The Grecanici of Southern Italy: Governance, Violence, and Minority Politics 0812248309, 9780812248302

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The Grecanici of Southern Italy

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The Grecanici of Southern Italy Governance, Violence, and Minority Politics

Stavroula Pipyrou

u n i v e r s i t y o f p e n n s y lva n i a p r e s s phil a delphi a

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Copyright © 2016 university of pennsylvania press all rights reserved. except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. published by university of pennsylvania press philadelphia, pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress printed in the united states of america on acid-free paper 10 9

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library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication data isBn 978-0-8122-4830-2

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This book is dedicated to my mother Eleni and stepfather Giorgo

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Contents

a note on superscripts for foreign Words and phrases Chapter 1. the Governance of endangered people Chapter 2. Meet the Grecanici

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Chapter 3. the vicissitudes of Civil society

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Chapter 4. hegemonic networks, Kinship Governance Chapter 5. Messy realities of relatedness

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Chapter 6. ancestors, saints, and Governance Chapter 7. an invitation to dance

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Bibliography

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index 229 acknowledgments

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Chapter 8. Minority on the fringes of europe notes

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A Note on Superscripts f o r Fo r e i g n Wo r d s a n d P h r a s e s

all foreign terms are written in and translated from standard Modern italian, apart from where superscripts are applied as follows: Cd = Calabrian dialect Go = Grecanico MG = standard Modern Greek for clarity i have not maintained the gendered and numbered forms of italian and Greek nouns and adjectives.

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Chapter 1

The Governance of Endangered People

As I walk with my friend Gianni in his natal village high in the mountains of area Grecanica, he suddenly starts speaking in Grecanico. He warns me that if we want to avoid being seen by other villagers who will definitely want to invite us into their homes, an offer we could not refuse, we should head down this dark alley. We are walking side by side with our heads down—thank God he is unable to see the astonishment written across my face. I keep walking and manage to respond in a calm voice that this indeed is a great idea. I have known this man of twenty-six from the very first days of my research in Reggio Calabria, on the toe of Italy. He and his family are some of the most welcoming people I have ever met. They opened their home and hearts to me and treated me with respect and honor that very few people are lucky to receive. On commencing my ethnographic journey with the Grecanici, the Greek linguistic minority of Reggio Calabria, I tactfully asked Gianni and his brothers whether they spoke Grecanico, a minority language officially recognized by the Italian state. A mumbled “ligo”GO (“a little”) revealed his discomfort in further elaborating on issues of language and politics. Gradually, as I became convinced he did not speak Grecanico, I withdrew from posing such questions. Gianni had resisted my ethnographic inquiries for nearly ten months, but our relationship grew strong and transcended the realms of researcher/ researched. He and his family provided invaluable ethnographic material along with friendship, but Gianni had always abstained from speaking in Grecanico despite the fact he knew it was the focus of my research. That overcast winter day in his village, hurrying along and shivering under our thick overcoats, our relationship took a sudden turn. He started speaking to me in

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Grecanico, and continued doing so intermittently whenever we subsequently met back in the city. When I first arrived in Reggio Calabria in April 2006, a considerable number of local civic actors, professors, politicians, and everyday people, each in their own way, tried to persuade me that working with the Grecanici was a utopian project. It was insisted that “these people no longer use the Grecanico language,” that “the language is dead” and that “the younger generations have no interest in it other than instrumentally seeking a job in the Provincia (provincial government)” through national and EU-sponsored courses. Conflating language with people, actors with multiple agendas and interests made it their personal goal to influence the ethnographer to denounce the existence of the language and declare to an Anglophone audience the fictional character of the minority. Echoing right-wing views akin to those of the Lega Nord and Alleanza Nationale,1 these political positions were overwhelmingly influenced by the fear of a break-up of the Italian state provoked by the relatively recent recognition of minorities—ethnic and linguistic2 (Prato 2009). Both the Silvio Berlusconi government and the more recent transitional government of Mario Monti demonstrated incredible indifference to minority policies, cumulating in the 2013 budget cuts that left the apparatuses of minority self-government bankrupt, with employees going months without pay. The present study is a powerful reminder that official recognition of a minority—linguistic or ethnic—does not, in practice, necessarily secure the lawful benefits promised to the people. I often felt pulled in different directions as local actors requested I take sides for or against minority politics. Every time I was invited to dinner I was instructed in what I should and should not record in my research. Very often I was asked as to the “progress of my work” and whether “I have found any Grecanici speaking the Grecanico language.” It was automatically assumed by all interested parties involved in the management of Grecanici affairs that research conducted by a scholar from a British university would have international impact, transcending the borders of Italy. They regularly spoke of the capacity of the English language to reach out and communicate local issues to wider audiences. Thus in their fervent efforts to convince me of their stance, actors uncovered complex and entangled pleats of local politics and histories, of which some feature in this book and some not. Apart from their heuristic and methodological value, these other stories, the untold stories, always distorted by the actors for reasons of selfpreservation, are destined to occupy the mind of the ethnographer, reminding her that fieldwork is not always about taking or giving but also about not telling.

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Gianni’s refusal to admit openly to an outsider that he spoke a language that until recently was deemed inferior, troublesome, and the language of a second-class citizen, epitomizes the fear felt among younger Grecanici that they are not proficient in their own language. Especially during visits from Greek tourists, Grecanici between twenty and thirty feel uncomfortable demonstrating their ability to speak Grecanico in front of an expectant audience, for, despite the fact that Modern Greek and Grecanico have similar linguistic roots, they have developed into two different languages where communication is attainable but not always straightforward (discussed at length in Chapter 2). This uneasiness is partly the outcome of official “schooling’ in Grecanico, whereby the language is no longer a matter of familial pedagogy but passed into the hands of instructors (Grecanici and nonGrecanici), who are competent in Grecanico language, history, and folklore. Consequently, over the last three decades competence in the Grecanico language has been “officialized” with certificates provided by the Grecanico civic associations recognizing linguistic proficiency that secure “rights” and “privileges” to knowledge and future management of minority affairs. Young Grecanici like Gianni who do not possess such precious certificates feel excluded by the scheme of Grecanici minority governance that privileges book-learned Grecanico over lived experience. Gianni’s refusal to reveal his ability to speak Grecanico should first be interpreted as his discontent with what I represent—a foreign academic whose own competence in Grecanico culture and politics would be certified by the acquisition of a Ph.D. Second, as will become apparent throughout this book, Gianni’s case is characteristic of the hardship entailed in forming relatedness, something that takes a great deal of effort, desire, time, and ordeal and resists any notion of pre-assumed closeness. What Gianni shared with me was his capacity to speak a language learned through family lived experience and his conviction that his knowledge should not have to be certified by an official piece of paper. After the incident in the village, when we met in public in Reggio Calabria we usually conversed in Italian, only to switch to Grecanico when approached by someone with the inability to judge Gianni’s capacity in the language. The language switch operated as a clear demarcation of space (a private conversation), shared origin (I am Greek, he is Grecanico), and relatedness (we are true friends). Gianni works in a coffee shop in central Reggio Calabria and serves what he calls “la borghesia” (the bourgeoisie). He often complained that a “lot of these rich women know that I am of Grecanico origin. When I serve their

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coffee they often look at my hands to spot whether they are clean or dirty. Every time they evaluate me in that manner I feel angry and depressed. But then I grind my teeth and mumble “piateteto ston colo”GO (take it in the ass) and I suddenly feel much better. This is my angry declaration that I exist as a Grecanico, I spit in the face of this hegemonic culture that for decades continues to pretend I do not exist.”

