Francesca Recchia is an independent researcher, educator and writer.

She is interested in the geopolitical dimension of heritage and cultural processes in countries in conflict and she focuses on creative practices in contexts of unequal structures of power. Her work is rooted in decoloniality and radical pedagogy.

Over the last two decades, Francesca has worked in different capacities in Palestine, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan. She was for many years the Acting Director of the Afghan Institute for Arts and Architecture and now is the Head of Advocacy and Communications at the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee.

Francesca was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College of London, has a PhD in Cultural Studies at the Oriental Institute in Naples and a Master in Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She was a Research Associate at the Centre of South Asian Studies. SOAS, London and is now an Academic Fellow at Università Bocconi in Milan and a Visiting Professor at Turin University.

In 2025 she co-curated with her 5-year-old niece, Emma Snædis Recchia, Il Paese di Dopodomani at AR/GE Kunst in Bolzano as well as Fa che sia un racconto, an exhibition reflecting on media and institutional complicity in the genocide in Gaza, with Diego Segatto and Lorenzo Tugnoli.

She is the author of How long can the moon be caged? Voices of Indian political prisoners (with Suchitra Vijayan), The Little Book of Kabul (with Lorenzo Tugnoli), Picnic in a Minefield and Devices for Political Action (with a photo-essay by Leo Novel).

Francesca currently lives between Milan and Kabul.