Areas of responsibility
Vito is Associate Professor in the Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder, Norway. In Agder, he leads the Sustainability, Digitalisation and Communication focus area at the Centre for Digital Transformation (CeDiT). He was recently a SCAS-Nordic Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala (September 2024-June 2025), funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna (March-May 2026).
He received a BSc in Employment Relations & Human Resource Management from LSE, and an MPhil in Social Anthropological Research and a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge.
He co-managed the Horizon Europe project ReMeD - Resilient Media for Democracy in the Digital Age (March 2023 - February 2026) as Head of the ReMeD Methodology Coordination Group, work package leader, and Management Board member. He led the writing of the Excellence section of the grant proposal, and developed the main project idea and methodology. He led a pan-European qualitative study of how professional journalists, alternative & community media content producers, and citizens use and interact with digital platforms, coordinating more than 20 researchers carrying out fieldwork in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain and UK. As leader of the work package on Exploitation, Impact Scenarios and Policy Recommendations, he coordinated the production of several policy briefs based on the project's findings.
Vito is a co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, editor of the Humanities and Social Sciences Communications' thematic collections "Mediated Populism" and "Critical Simulation Studies", a member of the editorial board of the journal Global Networks, and a member of the international editorial board of HUMA - The Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town. He was the founder and chief editor of the public engagement blog Corona Times, a HUMA project, and is the chief editor of the University of Agder's science communication blog Democracy in Action. He served as Communication Strategy Adviser for WWQA - World Water Quality Alliance, a United Nations Environment Programme partnership.
He has published widely in leading international journals such as The Journal of Development Studies; Energy Research & Social Science; The Extractive Industries and Society; Review of African Political Economy; Journal of Contemporary African Studies; Technology, Pedagogy and Education; and Anthropology Today, and academic presses such as Cambridge University Press; Routledge; Palgrave Macmillan; and Berghahn.
He held research and teaching positions at the University of Cambridge, University of Oslo, University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria, Bristol UWE, and University of Worcester (UK). He has held visiting fellowships at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Institute for Human Sciences, Nordregio, and University of Mauritius.
His research has been funded by Horizon Europe, the Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils in the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS), Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Sweden), the Norwegian Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), Jisc (UK), the National Institute of Health Research (UK), the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (US), the National Research Foundation (South Africa), the Tertiary Education Commission (Mauritius), the SAHEE Foundation (Switzerland) and the Cambridge Newton Trust.
Vito has worked with local governments, NGOs, media organisations, trade unions, social movements, and community organisations in Norway, Europe and southern Africa on issues of AI development, digital communications, green transition, labour, socio-economic development and organisational change.
He writes regularly for international media, such as Al Jazeera English, Boston Review, Foreign Affairs, openDemocracy and Africa Is A Country. He is a regular commentator on South African national radio for SAfm, and has been a guest speaker on Cape Talk, Radio 702, and Voice of the Cape. Vito has published in the South African magazines Daily Maverick and Mail & Guardian. In Italy, he has written for The Post Internazionale, Left and Blitz Quotidiano. In Norway, he has been interviewed by Dagens Næringsliv and Klassekampen, and wrote for Khrono and Fædrelandsvennen.
His work has been featured in podcasts such as The Take (on Al Jazeera English), The Human Show, and A Correction. In the autumn of 2024, he co-hosted and co-produced the podcast Weird, covering the political communication of key politicians in the 2024 US presidential campaigns.
SCHOLARLY FOCUS
Vito is an anthropologist, media scholar, and political analyst with an interdisciplinary orientation. His approach is characterised by a systemic integration of ethnography, macro-level structural analysis, and epistemological & reflexive inquiry, in the tradition of “big ideas” social science and social theory.
His current work focuses on digitalisation, new media, and communication, with interests in: political communication, digital propaganda, right-wing populism and digital democracy; social and organisational impact of digital technologies & AI; the development of AI tools for interpretive social science and humanities; critical higher education studies; and green transition.
Vito has carried out field research in South Africa, Eswatini, UK, Norway and Italy. His early career was characterised by a specialism in southern and central Africa, which over the years has expanded into a focus on Europe, the Nordics, and North America.