Fearless Governance For decades locally portrayed as dirty peasants of second-class status, Grecanici have developed the means to invert hegemonic culture, promote selfgovernance, and participate in the power games of minority politics on local and national scales. This book tells the stories of Grecanici who have successfully crafted a place in contemporary politics through minority claims, narrating how minority relations have been turned into contexts of power, authority, and governance. An ethnographic account of the analytics of power, the book demonstrates how nexuses of relatedness have furnished Grecanici with effective and affective governance since their migration from area Grecanica to the city of Reggio Calabria during the 1950s, when they commenced systematic management of Grecanico as a linguistic and cultural asset. The study of relations sheds light on layers of politics among Grecanici themselves and between Grecanici and various actors who occupy the local and national scene. This has theoretical implications for contemporary anthropology regarding scales of governance that are realized at intersections of local and global encounters. The manner that Grecanici find political representation through a number of avenues, including the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), state policy, local civic associations, family networks, and illegal organizations points to governance facilitated by a matrix of scaled relations as actors make use of available channels of power and authority. Often this multiplicity involves violence, corruption, and mismanagement, all constituting inextricable parts of the social fabric. I argue that relations that “have turned a multiplicity of persons into a social arena of authority” (Strathern 2005:62) are to be understood in tandem with conventional modes of governance encapsulated in state policies and public institutions (Foucault 2000). As a result, the concept of

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governance I propose concerns Grecanici claims to difference born out of the creative synergies of everyday affective relations and national and transnational bodies that shape curricula of political action, providing tools to subvert national hegemony. Thus I avoid making any assumptions about a top-down permeation of governmental power in creating forms of subjectivity or resistance. Instead we encounter rebounding, overlapping, and sometimes contradictory realizations of governance that have taken shape in uncoordinated ways in public and private spheres. Of a Foucauldian tenor, governance has a practical and experiential dimension, as it is directly associated with the management of Grecanico language and culture and the experiential capital invested therein. Throughout the book we encounter Grecanici who talk about other Grecanici, their civil society, their conflicts and desires, and the manner the interests of the minority are governed on local, national, and international levels. Since the end of the 1960s Grecanici have gone to great lengths to promote Grecanico language and culture as a worthy constitutive of Italian heritage. With local and international associations, Grecanici civil society, UNESCO, and the EU all interested in the management of cultural assets, there is a certain anthropological challenge in explicating how large-scale processes of governance converge with local particularity (Wright 2011).3 Although the terms “governance” and “government” are regularly used interchangeably, “governance” captures a broader concept of resource management and decision making by a plurality of actors spanning different scales of politics, as opposed to the exclusiveness of “government” (Shore and Wright 1997; Minicuci and Pavanello 2010; Orlandini 2010). A significant break between governance and government is that the former allows for multidimensional circulation of power between diverse, not necessarily institutionalized actors. The state constitutes only one fragment of power in the contemporary political scene, together with the Church, civic associations, the family and mafia, themselves assemblages of powerful, often abstract and non-identifiable relations (see Herzfeld 1996; Das and Poole 2004; Pizza and Johannessen 2009; Muehlebach 2012). Converging with the idea of “enlargement” (Pizza and Johannessen 2009: 18), governance allows for a more dispersed understanding of processes of decision making, taking equal consideration of local and global actors operating on different scales, with different degrees of success as well as bodily attributes of governance actualized through powerful performance. Examining the heuristic validity of governance in macropolitical

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processes such as the EU, Cris Shore suggests that apart from a tool for observation and ideological recast, “European governance” could be viewed as a form of Foucauldian “governmentality,” “a more complex regime of “truths” about the people and things to be governed” (Shore 2009:3). As I argue here, it is not only global actors such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that direct decision making and policy management; local actors and civil society also have an input in this process. This plurality brings attention to interesting intersections of power, which in the management of Grecanico language and culture are rooted in complex relations that intertwine with international and regional governmental institutions, civic associations, and powerful local families. Foucauldian governmentality in relation to norms, regulations, and institutions that reinforce or resist state power is founded on governing “the conduct of others’ conduct” (Gordon 2000:xxix) and is a starting point from which to problematize the multiplicity of relationships that constitute minority governance. But I wish to push the argument farther. While governmentality is the overarching scheme that produces governable subjects, governance captures the creative constellations and interactions between individual actors and institutions, including markets, networks, and the family, on a multitude of scales. Although Foucauldian in its inspiration, the concept of fearless governance takes the governmentality paradigm in new directions. Foucault’s “governmentality” is concerned with how techniques and rationalities of rule render people governable and orient their conduct; he did not have room for unruly populations seeking selfgovernance at every turn and at any expense. The Grecanici uptake and appropriate the available political and bureaucratic channels of governance, working with these categories rather than being subject to them. In many cases, Grecanici are not “governed” in a Foucauldian sense, but rather creatively and subversively operate within the political and legal parameters. For Grecanici, specific ways of thinking, talking, and performing governance resonate with how conduct is governed in both its mundane and transnational level. Three dimensions of governance are particular pertinent here: (a) the technical aspect that relates to the fabrication of certain kinds of subjectivity and identity as well as discourses and rhetorics of value; (b) the rationale of governance and the relevant forms of knowledge that arise from and subsequently inform the act of governance; and (c) the ethics of governance as “an incitement to study the form and consequences of universals in particular historical situations and practices grounded in problems raised in the course of particular social and political struggles” (Dean 1999:42).

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The analytics of governance highlight the workings of “practices of freedom and states of domination, forms of subjection and forms of subjectification” rather than dictating any liberating strategies (Dean 1999:34, original emphasis). Clearly, then, we discuss forms of power not directly and necessarily identified with domination, or with homogenizing frameworks imposed on local particularity; governance is neither pure freedom and domination nor consent and coercion (Foucault 2000, 2001a). Human subjectification and agency are viewed not as properties of a utopian sphere that lies outside relations of power and domination but as shaped within nexuses of relations that may be hierarchical, illegitimate, irreversible and exceptionally personal. Thinking about the materialization of governance through various techniques, practices, languages, and performances may clarify “how forms of domination, relations of power and kinds of freedom and autonomy are linked, how such regimes are contested and resisted, and thus how it might be possible to do things differently” (Dean 1999:37). The concept of fearless governance that I propose resonates with managing multiscaled relations that are delineated between the state, family, Grecanico civic associations and the ’Ndrangheta (Calabrian Mafia), to name but a few protagonists. Governance is located in three main pillars of Grecanici life that are inextricably interrelated—civil society, relatedness, and performances. I argue that this governance is fearless because it is based on principles of navigation (see Ben-Yehoyada 2012) through complex channels of politics and representation, in the face of the potential danger and violence associated with hegemonic politics. Employing sharp senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, and imagining, Grecanici foresee and embrace the possible hazards of confronting conventions of governance. Heterogeneous elements of superiority, justice, self-perpetuation, violence, and morality are brought together as Grecanici fearlessly contest and skillfully maneuver the intricate, multiple, and often contradictory realizations of governance. Fearless governance does not negate violence, fear of failure, and discrimination but rather embraces them in uniquely creative ways. Examining Classical and Greco-Roman texts, in his book Fearless Speech, Foucault (2001b:15–20) describes fearlessness as the courage to say anything based on qualified knowledge. The speaker must believe that he or she is speaking the evidential truth based on his or her view of morality. The proof of fearlessness is in courage, the fact that a speaker says something dangerous and different from what the majority believe is proof of fearlessness. The fearless person must be in a position to take a risk, to potentially lose something,

