Paolo Grassi is currently post-doc fellow at the Polytechnic University of Milan and lecturer in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Padua and at the Academy of Fine Arts of Verona. Paolo is a social anthropologist (PhD, University of Verona, and Masters, University of Milano Bicocca), with a specialisation in development (he has a second Masters in Development Project Management from the University of Milan). He also worked as a youth worker, a teacher, and a project manager assistant. Over the past ten years, he developed interests in issues relating to urban segregation, violence and insecurity, as well as the dynamics of slums and gated communities. He carried out ethnographic research in the Dominican Republic, in Guatemala and in Italy. He has been visiting student at the University of Manchester and visiting fellow at the Laboratoire Architecture Anthropologie (École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris La Villette), and at the University of Utrecht. He published books and articles in Italian, French, English and Spanish.