Pietro Saitta is full professor of sociology at the University of Messina (Italy). He has obtained his Ph.d from Urbino University. He has been fellow researcher and adjunct professor respectively at Cuny-The Graduate Center and at Columbia University (New York). He has worked with World Health Organization- European Office, and several Italian institutions. He is now member of the Department of Economics, Mathematics, Statistics and Sociology “W. Pareto” of the University of Messina, and of the Interuniversity Center for the Research on Sociology of Law, Institutions and Legal Institutions (CIRSDIG) at the Universities of Messina and Macerata.
Since year 2000, dr. Saitta has studied immigration (with a particular focus on Maghreb and Roma communities in Italy), labor markets, prostitution, urban development and environment, family and social politics.
He is mostly interested in qualitative methods, ethnography, and constructivist paradigms. In particular, his endeavor is the one of developing a critical reflection on the state and the control agencies, in the matter of immigration, labor, and social policies. He is mainly concerned with the strategies of the actors, and his works focus mostly on the interplays taking place in the context of everyday life. Notwithstanding that, in general his method consists in putting in relation micro- and macro-levels of analysis, trying to observe the similarities connecting specific cases to broader theories and findings in the matter of social action, and developing medium-range reflections.
Among other things, he is author of "Economie del Sospetto" (Rubbettino, 2007), "Sex Industry" (Think Thanks, 2009), "Spazi e società a rischio" (Think Thanks 2009), "Quota zero" (Rubbettino, 2013), "Resistenze" (Ombre Corte, 2015), "Prendere le case" (Ombre Corte, 2018), "The Endless Reconstruction" (Palgrave, 2019), "Populismo Urbano" (Meltemi, 2022), "Violenta Speranza" (Ombre Corte, 2023).