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incur anger, put friendships on the line, invite scandal, lose debates, and even run the risk of death. Sure of one’s own genealogy, pedagogy, and status, the fearless speaker always appears less powerful than the one with whom he or she speaks, with arguments that come from below and are directed above. The fearless speaker has a certain relationship to danger, moral law, freedom, and duty and is critical of the political status quo, and would rather risk death than choose a life of security, flattery, and silence. Although the fearlessness discussed by Foucault can only be found in acts of speaking, the fearlessness I propose can also be actualized through bureaucratic management and bodily performances. Grecanici challenge the top-down governmental status quo through fearless acts spanning a wide range of political channels. Grounded in their knowledge of their minority culture and language—often certified through government and civic schemes—they risk personal friendships and the wrath of official law as they pursue power and political representation through scales of civil society, clientelism, and illicit activities. Thus I must draw attention to the ways macroscale governance (such as minority policies) converges with local desires to control, regulate, dominate, and govern their own affairs. Toward this pursuit, the conceptual limits of the “field site” need to be extended to facilitate a more holistic understanding of multiscaled relations, “a means by which to engage ethnography with emerging resonances of society with the contours of a nascent social” (Holmes 2000:6).

Language, Victimhood, and Governance Grecanici of today are by no means poor, yet collective recollections of social discrimination and racism—especially during the first decade of their migration to Reggio Calabria at the end of the 1950s (Pipyrou 2010)—are rife. Accounts pertaining to the miseria (socioeconomic poverty) provoked by two world wars, trans-Atlantic and European migration, and forced relocation after the devastating landslides of the 1950s are languages of representation and social justification for multifaceted political and ideological dispositions. These particular languages constitute tools of governance embedded in particular lexicons of representation historically employed by Grecanici. Pamela Ballinger (2003) has suggested that languages of representation are organized around specific cultural constructs, one of which is victimhood. The trope of victimhood is part of a wider lexicon employed by disenfranchised people

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around the world, and which in turn has shaped a commensurate global platform for claims to difference. Nevertheless, local actors do not uncritically adopt tropes of representation, but mold them according to their own desires. The kind of victimhood claimed by Grecanici has lived historical depth and is shaped by a fusion of collective and individual histories of local flavor (cf. Toren 2013). The following three vignettes delve into the complexities and contradictions of the victimhood trope as a tool of governance. 1. Writing a New Statuto During summer 2006 I was asked to translate the statuto (constitution) of a new cultural association from Italian to Modern Greek. The initiative was conceptualized in Greece as an attempt to unite “Greek-speaking” populations worldwide. This in itself would not be such an interesting matter, as there are numerous associations in Reggio Calabria representing the Grecanici minority, regularly being formed and disbanded. Nevertheless, this new association for which I had the opportunity to observe genesis came as a direct reaction to upheaval among local Grecanici civil society leaders on issues of cultural heritage and ownership (extensively discussed in Chapter 3). The issue that roused emotions and challenged authority over linguistic heritage related to a 2006 public quota for 300 people to be educated in Grecanico language, history, and culture, with the further aim to select a small number to work as civil servants at the Grecanici sportelli linguistici (linguistic helpdesks) (I Foni Dikima 2006:30). Echoing the frustration voiced by Gianni at the opening of this book, it appeared that the allocation of places was based less on “origin” and more on “education,” which did not go down well; nonGrecanico candidates were more likely to enter the course than those of Grecanico origin. The statuto I was given to translate addressed the debatable issue of exclusivist rights to linguistic heritage and governance. We read in the introduction to the document, article one: With the initiative of Mr . . . (a Greek national) the proposed association will act in Greece (Athens and Thessaloniki) and Italy (Calabria and Puglia) with the aim to understand and address the multifaceted aspects of the Greek linguistic minority in Italy and more specifically in Calabria and Puglia. These communities appear to share common cultural, historical, and financial considerations. With the collaboration of the Grecanico associations . . . and the employees of the two

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Greek government institutions of. . . . we intend to unite as many Hellenophone associations around the world as possible. The ultimate aim of this “alliance” is the financial and political benefits of the subsidizing schemes toward the minority. Moreover, the appropriation of the Grecanico culture by various associations and individuals motivated by personal interest should stop. For this reason, the proposed union could only be positive for the development and promotion of the Grecanico language all over the world. The current multidimensional Mediterranean development demands a more centralized organization, one that could address any arising matters more efficiently. Treating Hellenism as a preordained category of relatedness, what the founding members are pleading for in this constitution is a centralization of operations for the linguistic minority to yield better political and financial returns and the desire to take a local campaign global. The aim is prolific capitalization on subsidized schemes from sources such as the EU, Greek and Italian states, and UNESCO. The second point, emerging directly from the first, is that any exploitation of the Grecanico language by associations, institutions, and individuals driven by personal interests should be emphatically avoided. It is clearly suggested in the statuto that Grecanico language and culture are the victims of predatory appropriation. What we are confronted with here is an unprecedented event in the Grecanico associazionismo (associationism) toward centralization that would impose new forms of governance regarding the financial and political future of the minority. 2. I Glossama den ecchi na petheni! Ecchi na zì!GO (Our Language Will Not Die! It Will Live!) In April 2010, in a very emotive but affirmative tone, the province councilor of the Partito Rifondazione Comunista—Federazione della Sinistra, Omar Minniti, attacked the Silvio Berlusconi government for a budget cut for the linguistic minorities recognized in Italy by the 482/1999 law. The annual amount allocated to the Greek linguistic minority had been reduced to 165,000 euros from the initially approved 460,000 euros. This amount of money was intended to cover the salaries of fifteen people employed in the eleven sportelli linguistici that operate in the province of Reggio Calabria. Closing down the sportelli, Minniti argued, would constitute the final blow to

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a language that is still in use by a few thousand people. That would be the ultimate chapter of a “cultural genocide” committed against the Greeks of Calabria, who constitute an important piece of national history. He went on to plead with the deputies and senators to pressure the government into reconsidering the cuts so that the Grecanici communities and civic associations would not lose their financial resources vital to maintaining “in life the flame of the Hellenophone diversity.”4 3. UNESCO and the Grecanico Language as Immaterial Patrimony for Humanity. During 2013 the Calabrian regional government proposed that the linguistic minorities of the region be recognized by UNESCO as “heritage of humanity.” Complying with the UNESCO category of intangible heritage introduced in 2003, the candidacy was heralded by local civic associations, politicians, and regional government as the ultimate acknowledgment of minority contribution to humanity. In April 2013, Tito Squillaci of the Associazione Ellenofona Jalò tu Vua, Bova Marina, Reggio Calabria, appeared emotional as well as cautious about the effects of a positive outcome for the application. While he was optimistic that the candidacy would revitalize the study of the language and culture in a more scientific manner by competent people, he closed his announcement by adding that “it is well noted that today more people talk about the Grecanico language instead of actually speaking the language. If the candidacy serves to stimulate a serious and objective test of reality, demystified, and change the actual state of things, then it is welcome.”5

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The three short ethnographic vignettes presented above tie together questions of ownership, victimhood, and governance of minority issues. With scales of minority representation ranging across local civic associations, regional politicians, transnational state and non-state bodies, and minority policy, all with the burning desire to present local issues on global stages, there is also conflict and contestation as to who has the right to represent whom. In some cases, individuals have consciously championed themselves as living heritage: cultural artifacts with the authority to govern Grecanici

