Odetta Pizzingrilli is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge at the University of Pisa and currently a visiting scholar at the Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait. Her current project, “The People of the Wall: Reconstructing One’s Order through Narration,” explores identity-making practices in the Gulf, with a specific focus on statelessness, exclusion, and inclusion in Kuwait. She holds a PhD in History from Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, where she previously held a three-year research fellowship.

Her research focuses on identity politics and minoritization processes in the Arab region, particularly in Jordan, Kuwait, and the Levant. She has conducted extensive fieldwork and held research positions at the Center for Strategic Studies (University of Jordan) and the Renaissance Strategic Center of ARDD in Amman.

She is the author of Identity Building in Jordan and Kuwait: The Strategy of Inclusion and Exclusion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and has contributed to edited volumes and journals on themes of migration, memory, and minority rights. Recent publications include:

• “A Thousand and One Jordans: The Story of Rafedìn,” in Be Like Adam’s Son: Theorising, Writing and Practising Peace in the Arab Region, Equinox Publishing, 2024.
• “Transnational Identity and Circassians in Contemporary Jordan,” in Minorities and State-Building in the Middle East: The Case of Jordan, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Her current work examines the relationship between urban structure and identity in Amman. A forthcoming chapter titled Amman, “City of Waters” will appear in a collective volume published by Quodlibet in 2026.

📧 odettapizzingrilli@gmail.com