Giacomo Bazzani is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Florence and Principal Investigator of the Prosocial Motivations for Climate Mitigation Behaviors (PROSOCIAL-CLIMA) project. He is also Principal Investigator of the five-year FIS-funded project Scaling Solutions: Grassroots–Institutional Synergies for Global Challenges (GRASYSOL), which examines how grassroots initiatives and institutions interact to generate, scale, and evaluate solution attempts to major societal challenges.
His research focuses on three areas: solidarity and sustainability transitions; future and agency; and the interplay between money and social change.
1. Solidarity and Sustainability Transitions
Bazzani introduces altruistic solidarity to analyze prosocial commitments toward distant others across social relations, geography, and time. Bridging environmental sociology and collective action theory, he conceptualizes solidarity as prosocial behavior from everyday interaction to institutional arrangements, and uses this lens to explain how collective responses scale across climate change, migration, and inequality—reshaping the institutional terms under which freedom can be claimed under planetary interdependence.
Key publications:
2. Future and Agency
Bazzani studies agency and decision-making under uncertainty by conceptualizing agency as a conversion process through which actors transform constraints into opportunities for action. His work connects sociological theory and future studies by clarifying how expectations, imaginaries, and narratives shape decision-making. He also uses experimental approaches to examine how future-oriented narratives affect behavior, with applications to fertility intentions and uncertainty.
3. Money and Social Change
Bazzani’s research on monetary innovation bridges sociology and sustainability studies. He examines how alternative currencies, digital money, and financial infrastructures can foster cooperation, social cohesion, and resilience, treating monetary systems as social infrastructures that shape coordination and collective action.
Main grants (selected)
Current positionSince 2025, he has been an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Florence (Italy), Department of Political and Social Sciences, where he teaches Sociology, Sociological Theory, and Agency, Cooperation, and Global Challenges. He currently serves as Principal Investigator of two externally funded projects:
1) Prosocial Motivations for Climate Mitigation Behaviors (PROSOCIAL-CLIMA), funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRIN PNRR 2022; 2023-2026) funded with €263,890 (Grant No. P2022LWTSJ) and carried out with the University of Pavia and the University of Naples Federico II; and2) Scaling Solutions: Grassroots–Institutional Synergies for Global Challenges (GRASYSOL), a five-year Italian Science Fund project (FIS 3, MUR; 2026–2031) funded with €1,199,650.96 (CUP: B53C25004030001).
Previous positions
Fellowships and awards
Major research interests address:
Legenda
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