Lisa Spinelli holds a MA in Chinese Studies (Venice Ca' Foscari University, Beijing Normal University) and a MSc in Cultural Anthropology (Utrecht University). She is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at ISCTE and Nova FCSH University (Lisbon), and she is working as a researcher at CRIA (Centre for Research in Anthropology) and CCCM (Macau Scientific and Cultural Center). Based on practice theory, her research focuses on the differential agencies at play in the (re)production of ways of being-in-the-word. Through a phenomenological approach, she examines the intersections between grassroots expressive practices (as music), ontological systems, and micro-political activities. She explores these as individual and collective creative responses to dynamics of governmentality in cultural contexts dominated by hegemonic political actors, with a focus on the effects of globalization. Her geographical areas of expertise are Eastern Asia (south-western China, Tibet) and Mediterranean Europe (Portugal). In the past years, she conducted ethnographic research in Yunnan (China) and in Lisbon (Portugal). In the first case, she studied the connections between the landscape and the religiosity of Naxi people under the influence of Chinese environmentalist policies. In the second, she explored the musical and religious practices of a group of young fado musicians living in Lisbon, a southern-European capital in full touristic boom. Today, she is conducting a research on Tibetan folk music and religiosity in Nepal, focusing on Chinese censorships as well as on the commodification of ethnic music, and on their long lasting effects over people’s ways of interpreting reality and perceiving their future.