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Hire Giorgio S.

Italy

USD 30 /hr

Anthropologist of Death & Religion | Expert in Funeral Practices, Ritual and Religious Minorities

Profile Summary

I am an anthropologist of religion specializing in death studies, funeral practices, and religious minorities. I hold a PhD in Anthropology of Religion from Durham University (UK), where my research explored shamanic rituals and funerals among the Wana people of Indonesia. My work focuses on the cultural, social, and legal dimensions of death, mourning, and ritual practices. I have conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Southeast Asia and Italy, examining how communities navigate grief, religious identity, and institutional frameworks surrounding death and burial. I have worked as a researcher in several international projects, including The Healing and Emotional Power of Music and Dance (NOVA University Lisbon), Freedom of Religious Expression in Death (Sapienza University of Rome), and Rural Commons of Italy (University of Palermo). These projects combine anthropology, religion, law, and cultural studies to investigate the relationship between communities, ritual practices, and social institutions. Alongside research, I teach and lecture on the anthropology of death, religion, and research methods at several universities, including the University of Padua and the University of Palermo. I also actively organize international conferences and academic events in the field of death studies. Beyond academia, I am committed to public engagement and interdisciplinary dialogue. I am the President of the Italian Network on Death and Oblivion (NIMO) and editor of the series Death in a Chocolate Box. Through these roles I promote research dissemination, cultural dialogue, and collaboration between scholars, professionals, and communities. My expertise includes qualitative research methods, ethnographic fieldwork, academic writing and editing, interdisciplinary research design, and public engagement on topics related to death, religion, and culture.

Subject Matter Expertise

• ☆ Medical Anthropology
• ☆ History of Religions
• ☆ Music
• ☆ Musicology

Services

• Writing
• Research

Writing Copywriting, Audio Transcription, General Proofreading & Editing, Translation

Research Feasibility Study, Fact Checking, Gray Literature Search, Scientific and Technical Research, Systematic Literature Review, Secondary Data Collection

Work Experience

Research Fellow

University of Palermo

October 2024 - February 2026

Research fellow

Sapienza University of Rome

February 2023 - January 2024

Research Fellow

Universidade Nova de Lisboa

October 2019 - November 2021

Education

PhD (Theology and Religion)

Durham University

October 2014 - August 2019

Ethnomusicology (Music Department)

Sapienza – Università di Roma

October 2009 - January 2013

Certifications

• Certification details not provided.

Publications

BOOK CHAPTER

Scalici, G. (2025). Shaman King: Shamanism, ecology and death according to Hiroyuki Takei. In R. J. De La Noval & D. Armstrong (Eds.), Anime, Religion, and Theology (pp. []-[]). Lexington Books / Fortress Academic .

Scalici, G. (2023). Morto, semi morto e non morto: Culture funerarie a confronto (pp. 617-640). In A. Zielo (Ed.), Toccando l’oltre. Lo sguardo e la cura al limite del corpo (pp. 617-640). Padova: Padova University Press .

• Scalici, G. (2022). “Who Framed Tetebua?” In Patterns of Change in the Traditional Music of Southeast Asia, ed. G. Giuriati. Udine: Nota, pp. 160–185 .

BOOK

Scalici, G. (2024). Pain, Play and Music: Death and Healing Rites among the Wana. Bloomsbury .

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Stizzi A, Negrola E, Iacona E, Naglieri M, Scalici G, Testoni I. Reconstructing Social Relationships in a Post-Lockdown Suburban Area of Southern Italy Using Pastoral Counselling. Pastoral Psychol. 2022;71(2):245-256. doi: 10.1007/s11089-022-00999-0. Epub 2022 Mar 4. PMID: 35261397; PMCID: PMC8895359 .

Scalici, G. (2022). The musical instruments of Wana tradition (Indonesia). Etnografie Sonore | Sound Ethnographies, 5(1), 83–104 .

Testoni, I., Dorsa, M., Iacona, E., & Scalici, G. (2020). Necronym: the effects of bearing a dead little sibling’s name. Mortality, 26(3), 343–360. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2020.1807923 .

SCALICI, Giorgio. Marginalized centre: Wana people and the geography of power. Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religion (JBASR), [S.l.], v. 21, p. 114-134, may 2020. ISSN 2516-6379 .

Scalici, G. (2019). Music and the invisible world: Music as a bridge between different realms. Approaches: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Music Therapy, 11(1), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.56883/aijmt.2019.237 .

Scalici, G. (2018). Eating together to grieve together: The funeral meal of Wana people of Morowali. Feast .

• Scalici, G. (2013). “The Ritual Music of Wana People, Central Sulawesi.” International Conference for Asia Pacific Arts Studies (ICAPAS), 1(1): 19–30.