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affairs and condense the whole minority into their own persona (see particularly Chapter 6). But what is the genealogy of such thinking behind conceptualizing Grecanico language as immaterial heritage of humanity and Grecanici as victims? What forms of governance brought about these developments? To explore the historical formation of such powerful governance influenced by global frameworks and local desires, we must keep in mind the multiple levels of interests that are invested in minority decision making processes. In some forms of governance the hegemonic position of the state is fearlessly challenged. Local civil society has always looked to civil society of global scale to find space to articulate rights to difference. More than ever, the power of the state for political representation is fragmented, as actors turn to UNESCO, the EU, other nation-states, and illegal organizations to provide accessible channels of governance and information communication. Victimhood has been part of Grecanici experience for decades. Entwined with social discrimination, extreme poverty until the 1960s, and emigration, victimhood has an experiential, rhetorical, and pedagogical tenor. Since the unification of Italy in 1861, Grecanici villages have gradually become depopulated owing to extreme conditions of poverty, high levels of mortality, migration, and natural disasters (Martino 1979; Bevilacqua 1981; Dickie, Foot, and Snowden 2007). The torrid conditions of many Grecanici villages always attracted the interest of state institutions such as the Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno (National Association for the Interests of the South) in 1928 as well as private media outlets such as the Milanese journal L’Europeo in 1948. Grecanici felt “in their skin” what it means to be second-class citizens. Narratives of victimhood of the early 1900s are systematically circulated in Grecanici civil society and families, communicating feelings of bitterness and ambivalence. At the beginning of the twentieth century, and especially under Mussolini’s policies that fiercely promoted monolingualism (Cavanaugh 2009:159–160), alloglot Grecanici children were often the target of discrimination and abuse from teachers who spat in their faces, feeling repelled by the language. Subsequently, many parents avoided speaking Grecanico in front of their children, shielding them from further stigmatization. The Grecanici migration from ancestral villages in area Grecanica to Reggio Calabria in the 1950s highlighted once more the degree of prejudice and the divisive line between urban and rural populations in Italy (Teti 1993). Uneasiness looms within every narrative regarding those years. Domenico, fifty four, remembers,

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We were called paddhechi, parpatulli and tamariGO (all derogatory of peasantry). To an extent people still call us these derogatory terms. Until the beginning of the 1970s there was a street in my neighborhood called Lu Strittu di Paddhechi (The Street of the Peasants). Despite the fact that the majority of us are educated and have money we are still perceived as second-class citizens. Paradoxically, the language that once brought such problems is now worthy of praise. We must feel proud of our language for it is the language of the Ancient Greeks of Magna Graecia. Others want to capitalize on our language. They want to claim it for themselves. Once they were spitting in our faces, now they want to claim all the privileges of this language. Domenico is hardly alone in articulating his claims to difference through victimhood as often Grecanici civil society appropriate buried histories in order to “authorise contemporary moral and political claims” (Ballinger 2003:14). Nevertheless, narrating victimhood has a rhetorical potential (Carrithers 2005). In the same manner that the trope of victimhood provides a framework to articulate bitterness and dissatisfaction about the past, it provides scope for future possibilities. In their seminal volume on social suffering, Arthur Kleinman, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock have argued that cultural responses to the traumatic effects of political violence often transform the local idioms of victims into universal professional languages of complaints and restitution—and thereby remake both representations and experiences of suffering (Kleinman et al. 1997:x). Narratives of victimhood have rhetorical potential that is performative and thus constitutive of difference. The intense interest surrounding the Grecanico language and culture over the past fifty years has formed a pool of “trained Grecanici” who are readily disposed to the rhetoric of victimhood and represent the public face of the minority. These people have mastered techniques and languages of global governance, and such is their competence that it has come to shape a particular social aesthetic among the population (Cavanaugh 2009:6).6 Gradually developed into a pervasive tool of governance by Grecanici civil society, it targets national and international policies for linguistic minorities. Gone are the days when Grecanici needed to suppress their language out of fear of discrimination; to claim that they have entirely disposed of the stigma of the secondclass citizen would not be true, but for those with “official” training the language that once brought them shame now brings recognition. Recognition came after many decades of struggle as linguistic minorities

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increasingly played an important role in local and national politics (Salvi 1975; Albano-Leoni 1979; Cavanaugh 2009), cumulating with the controversial Law 482/19997 promising promotion and protection of languages covered by the law (Coluzzi 2007:57–58; Prato 2009; Dal Negro and Guerini 2011). Classified by UNESCO as severely endangered, it is the notion that the Grecanico language is distinctive and rich yet “in danger of extinction” that mobilized national and international organizations to approach Grecanici as people rather than a linguistic “anomaly.” Since the 1970s the Association Internationale pour la Défense des Langues et Cultures Menacées (AIDLCM), argued that Grecanico “could enrich everybody . . . the loss of which would be irreparable . . . and constitutes a part of the heritage for which Italy is responsible.” In 1975, AIDLCM claimed that “the Greek culture of Calabria lives its last decade . . . the last Greek shepherds live their last humiliation. The Greek community of Calabria constitutes an island colonized economically and culturally, in a region itself underdeveloped and colonized . . . a fact for which the Greek community is not responsible. To leave things as they are at the moment . . . would be to bear the burden of a real cultural genocide” (AIDLCM 1975; quoted in E. Nucera 1984/5:41). Omar Minniti’s plea in the above vignette replicates the language employed nearly four decades ago by the then AIDLCM—now Comitato Nazionale Federativo delle Minoranze Linguistiche Italiane (CONFELMI)—which is powerful, explicit, and conflates biodiversity and genocide with linguistic survival. The combination has a powerful rhetorical resonance, “the powerful moral capital attached to the charge of genocide has nonetheless paradoxically made for the term’s increasingly broad application by groups  .  .  . claiming past persecution” (Ballinger 2003:129–30). Apart from highlighting the contribution of Grecanico language and culture toward a general Italian public good and the danger of extinction, AIDLCM claims compensation from the Italian state on the grounds that Grecanico constitutes an inextricable part of Italian heritage. Compensation claims are justified by what Brackette Williams (1989:409) has termed “embodiments and patterns of cultural enactment.” As Omar Minniti and Tito Squillaci suggest, contemporary Grecanici are embodiments of culture and tradition.

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Looking Far, Far Away Grecanici public figures have long been looking outside Italy for glimmers of hope for wider recognition of the minority. Angelo Romeo, in his Naràde d’Aspromonte (1991), a compilation of articles from the 1980s, was looking to the European Community for Grecanici minority recognition as a matter of international urgency. In their search for effective political representation and disappointed by Italian state neglect, people like Romeo looked outside Italy to enhance their minority position within the state, believing that recognition of the minority would come from global actors and persuade the state to act likewise. It has been argued that difference is realized on a global scale through a common set of formats and structures of governance that mediate between cultures and ultimately scale difference along a limited number of dimensions. As a result, only some kinds of difference are promoted while others are submerged (Wilk 1995:111). While this is true, ethnographic engagement with minorities sheds light on the manner in which local actors resourcefully engage with these frameworks without necessarily succumbing to them. The intersection between global frameworks of representation and governance and local particularity is a central theme of this book. This junction is best captured in the development of the governance of Grecanici affairs from a local matter to an issue of global import. Other equally important actors captured in inchoate categories such as “civil society,” “family,” “friends,” “clients,” and “mafia” introduce more diversity in scales of governance and representation. Such categories of analysis have become organizational tropes of Grecanici governance, and I examine them here as scaled-up and scaleddown. Civil society can operate on local to global scales, and family is scaled-up to evoke kinship between Greece and Italy (as proposed in the new statuto) or scaled down to include only one’s own close family. This book focuses on civil society and relatedness, the international management of Grecanico heritage, friendship, language policy, interstate activism, and minority management as diverse forms of governance based on the fearless pursuit of aggressively dense sociopolitical networks. This is not an ad hoc analytical imposition. As we will see in the following chapters, actors introduce narratives within which all the above categories are enmeshed with one another. Ignoring one aspect in favor of another would leave the picture incomplete and lead to unavoidable misrepresentation. Marilyn Strathern (1996) has asked where one cuts the network that

