I am currently lecturing at the Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, after spending twenty five years in the United Kingdom. In Bologna I teach advanced courses in Political and Economic Anthropology and Theories and Methods in Anthropological Research.in the Dept of Politics, Institutions and History, within the Faculty of Political Sciences. Teaching and research in Bologna built up from my earlier work at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, where I taught the Anthropology of Art.

My leading theoretical interests are in ethnicity and constructions of identity, masks and initiation, secret societies and the 'political' use of knowledge. My approach to the problem of the nexus of power and knowledge is very much praxis-oriented, somewhat along the lines of the Frankfurt School and J. Habermas in particular. This includes therefore an emphasis on material culture and 'art' as embedded ideology. Hence I am also interested in the arts and material culture of Africa, in European popular art, in ethnographic films and museum anthropology..

My area of research is Northwestern Ghana, where I conduct field research on the cult of the Sigma masks and the related initiation society spread among the Gur-Grushi speaking populations of the Upper West Region. Besides the collection of data for a general ethnography of the area, my interests focus on issues related to knowledge, secrecy and initiation ('Sigma! The Pilgrim's Progress and the Logic of Secrecy', in Nooter, M. H. (ed.) 1993, Secrecy: African Art that Reveals and Conceals, New York ) and the theoretical issues developing from the analysis of the representational status of masks and notions of  the person cross-culturally ('Persona, Masca, Larva: Masks, Identity and Cognition in the Cultures of Europe', in Malik, S. C. (ed.) 2002, Rūpa Pratirūpa: Mind, Man and Mask, New Delhi).

I became interested in African masquerades through my work with the Ladin ethnic minority of the Dolomites, where Carnival provides the venue for statements about both ethnic identity and wider gender and seasonal symbolism ('Building Difference: the Political Economy of Tradition in the Ladin Carnival of the Val di Fassa', in Boissevain, J. (ed.) 1992, Revitalizing European Rituals, London; 'The Other Within: Masks and Masquerades in Europe', in Mack, J. (ed.) 1994, Masks: the Art of Expression, London).

My interests in cross-cultural and comparative issues ('Was Frazer Right? Cultural Ecology, Knowledge and Masks in West African and Alpine Cross-cultural Perspective', in Annali di San Michele, 1998, 11: 231-246; (with J. Goody), 'Flowers and Bones: Approaches to the Dead in Anglo-American and Italian Cemeteries', in Comparative Studies in Society and History 1994, 2: 146-175), together with my background in philosophy and social theory, have developed into wider concerns with theoretical issues investigating some of the central concerns of contemporary sociology ('Wider Horizons with Larger Details: Subjectivity, Ethnicity and Globalization', in Scott, A. (ed.) 1997, The Limits of Globalization, London).

An active involvement with the Ladin Cultural Institute and my long-term association with Renato Morelli, ethnomusicologist and film-maker, has resulted in a co-authored monograph on popular culture in the Trentino region of Northern Italy (1998, Santi, Spiriti e Re: Mascherate Invernali nel Trentino fra Tradizione, Declino e Riscoperta, Trento), an award-winning series of documentary films produced by the Italian State TV and - in 2001 - in the inauguration of the Mujeo Ladin de Fascia, a museum devoted to the cultural history and the anthropology of the Ladins of the Dolomites (www.istladin.net/eng/museo/museo.html).

I live with my wife Elena, an Art Historian, in Cannitello, on the Calabrian side of the Strait of Messina, a few miles South of Scilla and just across Charybdis. My interests in sailing will with all probability materialize in the near future in a field research on the last maestri d'ascia ('traditional' boatbuilders) along the Thyrrenean coast. This will represent my contribution to the neglected subfield of the anthropology of maritime communities.

Please feel free to contact me at this site or at poppi@spbo.unibo.it