Patrícia Alves de Matos is a Senior Researcher at CRIA – Centre for Research in Anthropology, ISCTE–IUL (Lisbon), where she coordinates the research group Livelihoods, Politics and Inequalities. An economic anthropologist trained in Lisbon and London, she holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from Goldsmiths, University of London, awarded without corrections. Her research investigates neoliberalism, precarity, labour, welfare, and social reproduction in Southern Europe, with a particular focus on the moral economies and politics of distribution that shape daily life. She is the Principal Investigator of the FCT-funded project 'Everyday Worlds of Welfare: A Comparative Study of Human Needs, Livelihood Sustainability and Social Policy in Southern Europe.' She co-edits the journal Anthropological Theory and is a member of GER – Reciprocity Studies Group at the University of Barcelona. She is also co-editing the forthcoming volume 'Distributed Agency: Rethinking a Radical Concept for Challenging Times' (under review), which reconceptualizes agency through feminist, political-economic, and ethnographic perspectives. Her monograph, 'Disciplined Agency: Neoliberal Precarity, Generational Dispossession and Call Centre Labour in Portugal' (Manchester University Press, 2020), offers a pioneering ethnographic analysis of youth, work, and dispossession in post-crisis Portugal. With over ten years of international research and teaching experience across Portugal, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland, she has participated in numerous collaborative projects, including ERC-funded research on grassroots economies, post-COVID labour, and food provisioning systems. Her work combines rigorous scholarship with public engagement on issues of inequality, care, and human dignity.

Current and past projects:

2025-2029: The global hospital: Reproducing healthcare through entanglements of labour, mobility and knowledge in Switzerland and Austria, Grant number 10003770 , Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, National Swiss Foundation. Role: Member of the Scientific Advisory Board. Public Funding: 1'057'899 CHF.

2024-2025: L’écologisation du monde par le bas: penser les écologies populaires du sud au nord de l’Europe [EPOPE]. CERAPS — Université de Lille (France), Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia – CRIA, ISCTE-IUL (Portugal). Role: Team Member. Public Funding: CNRS, International Emerging Actions.

2023-2029: Everyday Worlds of Welfare: a comparative study of human needs, livelihood sustainability and social policy in Southern Europe, Individual Research Assistant Grant, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (https://sciproj.ptcris.pt/8368EEC). Role: Principal Investigator. Public funding: 364.526,67 EUR.

2021 – 2025: Tacking informal employment in Asia: building post-COV19 solutions to precariousness through case-study based evidence on Bhutan, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. European Research Council. Role: Coordinator Partner Team CRIA, Centre for Research in Anthropology, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101007766. Public funding: 1 545 600,00 EUR.

2021-2023: Valuable food, essential workers, vulnerable people, and social responses to crisis: Food provisioning systems during the COVID-19 pandemic (FOOD-Pan). University of Barcelona, Spain. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, España (Proyectos de I+D+i Convocatoria 2020). Role: Team Member. Public funding: 79,497 EUR.

2023: Everyday Worlds of Welfare in Southern Europe: A study on welfare calculus, human needs, and livelihood sustainability [EVA]. European Research Council Consolidator Grant. Role: Principal Investigator. Successfully passed to the second interview stage, not funded.

2019-2021: Governação, transformações políticas e negociação de quotidianos: Portugal 2008-2018 [Governance, Political Transformations, and Livelihood Negotiation: Portugal 2008–2018 ](LiVEPOLITICS), CRIA (Centre for Research in Anthropology– ISCTE-IUL, University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal, Foundation for Science and Technology. https://sciproj.ptcris.pt/153912PRJ/  Role: Post-Doctoral Researcher. Public Funding: 238.830,08 EUR.

2014-2018: Grassroots economics: Meaning, project and practice in the pursuit of livelihood [GRECO] IDEAS ERC FP7, ERC Advanced Grant, Project Number: 323743. Universitat de Barcelona. European Research Council. https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/323743 . Role: Post-Doctoral Researcher. Public funding: 2, 408, 302 EUR.

2011-2014: Neo-Liberalismo, Reconfiguração do Estado-Providência e Desemprego em Portugal [Neoliberalism, welfare state reestructuring and unemployment in Portugal], CRIA, Centre for Research in Anthropology, Foundation for Science and Technology. Role: Post-Doctoral Researcher. https://sciproj.ptcris.pt/31713DFA/ .