Alessandro De Cola

• Univertsity Assistant (Postdoc), Universität Wien
• Research fellow, University of the Free State

Alessandro De Cola is a University Assistant (Postdoc) at the Department of Economic and Social History, University of Vienna. He earned a PhD in Global Histories, Cultures, and Politics from the University of Bologna in 2021, and holds a BA and an MA in Cultural Anthropology. From 2024 to 2025 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Bologna, within the Italian Research Project of National Relevance (PRIN) 2022“Arms, Beads and Cloth. African Consumers and the 19th-century Global Economy”. He is also a Research Affiliate at the International Studies Group, University of the Free State, South Africa, where he served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow from 2021 to 2024. His work focuses on the social, economic, and monetary history of East Africa and the Indian Ocean in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is currently writing a monograph on the monetary history of Eritrea and the Red Sea during the Italian colonial period. His most recent publications examine the role of African actors in the design of colonial monetary policies, the use of money in the recruitment of African soldiers in the Italian army, and the impact of colonial monetary regulations in Eritrea during the First World War.

• 2025–present University Assistant (Postdoc), University of Vienna
• 2024–present Associate research scientist, University of the Free State

• 2021 University of Bologna, PhD / Global Histories, Cultures and Politics

MENAFN11122025000199003603ID1110464673