Dr Lara Monticelli is an interdisciplinary scholar, writer and public speaker interested in analysing contemporary capitalism, its crises, and more just and sustainable alternative futures. Her approach draws insights from economic and political sociology, critical social theory, political economy, and the humanities. Prior to joining UCL, she worked as Assistant Professor and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Denmark. She also held visiting positions at the University of Cambridge, University of Stockholm, and University of Rotterdam (Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, DRIFT).
Her EU-funded research project EcoLabSS (2018-2024), focused on the (re)emergence of community-based, prefigurative social movements (e.g. sustainable communities, eco-villages, transition towns, solidarity networks) as living laboratories experimenting with practices of resilience and resistance to environmental, economic and societal challenges. Lara is especially interested in how these movements re-politicize and re-configure everyday life, thus representing radical attempts to embody a critique to contemporary capitalism and prefigure alternative, sustainable futures. Her most recent edited volume is titled “The Future is Now. An Introduction to Prefigurative Politics” (2022, Bristol University Press).
With Dr Torsten Geelan, she co-chairs the international research network “Alternatives to Capitalism” at the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) and co-edits the book series “Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century” at Bristol University Press.