16

Chapter 1

could yield endless ethnographic and analytic narratives. Exploring Grecanici everyday relations that cut across national and transnational borders, we are inevitably faced with scales of governance where actors of local and global caliber are drawn into the same fearless game. I account for a form of governance that encompasses encounters between numerous actors who frequent the arena of Grecanici minority politics. In looking at the minority I delve into people’s knotted worlds, realized in intersections of relations endowed with power between family, friends, nation-state(s), civil society, EU, and mafia. I present these actors in such an order that overt contradictions become apparent to the reader—for instance, bringing the EU and mafia into the same analytical framework. This is far from a methodological tactic, rather a focus on emic discourses. International, national, and local actors thus appear to work on different scales, but all claim a level of expertise regarding the management of Grecanico language and culture. In doing so they produce discourses and vocabularies of representation, some of them familiar, others completely alien to the minority, but which equally give rise to pervasive forms of governance.

Family and Governance Relatedness is the connecting thread that runs throughout this book and exemplifies Grecanici governance. From an early age, Grecanici are encouraged to conceptualize themselves as parts of a wider nexus of relations. Relations form the basis for governance and are provided in conventional terms of kinship (see Chapter 4), kin-like relations (Chapter 5) and mafia (Chapters 6 and 7). In this context “we would call the relation a self-similar or self-organizing construct, a figure whose organizational power is not affected by scale” (Strathern 2005:63). Strathern examined the knowledge that is implicated, produced, and abducted in kinship relations and argued that we can call the relationship an organising trope with the second order capacity to organise elements either similar to or dissimilar from itself. Hence the relation as a model of complex phenomena has the power to bring heterogeneous orders or levels of knowledge together while conserving their difference. It allows concrete and abstract knowledge to be manipulated simultaneously. (2005:63)

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Family in Italy constitutes a part of a complex dialectical relation between family, civil society, and the state; relatedness is ever present in all levels of politics (Ginsborg 2001:97). Grecanici families, apart from being constituted through “complex systems of relations of production, reproduction, nurture, love and power, along with the desires and strategies of their members” (Yanagisako 1991:324), are in constant danger of slipping from view simply because of their presumed ordinary form and their inchoate quality in justifications of governance. Let me clarify by contemplating the following propositions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Here, we are all one family. They used to be like brothers, they used to be a family. Do you believe me when I tell you that I see you as part of my family? Of course they turn to the ’Ndrangheta. If one has a family to support, I ask you, what can one do? Born in the family of . . . (the name of the family). Now you are part of the family (the ’Ndrangheta family). Suniu ’ndrinaCD (I am ’ndrina—I am family). Clan is the term imported by the English journalists, here we have family. Vote for . . . (the name of the politician) . . . protector of the family.

The noun “family” in the above propositions is used with a variety of meanings and directions. The actors employ it in an ever ambivalent but always inclusive trope of identification. Family refers to social, biological, religious, or political relatedness, it is extended to encompass moral and social reasons and justifications, it symbolizes the unity of a political party and is offered as rhetoric in personal deliberations. It spans a wide range of phenomena: legal and illegal political and economic action, ’Ndrangheta, patronage and clientelism, onore (honor—with direct reference to the honorata società [honored society] that is ’Ndrangheta) and omertà (code of silence— with direct reference to a wide cultural consensus that transcends the ’Ndrangheta), and particular rites of initiation and endogamy, to name but a few. The economic, religious, and political language in Reggio Calabria is the language of relatedness and family. As a result, material interests and family sentiment are not regarded as opposing means of identification. Thus, previous dichotomies that located the study of the family in modern/traditional,

18 Chapter 1

rural/urban, nuclear/extended, biological/social, instrumental/sentimental fall short in taking into consideration the creative interweaving between symbolic, material, and emotional dimensions of family. “Family,” similar to the pronouns “I” and “we” or “they,” is inchoate (see Fernandez 1995; Carrithers 2008). As a trope of moral imagining, family has the “capacity to condense distinct doctrines and ethical strains in a fan of pliable associations that can be variously distilled and infinitely elaborated” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999:6). The inchoateness of the Grecanici family facilitates a further anthropological critique based on actors’ engagement in conflicting, blurred and knotted relations of governance. This is a further anthropological critique of Euro-American kinship as we know it, and is captured in a series of deformations and re-formations of relatedness. This is most evident in the family of ’Ndrangheta, a very powerful mafia omnipresent in the social and political history of Reggio Calabria (Paoli 2003; Lupo 2009; Dickie 2011;Truzzolillo 2011). One might wonder why mafia families require an initiation ritual in order to establish familial ties between people who are already biologically related. A simple answer could be that the ritual is important to unite nonbiological affiliates. However, the new constitution is still labeled the “family” and not ’Ndrangheta par excellence. This new form/family brings with it the reworked heterogeneous seeds that constitute it while simultaneously conserving their difference. In its conceptualization, ’Ndrangheta is already based on kinship. The ’ndrine (cosche, clans) are biological families in their majority, where the members are fathers, sons, uncles. ’Ndrangheta interprets the family as separable from the state, posing an oppositional relationship between the two. In ’Ndrangheta rhetoric, their family is defined in a state-dominant/’Ndranghetasubordinated dichotomy. Nevertheless, by adopting an essentialist language of authority and sovereignty, paradoxically ’Ndrangheta emulates the language of the state—whose claims are fashioned on the language of kin and family—but is careful to keep it distant by placing kinship as the condition par excellence for governance. In other words, in local imagery, ’Ndrangheta is completely self-identified with the master trope of family; ’Ndrangheta is the family. In this ethnographic scenario, family is an ambivalent term that allows the superimposition of strong lines of relatedness among people who simultaneously occupy diverse roles. Notions of strict biology need to be deformed and ritualistically treated in order for a new socio-religious entity to emerge under the “biological” rubric of the family. Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon argue:

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Once the focus of inquiry includes both inclusions and exclusions, both the amity and the violence at the core of kinship, and both the egalitarian and hierarchical lines of relation, ambivalence emerges as an important avenue for understanding the complexities of kinship relations . . . an emphasis on ambivalence yields insights into the nature of kinship as it is shaped by the (dialectics of power) tensions and contradictions between differential relations of power and resistance, individual agency and desire, and diverse rights, demands and obligations . . . attention to ambivalence and emotional valences produces a different perspective not only on kinship and family but also on the meaning of social structure and the means of theorising its determining influence. (Franklin and McKinnon 2001:18–19) As we will come to see in the following chapters, in Reggio Calabria family is always an open-ended category and takes many forms as actors evoke it in various contexts. In the same way that I am concerned with the familial boundaries formed by Grecanici, I am equally concerned with how these boundaries are bridged and broken, and the phenomenology of relatedness that conditions politics and becomes constitutive of Grecanici governance. Relatedness as governance will be discussed throughout the book, but for now I would like to unpack further the connection between family and state—whether one can actually exist without the support and mediation of the other. For this reason I concentrate on cases of conflict and collaboration in order to examine their interdependence.

