Valentina Punzi
Researcher
Valentina Punzi’s current research explores contemporary ritual practices among communities in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. She received a double PhD from University of Naples L’Orientale (Asian Studies) and Minzu University of China (Tibetan Studies) in 2014. From 2016 to 2020, she was a postdoctoral fellow at University of Naples L’Orientale. She recently completed her second PhD at the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations de l’Asie orientale (CRCAO), École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) and at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folkloristics, University of Tartu.
She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Qinghai and Sichuan provinces (PRC) on oral history, ethnic identity, and folk religion. She sees fieldwork as a life-long, enriching experience of sharing across cultures as much as an ideal continuation of her teenage involvement in the secular scouting association in Italy.