His past work has focused extensively on political economy & ecology, specifically: global & regional development, industrialisation & green transitions; and global li-ion battery value and supply chains. He was a member of the University of Agder's Battery Coast initiative, where he coordinated the Battery Justice Research Network (BATJUST), a global network of social scientists and sustainability scientists in five continents working on justice and transparency issues related to global li-ion battery value and supply chains.
His doctoral research in Cambridge (2005-2011) was an ethnography of timber workers in the Kingdom of Eswatini. He studied in a former asbestos mining town, redeveloped as a social enterprise by white southern African and North American Pentecostal Christian missionaries. For-profit economic activities in the forestry industry were carried out in tandem with orphan care services. The study was extended to the adjacent rural community. Vito developed a grounded approach to foreign investment and donor aid that takes into account labour relations and company’s interactions with local communities, and brings together political economy, political ecology and phenomenological anthropology.
Research
PUBLICATIONS
BOOK MONOGRAPH
Laterza, V. (In press) Breathing life: workers, materials, and the environment in a southern African company town. Langaa RPCIG.
EDITED BOOKS, SPECIAL ISSUES & SECTIONS:
Pinheiro, R., Drejer, I., Bienkowska, D., Laterza, V. & Sotarauta, M. eds. (2026) Higher education and regional green transitions: navigating tensions, complexities and solutions. Routledge.
Thomas, D.A. and Laterza, V. eds. (2025) Critical perspectives on EdTech in higher education: varieties of platformisation. Palgrave Macmillan.
Laterza,V and Golomski, C. eds. (2025) Customary nationalism in crisis: protest, identity and politics in eSwatini. Routledge.
Laterza, V. and Golomski, C. eds. (2023) Customary nationalism in crisis: protest, identity and politics in eSwatini. Journal of Contemporary African studies, 41(2).
Laterza, V., Tømte, C.E. and Pinheiro, R.M. eds. (2020) Digital transformations with “Nordic characteristics”? Latest trends in the digitalisation of teaching and learning in Nordic higher education. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 15(4).
Laterza, V., Sharp, J. and Beresford, A. eds. (2017) Extraction and beyond: people’s economic responses to restructuring in southern and central Africa. Review of African Political Economy, 44(152).
Larmer, M. and Laterza, V. eds. (2017) Contested wealth: social and political mobilisation in extractive communities in Africa. The Extractive Industries and Society, 4(4).
Sharp, J., Powers, T. and Laterza, V. eds. (2013) The Human Economy Project: first steps. Anthropology Southern Africa, 36(3&4).
ARTICLES, CHAPTERS AND REPORTS:
Laterza, V., Sotarauta, M., Bienkowska, D., Drejer, I. and Pinheiro, R. (2026) 'Universities and regional green transitions: complexity, contestation and one way forward'. In: Rómulo Pinheiro, Ina Drejer, Dzamila Bienkowska, Vito Laterza and Markku Sotarauta (eds) Higher education and regional green transitions: navigating tensions, complexities and solutions. Routledge, pp. 193-195.
Pinheiro, R., Laterza, V., Bienkowska, D., Drejer, I. and Sotarauta, M. (2026) 'Universities and regional green transitions in the Nordics'. In: Rómulo Pinheiro, Ina Drejer, Dzamila Bienkowska, Vito Laterza and Markku Sotarauta (eds) Higher education and regional green transitions: navigating tensions, complexities and solutions. Routledge, pp. 3-15.
Drejer, I., Bienkowska, D., Pinheiro, R., Laterza, V. and Sotarauta, M. (2026) 'Green and regional transitions and Nordic higher education: conceptual foundations'. In: Rómulo Pinheiro, Ina Drejer, Dzamila Bienkowska, Vito Laterza and Markku Sotarauta (eds) Higher education and regional green transitions: navigating tensions, complexities and solutions. Routledge, pp. 16-30.
Laterza, V., Thomas, D.A and de Andrade, L.H.A. (2025) 'Critical EdTech studies, platforms and platformisation in higher education: an introduction'. In: Duncan A. Thomas and Vito Laterza (eds) Critical perspectives on EdTech in higher education: varieties of platformisation. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1-20.
Laterza, V. and Golomski, C. (2025) 'Introduction - Customary nationalism in crisis: Protest, identity and politics in eSwatini'. In: Vito Laterza and Casey Golomski (eds) Customary nationalism in crisis: protest, identity and politics in eSwatini. Routledge.