Family and Clientelism Grecanici fearlessly pursue unrestrained relatedness that cuts across statesponsored schemes, civil society, family networks and the ’Ndrangheta. This dense relationality opens multiple overlapping channels for political representation and power. Grecanici politics (and to a wider extent the politics of Reggio Calabria) are based on clientelistic networks that in their conceptualization are familial,8 and furthermore, the language that frames clientelism is usually the language of family and kinship. The study of clientelism could provide points of continuity or discontinuity between various systems of relatedness and governance due to the fact that clientelism is not a monolithic mode of representation and should not be treated as such (see Zinn 2001).

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Grecanici engage in clientelistic relationships to gain access to certain channels of power. Examining the present political conditions in Italy, one is compelled to assess the connection between the family, clientelism, and corruption. Paul Ginsborg borrows a familial metaphor to question the relevance of clientelism and family by asking “are these two terms Siamese twins, locked inextricably together in the history of the republic, are they identical twins, are they twins at all?” (2001:102). Despite being unable to define the relationship between family and clientelism in precise kinship terms we cannot deny their intractable relevance. In my view it would be rather unfruitful to establish an argument of the “amoral familism” kind as developed by Edward Banfield (1958), that attempts to explain Southerners’ inability for collective visioning located in the deep politics of the family, or whether the amoral familism ethos provokes or is the result of specific economic and political conditions (Silverman 1975). Clientelism is not merely a distribution of political and economic resources and favors in exchange for political support but generates and depends upon affective and emotive relations. Neither can it be seen as a one-sided phenomenon because older forms of clientelism are coupled with contractual corruption, opening a spectrum of relationships (Chubb 1982; Moss 1995). Clientelism as a network of relations (Boissevain 1974) is not confined solely to two parties—the patron and the client. Clientelism is equally observed in civil society (Chapter 3), to catch one end of the spectrum, as well as in everyday family affairs. In their fragmentation, these relations constitute an intertwined web of polysided networks that bring together a conglomeration of people and collectivities that are by no means mutually exclusive— civic associations, state politicians, ’Ndrangheta, kin groups, and global organizations. The fact that civil society in Reggio Calabria poses an anthropological paradox in incorporating clientelism as well as clandestine and illegal activities, stems from older accounts according to which southern Italy is characterized by a civic ethos that prompts hierarchy and exploitation, that deprives the individual from happiness and security, civic cooperation and ineffective public policies (Putnam 1993). Insofar as civil society is associated with a particular notion of democracy and civility, associationism in Reggio Calabria will always throw up a paradox, for it is characterized by all the symptoms of societal ills. In Reggio Calabria, actors move from relation to relation or simultaneously to various points of relatedness and never assume a permanent position—that of patron or client—as power is very elusive. As many

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ethnographers argue, clientelism effects vertical and coercive relations, and power is seen to be exclusively concentrated in the hands of politicians, economic lobbies, mafia, the Church, and other administrative and juridical institutions that monopolize and perpetuate the conditions on which they thrive (Chubb 1981, 1982; Auyero 1999; Medina and Stokes 2002, 2007). Such approaches have paved the way to investigate clientelism as created and directed not only from above but also from below, highlighting the complex relationship between local and national politics. The approach from the “client’s point of view” (Moss 1995; Auyero 1999) is then valuable but does not adequately explain how power is transformed in contexts of economic affluence or when clients are contextual patrons and vice versa. In distressing economic contexts it is easy—yet not unproblematic—to assume that the roles of patron and client are fixed or readily observed. But often the roles are not so easy to distinguish and may constitute one and the same thing. Here again we need to take into consideration that power may be variously visible, or purposely cultivated as nonexistent (Foucault 1994, 2000). If we examine the poles of a relation rather than the relation itself, we run the risk of missing the transformative synergies of governance and co-produced knowledge. Dorothy Zinn (2001) employs the category of raccomandazione (recommendation) in order to argue that there is a common cultural reference between various forms of clientelism that run through quotidian life, political and economic lobbies, and organized crime. In that sense raccomandazione provides a common ground for dialogue, in Bakhtinian terms, thus not locating patrons and clients in fixed positions since their political volitions are perpetuated in a dialogic fashion (2001:48). The category of raccomandazione provides scope for analyzing familial clientelism, as there is a clear distinction between a raccomandazione that comes from a person outside the family and an intrafamilial raccomandazione.9 In the latter case, the family assumes a particular role and thus we refer to a kind of “autoraccomandazione,” “since there is an implicit familial privilege exercised in a public and apparently meritocratic space totally diverse from those that refer to private businesses” (67).10 Grecanici adopt the roles of the client and patron first and foremost within kinship relations. At the core of Grecanici ideology for difference, there is an aggressive and fearless desire for unbounded and unconditional relatedness. Trust endows relations with a particular ethos, meaning, morality, and legitimization. When examined closely, these relations are characterized by forms of reciprocity and exchange. Grecanici exchange money, favors,

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words (in the form of positive and negative gossip) love, and people (in the case of endogamy). Grecanici engage in clientelism in their own families, civil society, and the state and the phenomenology of these relationships will become apparent throughout this study.

Politicized Relations Grecanici politicization comes as the direct result of moving across relations that connect various people and collectivities to different modes of governance. Through multiple forms of relatedness Grecanici make their way through rebounding, intersecting, and overlapping channels of political representation and power. Often, political analysis in Italy has been approached through dichotomical conceptual frameworks (Cento Bull 2000). More specifically, southern Italian societies have been criticized as sustaining vertical relations of hierarchy established by agents such as the state, political parties, the Church, and the mafia (see Cento Bull and Giorgio 1994; Lumley and Morris 1997). Since the unification of Italy. this particular criticism, the Questione Meridionale (the Southern Question) has been mainly developed within a dualistic conceptual framework—North Italy/South Italy—where social, economic, and political differences pertaining to the South were explained in a comparative fashion (see Schneider 1998; Pipyrou 2014a; Perrotta 2014). According to Nelson Moe (2002), the disposition to categorize the South as the exotic other (Italian and European) had already been constructed in Italian and European history comfortably before the unification of Italy. The North/South cultural categorization fostered deeper political and economic interests and provided an ideal vehicle for rekindling age-old conflicts and channeling hatreds (Gribaudi 1996:85; Pipyrou 2014a:248). New approaches during the 1980s tended to move away from any attempts at comparison, but they resulted in homogenizing southern Italy in terms of economics and politics without allowing space for inter- or possibly intraregional differences. Dominant themes to address sociopolitical change included subculture, cultural values, rationality, and loyalty (Cento Bull 2000:10). Fresh approaches emerged from the edited volumes published by Einaudi in the 1980s on Calabria, Puglia, and Sicily. By adopting different analytical frameworks, the authors of these volumes sketched the basis for “contextualising without generalising” (Morris 1997). Instead of comparing the South with the North or portraying the North as the ideal to be achieved,

