After years of experience performing research on different themes, all linked to migratory dynamics and processes of integration, social sustainability, food insecurity, new forms of poverty and social exclusion, and with solid experience collaborating with numerous public institutions and other Italian and foreign Universities, in 2017 a group of researchers from the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences of the University of Siena founded the Laboratory on Inequalities (LSD).
The Laboratory on Inequalities (LSD) is an organisation that is able to provide local and national institutions, associations representing economic and union interests, actors from the third sector and volunteer organisations with analysis and fact-finding elements on the main processes that characterise contemporary society, with particular attention to social inequalities.
The researchers of the Laboratory on Inequalities use both quantitative and qualitative methods; in addition to basic and more traditional academic research, the LSD also performs action research aimed at social interventions and project development.
The activities of the LSD mainly focus on:
- processes of social and cultural deprivation
- food poverty
- migratory processes and the dynamics of integration
- models and practices for receiving asylum seekers and refugees
- the welfare crisis and social politics
- new needs and social services
- inequalities, the third sector and volunteering
- territorial inequalities, fragile areas and rural welfare
The LSD is coordinated by Fabio Berti, in collaboration with Lorenzo Nasi, Andrea Bilotti and Andrea Valzania.