Laterza, V. and Golomski, G. (2023) 'Customary nationalism in crisis: protest, identity and politics in eSwatini'. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 41(2): 119-140.
Sareen, S., Girard, B., Lindkvist, M., Sveinsdóttir, A., Kristiansen, S., Laterza, V., Aguilar-Støen, M. and Langhelle, O. (2023) 'Enabling a just energy transition through solidarity in research'. Energy Research & Social Science, 101: 103143.
Laterza, V., Asante, M.O., Tømte, C.E. and Pinheiro, R. (2023) 'Implementing digital transformations in higher education following COVID-19: A Norwegian case study'. In: Rómulo Pinheiro, Cathrine Edelhard Tømte, Linda Barman, Lise Degn and Lars Geschwind (eds) Digital Transformations in Nordic Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 243-266.
de Andrade, L.H.A, Thomas, D.A. and Laterza, V. (2023) 'The rise of EdTech platforms in higher education: Mapping themes from emerging critical literature'. In: Rómulo Pinheiro, Cathrine Edelhard Tømte, Linda Barman, Lise Degn and Lars Geschwind (eds) Digital Transformations in Nordic Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 27-51.
Pinheiro, R., Tømte, C.E., Laterza, V. and Asante, M.O. (2023) 'Digital transformations in higher education before and following COVID-19: a Scandinavian tale'. In: Liudvika Leišytė, Jay R. Dee and Barend J.R. van der Meulen (eds) Research Handbook on the Transformation of Higher Education. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 366-381.
Laterza, V. (2021) 'Human-technology relations in an age of surveillance capitalism: Towards an anthropological theory of the dialectic between analogue and digital humanity'. EtnoAntropologia, 9(2): 59-74.
Laterza, V. (2021) '(Re)creating "society in silico": surveillance capitalism, simulations and subjectivity in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal'. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 14(2): 954-974.
Laterza, V. (2021) 'Could Cambridge Analytica have delivered Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory? An anthropologist’s look at big data and political campaigning'. Public Anthropologist, 3(1): 119-147.
Laterza, V., Tømte, C.E. and Pinheiro, R.M. (2020) 'Digital transformations with “Nordic characteristics”? Latest trends in the digitalisation of teaching and learning in Nordic higher education'. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 15(4): 225-233.
Tømte, C.E., Laterza, V., Pinheiro, R.M. and Avramovic, A. (2020) 'Is there a Scandinavian model for MOOCs? Understanding the MOOC phenomenon in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden'. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 15(4): 234-245.
Laterza, V. (2018) ‘Cambridge Analytica, independent research and the national interest’. Anthropology Today, 34(3): 1-2.
Laterza, V. and Sharp, J. (2017) 'Extraction and beyond: People’s economic responses to restructuring in southern and central Africa'. Review of African Political Economy, 44(152): 173-188.
Larmer, M. and Laterza, V. (2017) 'Contested wealth: Social and political mobilisation in extractive communities in Africa'. The Extractive Industries and Society, 4(4): 701-706.
Laterza, V. (2017) 'African social sciences and the study of the economy: Building an independent pan-African infrastructure'. CODESRIA Bulletin, 2017(1&2): 27-28.
Laterza, V. (2017) 'Resilient labour: Workplace regimes, globalisation and enclave development in Swaziland'. In: Kate Meagher, Laura Mann and Maxim Bolt (eds) Globalisation, Economic Inclusion and African Workers: making the right connections. London: Routledge.
Laterza, V. (2016) 'Resilient labour: Workplace regimes, globalisation and enclave development in Swaziland'. Journal of Development Studies, 52(4): 576-590.
Laterza, V., Evans, D., Davies, R., Donald, C. and Rice, C. (2016) ‘What’s in a “research passport”? A collaborative autoethnography of institutional approvals in public involvement in research’. Research Involvement and Engagement, 2(24).
Laterza, V. (2015) 'Waves of unrest: Wildcat strikes and possible democratic change in Swaziland'. In: Keith Hart (ed.) Economy For and Against Democracy. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 137-158.
Laterza, V. (2015) ‘Entangled in/equalities in African societies: A response to Harri Englund's Human Rights and African Airwaves’. Suomen Antropologi, 40(1): 66-69.