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the new studies discussed the South within the South. Thus phenomena such as familism, clientelism, corruption, and the mafia were approached in a new light and examined in relation to the kinds of civil society and politicization they effected (Piselli and Arrighi 1985). From the heterodox Marxism of Antonio Gramsci and the “critical ethnocentrism” of Ernesto de Martino to contemporary scholars, the southern question still has analytical potential and ethnographic validity (see special issue of Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa 2014). The present study moves away from previous dichotomic frameworks of political analysis. Instead it locates the analytics of governance in the validation of relations. The analytical validity of the relation rests on the fact that it has the power to connect paradoxical sources of representation, cut across hierarchies, and establish new forms of knowledge. Links may be created between innumerable individual or collective bodies that possess different degrees of power and knowledge. The space that is mapped from these dense criss-crossings delineates a reticular form of minority governance that enables the actors to accommodate their material and nonmaterial needs. Actors move between individual and collective points of reference without being exclusively identified with any of them, provisionally adopting their political idioms of representation. Foucault’s notion of the productivity of power also points to the understanding of Grecanici governance as perpetually charged by the actors’ constant kinesis across various types of relations. As opposed to stasis, kinesis allows “the productivity of power” (Gordon 2000:xix), that is, the effect of realizing relations on every possible level or event “differing in amplitude, chronological breath, and capacity to produce effects.” These nexuses of relations, most publicly celebrated in religious manifestations and dance (Chapter 7), precisely because they have acquired an authoritative status, allow actors to use various channels (clientelism, family, friendships, political parties, global bodies) to find political representation. A person claims a relation in the same manner that s/he uses and abuses bureaucratic channels. The claim lies in the assumption that power “can be exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of nonegalitarian and mobile relations” (Foucault 2000:94); it is neither focalized nor bounded. Power relations depend on and operate through more local, low level, “capillary” circuits of governance (Foucault 1994). The metaphor of capillary circuits allows for a conceptualization of governance as the direct product of connecting and managing various points of otherwise unconnected multiscaled entities. Grecanici successfully use their networks of relations to move to various and sometimes seemingly

24 Chapter 1

unconnected sources of representation. In this sense they accommodate personal and collective, economic, political, and emotive needs. The chapters of this book are very neat illustrations of governance in different domains and levels. Examining the Grecanico civic associations (Chapter 3) demonstrates that when it comes to institutions that are deemed “of the state,” we notice a shift to rather exclusivist tactics of managing power, especially when compared to more traditional contexts of clientelism and favor accommodation. This is the direct result of the official recognition of the linguistic minorities by Italian law and their subsequent link to local selfgovernment. Nevertheless, clientelism is highly sought among kin and close friends (Chapters 4 and 5). In Chapters 5, 6, and 7 the direct connection between kinship, governance, and religion and the interfaces that this entanglement entails is discussed. Chapters 6 and 7 examine the techne of governance by focusing on ’Ndrangheta as a particular sovereignty that poses relatedness at the core of its conceptualization. Subsequently, Chapter 7 is concerned with embodiments of governance that celebrate power and the dissemination of mafioso personhood through the tarantella dance. It would be a mistake though to treat all Grecanici relations as one and the same thing. Forced or voluntary migration, as well as dense kinship and mafia networks, suggests that Grecanici political claims were emphasized or suppressed in different historical and political periods. Minority interests are developed in accordance with opportunities provided by political fluctuations in Calabria, Italy, Greece, and the EU. Paying close attention to multilayered forms of relatedness facilitates a deeper understanding of minority politics and how actors may seek to empower themselves. It also sheds light on the techne, episteme, and ethos of governance that underlies minority politics.11 While power relations “are unequal and hierarchical, they are not ‘zero-sum games’ in which only certain actors have power at the expense of others” (Dean 1999:69–70). Grecanici governance is an example in contemporary political anthropology where a minority has become successful in appropriating multiple channels of representation that have paradoxically transformed a poverty-stricken, subordinate population into a politically prosperous piece of living history.

Chapter 2

Meet the Grecanici

A prolific number of studies on minorities have shed light on the historical and political genealogies of what is meant by minority status in Europe (see Cowan 2000, 2010). Scholars such as Jennifer Jackson Preece (1997), Mark Mazower (2004), and Jane Cowan (2010) examine the historical predicament of developing a comprehensive UN framework toward the protection of minority populations after 1918. Looking at the issue of the minorities from a top-down perspective, these studies delve deeply into the logics of treaties and the thorny position of minority recognition on a pan-European level. Subsequently, nation-state recognition of minorities was a criterion of identification and UN membership to accord with a vision of a multicultural Europe (Prato 2009; Cowan 2010). From a bottom-up perspective, other studies in Europe have highlighted the precariousness of the term “minority” for the inclusion of alloglot populations as meaningful constitutives of the national fabric (Karakasidou 1997; Kirtsoglou and Theodossopoulos 2001; Ballinger 2003; Zografou and Pipyrou 2011). Language as a semantic web of collective identification is interlinked with xenophobic evocations of “second-class” citizenship, violence, fear, inclusion and exclusion (Herzfeld 2011b; Knight 2013a; De Munck and Risteski 2013). With twelve languages officially recognized by the state, Italy can boast the greatest diversity of regional and minority languages in Western Europe (Dal Negro and Guerini 2011). The legal framework concerning the governance and protection of linguistic rights is drawn directly from the EU and the Council of Europe. Moreover, under the auspices of UNESCO and other international bodies the debate over the preservation of endangered minority languages has gained momentum in the last two decades. With an ever

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increasing engagement in recording endangered languages and promoting linguistic rights of minority populations all over the world there is a fundamental need for anthropological research to investigate the links between purely linguistic research, the social and political interests of linguistic minorities and the various scales of governance where minority politics are realized. We can no longer deny that the complex web of views of minority populations themselves, local and national government, as well as European Union guidelines, synthesize a picture that introduces practical and theoretical incommensurabilities into minority studies (Fishman 2002; Pipyrou 2012). The Grecanici find themselves in a paradoxical position; from the outside they are viewed as a vulnerable minority on the verge of extinction, yet they simultaneously exercise fearless governance of their own language and culture. Speaking Grecanico, a language categorized by UNESCO as “severely endangered,” the Greek linguistic minority of Calabria is one of two Greek speaking populations in South Italy.1 A considerable number of national associations for the protection of endangered and minority status languages in Italy, such as the Lega per le Lingue delle Nazionalità Minoritarie (LeLiNaMi) and the Comitato Nazionale Federativo Minoranze Linguistiche d’Italia (CoNFeMiLI), talk of the Greek linguistic minority of South Italy as occupying an isola (island). The metaphor of an island existing within inland Italy is a strong cognitive sign that captures notions of marginalization, economic, and social isolation and victimhood. The metaphor of the “island” not only echoes the closed and static communities, prevalent in the anthropology of the 1960s with all the inherent problems of contextualization and analysis, but somehow reinforces stereotypes of the subjugated, hegemonic, and marginal.2 At the beginning of the new millennium, governmental structures such as the sportelli linguistici (linguistic helpdesks) connect the interests of linguistic minorities to regional, provincial, and municipal schemes, where once they were solely the concern of local civil society. The sportelli are excellent examples of where layers of governance coexist in a creative manner and require more critical and holistic anthropological attention. The Grecanici, the protagonists of this study, are Italian subjects, devoted Catholics, citizens of Reggio Calabria, and primarily originate from the area Grecanica in the villages of Aspromonte, Calabria. Of outstanding natural splendor, Aspromonte is believed to be the home of the naradeGO, mythological nymph-like creatures. Such cultural capital, as poetically portrayed in Franco Mosino’s preface to Angelo Romeo’s Naràde d’Aspromonte (1991),

