In the last six months, I have published three articles on distinct topics, each reflecting my ongoing engagement with narratives and their transformative impact on individuals and behavior. These articles include Food Stories, which investigates how food narratives become powerful vehicles for nationalist and racist ideologies, often driven by the desire to protect cultural heritage amid globalization. Through interviews with individuals in the Italian food sector, this research highlights the paradox of promoting national identity while simultaneously adapting to global influences—a contradiction that reveals the complexity of cultural nationalism. Identity Studies examines how the structural composition of crime narratives shapes criminal behavior, focusing on recidivism and desistance. By analyzing crafting styles like bead-threading and weaving, the study reveals how narrative choices influence the persistence of criminal identity or the transition to non-criminal roles. Narrative Criminology delves into the interplay between victimhood and criminality, showing how experiences of victimization contribute to the development of resilience, leadership, and strategic adaptation—traits essential for constructing successful criminal personas capable of navigating complex social dynamics.
Although these studies share common threads—the exploration of narratives as engines of identity and action—I often face the challenge of wondering if, amid the diversity of topics, I am genuinely contributing to knowledge or merely restating familiar concepts.
The pressure to produce, meet academic benchmarks, and enhance metrics can overshadow the most important question: Am I creating original, meaningful content? I strive to do so, but uncertainty lingers. This uncertainty pushes me to consider the broader implications of originality—not just in scholarly work, but within the context of social class and economic conditions.
Think of the slums and marginalized communities where creativity thrives because survival demands it. In these environments, individuals constantly devise ingenious, unconventional solutions: a railway track becomes a bustling market, a police checkpoint doubles as a snack stand. Their creativity is adaptive, spontaneous, and driven by necessity—a stark contrast to the rigid, predefined routines of the "white" economy, where innovation is often stifled by standardization. This resourcefulness, unmatched by structured systems, forces us to ask: who truly owns creativity?
When absorbed into the formal economy, many of these highly creative individuals are relegated to repetitive tasks that suppress their ingenuity. The routines of the "white" economy amplify small, incremental innovations, but at the cost of reducing human inventiveness to mechanized processes. If 1% of the world’s population holds 40% of its wealth, who holds 40% of its creative, moral, or emotional richness? These questions are intertwined, and answering them is essential to understanding how societal structures shape and limit potential.
Academia and its relentless production cycles risk turning originality into a hollow routine. Yet, the slums’ model of constant creative adaptation offers a compelling reminder: academic work should not settle for merely reiterating known ideas or playing within safe, predefined boundaries. It should aspire to address real, evolving challenges. True originality does not arise from the comfort of routines, but from the willingness to step into the unknown and embrace the transformative potential of uncertainty.

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