Sharp, J., Hart, K. and Laterza, V. (2014) 'South Africa in world development: Prospects for a human economy'. Anthropology Today, 30(6): 13-17.
Forrester, B. and Laterza, V. (2014) Development in Swaziland: Myths and Realities. Pretoria: sahee Foundation.
Evans, D., Coad, J., Cottrell, K., Dalrymple, J., Davies, R., Donald, C., Laterza, V., Long, A., Longley, A., Moule, P., Pollard, K., Powell, J., Puddicombe, A., Rice, C. and Sayers, R. (2014) 'Public involvement in research: Assessing impact through a realist evaluation'. Health Services and Delivery Research, 2(36).
Laterza, V. (2014) ‘Tra stato, mercato e società: La crisi italiana e l’economia umana [Between state, market and society: The italian crisis and the human economy]’. Critica Liberale, 21(221): 149-152.
Laterza, V., Forrester, B. and Mususa, P. (2013) 'Bringing wood to life: Lines, flows and materials in a Swazi sawmill'. In: Tim Ingold and Gísli Pálsson (eds) Biosocial Becomings: Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.162-190.
Laterza, V. (2013) ‘Some notes towards a human economy approach’. Anthropology Southern Africa, 36(3&4): 135-138.
Sharp, J., Powers, T. and Laterza, V. (2013) ‘The human economy project: First steps’. Anthropology Southern Africa, 36(3&4): 99-101.
Procter, R., Carmichael, P. and Laterza, V. (2008) ‘Co-interpretation of usage data: A mixed-methods approach to the evaluation of online environments’. International Journal of Multiple Research Approaches, 2(1): 44-56.
Laterza. V. (2007) 'The ethnographic novel: Another literary skeleton in the anthropological closet?'. Suomen Antropologi, 32(2): 124-134.
Laterza, V., Carmichael, P., and Procter, R. (2007) 'The doubtful guest? A virtual research environment for education'. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 16(3): 249-267.
Carmichael, P., Procter, R., Laterza, V. and Rimpilainen, S. (2006) 'Sakai: A virtual research environment for education'. Research Intelligence, 96(August): 18-19.
OTHER ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS:
Golomski, C. and Laterza, V. (2023) 'Biopolitics from the Global South: a new generation takes on customary nationalism in eSwatini'. African Journal of AIDS Research, 22(4): 257-260.
Laterza, V. and Römer, L.P. (2020) 'COVID-19, the freedom to die, and the necropolitics of the market'. Somatosphere, 12 May.
Alexander, C., Wardle, H., Laterza, V., Ortiz, H., Gbadamosi, G., Chevalier, S., Rakopoulos, T., Hannerz, U., Hann, C., Hart, K. and Quayson, A. (2019) 'A conversation around Keith Hart: Swimming into the current of human society through history'. Fieldsights, 31 October.
Laterza, V. (2015) ‘From production to distribution: The politics of dependence and the emerging welfare state in Southern Africa [book review of Ferguson, J. 2015 Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution, Duke University Press]’. Anthropology Book Forum, 10 May.
Laterza, V. (2011) ‘Swaziland: Cultural expression, daily life, economy [encyclopedia entry]’. In: World and Its Peoples – Sub-Saharan Africa, Australasia, and the Pacific Vol. 7 Southern Africa. Tarrytown, New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.
Laterza, V. (2011) ‘South Africa: Economy [encyclopedia entry]’. In: World and Its Peoples – Sub-Saharan Africa, Australasia, and the Pacific Vol. 7 Southern Africa. Tarrytown, New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation..
COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS:
The Rulers of Eswatini Are Donald Trump’s Eager Accomplices (Jacobin, 05/09/2025)
Trump has won the culture war (Al Jazeera English, 04/12/2024) [with Louis Philippe Römer]
Von der Leyen’s re-election consolidates Europe’s shift to the right (Al Jazeera English, 20/07/2024)
Berlusconi was the prequel to Trumpism (Al Jazeera English, 15/06/2023)
Don't be fooled – 'mellow' Meloni could still Orban-ise Italy (Al Jazeera English, 30/09/2022)
Draghi's fall is a win for Putin – and for the Italian far right (Al Jazeera English, 23/07/2022)
Can eSwatini's monarchy recover from the ongoing crisis? (Al Jazeera English, 07/08/2021)
Is this the end of the road for the King [of eSwatini]? (The Nation eSwatini, August 2021)
Technocracy is back in Italy – but with a different agenda (Al Jazeera English, 19/02/2021)
With the support of the left, Biden can deliver progressive gains (Al Jazeera English, 21/11/2020; republished in Daily Maverick) [with Louis Philippe Römer]
The rushed easing of lockdown measures could devastate Italy (Al Jazeera English, 29/05/2020)
Coronavirus, herd immunity and the eugenics of the market (Al Jazeera English, 14/04/2020; republished in Daily Maverick) [with Louis Philippe Römer]
Can Italy's Salvini be defeated? (Al Jazeera English, 04/09/2019; republished in Daily Maverick)
Is China really to blame for Zambia's debt problems? (Al Jazeera English, 11/10/2018) [with Patience Mususa]
Italy: the new anti-migrant national consensus (Africa Is A Country, 13/07/2018; republished in Daily Maverick)
Italy's dystopian social contract is born (Daily Maverick, 24/05/2018)
The populism and dystopia of Italy's new government (Al Jazeera English, 22/05/2018)
Cambridge Analytica, African elections and Western double standards (Inside Education, 28/03/2018)
Neoliberalism, big capital and the Zambian crisis (Al Jazeera English, 16/06/2017)
We are all Helen Zille. Or, why the West thinks that colonialism was not all bad (Africa Is A Country, 16/03/2017)
The Italian referendum and the crisis of the left (Wildcat Dispatches, 08/12/2016)
The myth of Donald Trump's white working-class support (Africa Is A Country, 17/11/2016) [with Louis Philippe Römer]
How did the main parties do in the 2016 South African municipal elections? ANC, DA and EFF in numbers (Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, 23/08/2016) [with Stephan van Wyk]
Zambia: democratic victory or vote snatching? (Al Jazeera English, 17/08/2016)
Bernie Sanders' new task is to convince his supporters to back Hillary Clinton (The Independent, 20/06/2016)
Can the Sanders campaign build a progressive alternative to the US establishment? (Truthout, 20/06/2016)
The future of the Sanders campaign: grassroots democracy beyond social media and mass rallies (Daily Maverick, 01/06/2016)
Democracy after Sanders: building a progressive alternative, beyond social media and mass rallies (openDemocracy, 26/05/2016)
What future for South African Democracy? (Boston Review, 05/01/2016) [with Ayanda Manqoyi]
Finland: basic income experiment – what we know (Basic Income News, 09/12/2015)
Government oversight of university transformation should not be taboo (Daily Maverick, 19/11/2015)
Looking for leaders: student protests and the future of South African democracy (Daily Maverick, 06/11/2015) [with Ayanda Manqoyi]
The student uprisings in South Africa (Africa Is A Country, 21/10/2015)
Detroit activist Grace Lee Boggs dies at 100, she endorsed city-level universal basic income (Basic Income News, 18/10/2015)
Greek elections: winners and losers in numbers (Analyze Greece!, 23/09/2015)
Greece: government to roll out a Guaranteed Minimum Income scheme (Basic Income News, 22/08/2015)
What will happen if Greeks vote 'oxi' in Sunday's referendum? (Ricochet, 03/07/2015; republished by Analyze Greece!, 05/07/2015)
Zambia's uncertain future: political rifts and economic challenges in Lusaka (Foreign Affairs, 04/03/2015) [with Patience Mususa]
Swaziland: liberal democracy and its discontents (Al Jazeera English, 12/10/2013)
Italy's new government and the perpetuation of minority rule (Al Jazeera English, 03/05/2013)
The Iron Lady is gone, but Thatcherism is alive and well (GlobalPost, 21/04/2013)
Berlusconi's new prominence casts shadows over Italy's future (GlobalPost, 02/04/2013)
Technocracy's new bet: Mario Monti runs for premiership (Al Jazeera English, 04/01/2013)
Innocence of Muslims: how fiction creates reality (Al Jazeera English, 19/09/2012)
Lost opportunity for Zambian democracy (Mail & Guardian, 05/11/2008)