal Lives: Biopolitical Security in the Wider Mediterranean	Margins of Europe: Histories of the Border École Normale Supériore (Paris, France)
2016/04/24	Securing Logistics, Fostering Circulations: Foucault's Reflections on Ocean Space in Security, Territory and Population	”, International Relations, Capitalism and the Sea: The Historical Sociology of Oceans and Inner Seas. Sponsored by the British International Studies Association at the University of London, Birkbeck College (London, United Kingdom)
2016/04	The Work of Logistics: Privatization of Security and Fragmegration of Global Space’	Logistics&Power: A Symposium University of Nottingham (United Kingdom)
2015/12/12	Plunder as Primitive Accumulation? Reflections on Piracy and Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century	La Pirateria fra Storia e Diritto Università di Firenze (Firenze, Italy)
2015/05	Rogue State: Travels and Misadventures of an International Political Concept	First Conference on ‘Ideologies in Translation University of Nottingham & International Islamic University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
2015/04/01	Neo-Liberalism and Its Discontents: (Dis-)embedding the World Market in the 21st century	Keynote Address to the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
2014/08	Pirate Legends on the Mediterranean Frontier: Orientalism and the Shifting Borders of the International Community’	Corsairs and Pirates in the Eastern Mediterranean, 15th-19th century Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens and University of Athens (Athens, Greece)

Event organisation

	Event name Type of event (Role)	Institution / Organization
2024/11/28 - Current	Global Infrastructures: Aesthetic Power and Affective Networks in the (Post-)colonial Present (2024/11/28) Conference (Co-organisor)	Instituto de História Contemporânea, Portugal Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
2024/02/07 - Current	Ao encontro de Antonio Negri (2024/02/07) Symposium (Co-organisor)	Instituto de História Contemporânea, Portugal Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Portugal
2023/06/09 - Current	Global Infrastructures: The Production of the Modern World (2023/06/09) Conference (Co-organisor)	Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Università degli Studi di Bologna, Italy CoLABOR, Portugal
2019/05 - Current	Main Organiser of the Conference - Philosophy and the Critiques of Security, University of Warwick, May 2019 (2019/05/09 - 2019/05/09) Conference (Co-organisor)	University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2018/06/14 - Current	Margins of Europe: Histories of the Border (2018/06/14 - 2018/06/15) Conference (Member of the Organising Committee)	Centre Européen de Sociologie et de Science Politique de la Sorbonne, France University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2015/05 - Current	First Conference on ‘Ideologies in Translation' (2015/05/05 - 2015/05/06) Conference (Co-organisor)	University of Nottingham - Malaysia Campus, Malaysia University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
2019/11/07 - 2019/11/10	Chair&Panel Organiser at the 16th Annual Historical Materialism Conference for the following panels: 'Imperialism Today'; 'Subaltern Natures'; 'The Working Class in the Ecological Crisis' (2019/11/07 - 2019/11/10) Conference (Other)	SOAS University of London, United Kingdom
2019/04/21 - 2019/04/21	Panel co-organizer at the 8th International Conference of Critical Geography (Panel: Spatial crises: The production of cramped spaces in the Mediterranean) (2019/04/19) Conference	Ethniko Metsobio Polytechneio, Greece

Association member

	Society Organization name	Role
2024/10/01 - Current	Animals in the Room	Researcher - Coordination of historical and archival research on inter-species communication and relations in the context o the EU-funded ‘Project Ursus’ in the Trentino region (Italy).
2019 - Current	Member of the Editorial Group of Anima Loci: A Journal of Images in Place
2017 - Current	Editor of Philosophy in a Time of Crisis: Journal of Contemporary Thought (https://www.philosophyx.co.uk/)
2016/04 - Current	Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK
2011 - 2021	Editor of Finzioni Magazine: Letteratura, Storia e Filosofia

Course / Discipline taught

	Academic session	Degree Subject (Type)	Institution / Organization
2017 - 2019	Convenor of the second and third-year BA class ‘Contemporary Biopolitical Thought’	BA Philosophy (Bachelor)	University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2018/01 - 2018/01	Convenor of the Undergraduate Seminar ‘Genealogies of the Concept of Violence’	(Bachelor)	Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany
2016/01 - 2016/07	Convenor of the Research-led module: Piracy, Imperialism and the Global History of Ocean Space¿	BA History (Bachelor)	University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
2014 - 2016	Convenor of the modules 'History of International Politics', 'World History' and 'International Politics at Sea'	BA History and International Politics (Bachelor)	University of Nottingham - Malaysia Campus, Malaysia

Interview (tv / radio show)

	Program	Topic
2023/11/09 - Current	Red Medicine Podcast	The Politics of Science and Technology: Genome Editing
2023/05/27 - Current	Radio Radicale	The Politics of Genome Editing
2021/01/05 - Current	Rewilding Europe: Battaglie politiche del movimento antispecista, Interview on Radio Radicale [January 2021].	Radio Radicale

Journal scientific committee

	Journal title (ISSN)	Publisher
2020 - Current	Maree: Anthropological Itineraries	Prospero

Distinctions

Award

2020	Anima Loci Writing Fellowship Anima Loci Association, Italy
2018	Early Career Innovation Fund University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2017	Meyer Postdoctoral Research Fellowship University of Warwick, United Kingdom
2015	Official Nomination to the Lord Dearing Awards for high quality teaching and the support of learning, University of Nottingham, UK University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
2013	Institute of Contemporary Arts, London: Best Magazine of the Month for Nyx: A Nocturnal [Editor] Institute of Contemporary Arts, United Kingdom
2010	Prometeo Scholarship for Best Young Author Cassa Rurale Alto Garda e Ledro, Italy
2009	Full Doctoral Studentship Goldsmiths University of London, United Kingdom
2008	Diploma di Studio del Collegio Superiore [Degree from the Bologna School of Excellence] Università di Bologna - Università di Bologna, Italy