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may be of service to Grecanici in their quest to save the ancient language of Magna Graecia. Romeo captures a fascinating dual perspective by placing the future of the minority in the hands of Modern Europe and Grecanici folklore. The region known as area Grecanica coincides with the regional autonomous institution Comunità Montana “Area Grecanica” (Già “Versante Jonico Meridionale Capo Sud”) and includes the comuni (municipalities) of Melito, San Lorenzo, Bagaladi, Roghudi, Roccaforte del Greco, Condofuri (with the frazioni [wards] of Amendolea and Galliciano), Bova, Bova Marina, Staiti, and Brancaleone (see Figure 1). Grecanici are multilingual. They speak Grecanico (also termed Griko and Greco), which is comprised of archaic Doric, Hellenistic, Byzantine as well as local Romanic and Italian linguistic elements (Karanastasis 1984; Caracausi 1990; Petropoulou 2000). They also speak the local Calabrian dialect and the official Italian language. The Greek presence in Calabria commences with the colonization of South Italy and Sicily between the eighth and sixth centuries BCE and with the foundation of the first cities of Magna Graecia (Greater Greece): Reggio Calabria, Sibari, and Croton. Consecutive relocations from Greece during the Byzantine and Norman eras enriched the Calabrian populations with Greek linguistic elements and provoked a positive economic and social effervescence. For instance, in 1148 a considerable number of the population living in the Byzantine areas of Corfu, Cephalonia, Negroponte, Corinth, Thebes, and Athens were ravaged by the Norman king Roger of Sicily and relocated to the area of Reggio Calabria, altering the demographics of the city (Spano-Bolani 1979:197; Kean 2006:136). From the end of the ninth until the eleventh century Calabria flourished economically, politically, and artistically (Spano-Bolani 1979). After the fourteenth century the Greek language rapidly started receding, mainly due to political and economic instability provoked by a succession of conquests in Calabria. The decline of the Greek language during the following centuries was further associated with the abolition of the Christian Orthodox denomination, with ceremonies no longer being performed in Greek.3 The Diocese of Bova in the area Grecanica was the last to follow the Orthodox ritual to be performed in Greek until 15734 (Teti 2004:60). At the time of the unification of Italy (1861) the Greek language was spoken in twelve villages in Aspromonte, while by the beginning of the twentieth century it was spoken in nine: Galliciano, Roghudi, Chorio di Roghudi, Amendolea, Bova, Bova Marina, Roccaforte del Greco, Chorio di Roccaforte, and Condofuri. In the 1970s German linguist Gerhard Rohlfs noted that the

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Serrata S. Pietro di Carida Candidoni Laureana di Borrello Rosarno S. Ferdinando Galatro Feroleto della Chiesa Maropati Giffone Melicucco Anoia Gioia Tauro Cinquefrondi Rizziconi Polistena

Gulf of Gioia

S. Giorgio Morgeto Taurianova

Palmi

Terranova Seminara Sappo M. Varapodio Melicucca

Bagnara Calabra

S. Procopio

Scido

Delianuova S. Roberto Campa Calabro Fiumara Calanna S. Alessio d’Aspr. Laganadi S. Stefano in Aspr.

O

M Africo Vecchio ROGHUDI

MELITO PORTO SALVO

Portigliola

Locri

Bovalino

IONIAN SEA

S. Agata del Bianco Bianco Caraffa del Bianco Africo Nuovo Ferruzzano

STAITI

A R E A GRECANIC A

Pietrapennata PALIZZI

Condofuri Marina

Palizzi Marina

Roghudi Nuovo

Siderno Marina

Casignana Samo

Galliciano SAN LORENZO BOVA CONDOFURI MONTEBELLO JONICO Amendolea Pentidattilo

Marina di Gioiosa J.

Gerace

Cimina S. Ilario

O

R Motta S.G.

Caulonia Marina Roccella

Ardore Benestare Careri

P ROCCAFORTE DEL BAGALADI GRECO

Riace

Caulonia

Gioiosa Ionica Canolo

Antonimina

S. Luca

A

Cardeto

Martone

Agnana

Plati

S

REGGIO CALABRIA

S. G. di Gerace

Stilo Monasterace Camini

T

S. Eufemia d’Aspr.

N

Scilla

Strait of Messina

PROVINCE OF REGGIO CALABRIA

Molochio Oppido M. Cosoleto Sinopoli S. Cristina d’Aspr.

Villa S. Giovanni

Stignano Placanica

Grotteria Mammola

Cittanova

E

SICILY

Bivongi Pazzano

BOVA MARINA

Bruzzano Zeffirio

Province of Reggio Calabria border Cultural District of Area Grecanica Aspromonte mountainous area

BRANCALEONE 0 0

10 10

20 Miles 20 Kilometers

Figure 1. Area Grecanica

language was not in use any more in the villages of Condofuri, Roccaforte del Greco, Chorio di Roccaforte, and Amendolea. During the same period the area was struck by devastating landslides and floods (1971 and 1972–73)5 that provoked the evacuation and abandonment of the villages of Roghudi and Chorio di Roghudi. The displaced populations were initially scattered around the areas of Melito di Porto Salvo, Bova Marina, and Reggio Calabria. After 1988 many relocated to the newly built settlement of Roghudi Nuova near Melito di Porto Salvo. To the present day Grecanico is spoken by the elders of Roghudi Nuovo, and less so by the elderly populations of Bova and

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Bova Marina. In the village of Galliciano, the language is still in use even though the Calabrian dialect is now dominant (Petropoulou 1997). Referring to the considerable publicity and tourist marketing of the area within and outside Italy, Greek anthropologist Christina Petropoulou bitterly notes that “if the motive to visit area Grecanica was to find Greek speakers then the visitor will be disappointed since the language is hardly spoken anymore” (1995:152). Petropoulou refers here to the regular disappointment generated during touristic excursions to the area Grecanica by Greek nationals who expect (and regularly demand) that local populations respond to them in Grecanico. Area Grecanica is known in Greece as Ta Ellinofona (the Greek-speaking areas), and the Greek public has become more familiar with the area since the visits of philologist Angela Merianou in the 1960s and the various publications that followed.6 At first these publications created an idyllic, exotic, and generally distorted picture of the populations and their living conditions. Notions of common race and kinship were put forward as important links emphasizing the relatedness between Grecanici and modern Greeks. In a nutshell, Grecanici were portrayed as the “descendants of an Aryan race” (the Ancient Greeks), who, living among the “barbarous” populations (other Calabrians), managed to preserve their “Homeric Greekness” and their “immortal Greek soul and splendor.” They were further colored as “blessedly backward” with qualities such as hospitality “unique in the whole world” and philosophical, poetical, and musical dispositions. The extremely harsh conditions of Grecanici life and the miseria (socioeconomic poverty) that plagued them before and after World War II were romanticized and ultimately mis-portrayed. During the 1970s, from within Calabria, various publications were more inclusive in their treatment of “Greekness,” arguing for “the Greek roots” all Calabrians share and the “lost grandeur” of a “higher civilization.” Here, location rather than race, kinship, and blood, was emphasized as the connecting thread between the Greeks who colonized South Italy in the eighth century BCE and modern-day Calabrians. These arguments played a pivotal role for other local populations of non-Grecanico origin to develop substantial claims to cultural patrimony that since the turn of the twenty-first century has ignited heated debates on rights and origins (Pipyrou 2014a). Responding to the exoticism cultivated in Calabria and Greece regarding their “origin” and “heritage,” Grecanico cultural associations founded at the end of the 1960s in Reggio Calabria engaged in profound historical

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constructivism in order to address what they termed the Questione Grecanica (the Grecanico Problem). Petropoulou defines two distinctive periods regarding the trajectories of the management of Grecanico language and culture. The first period—what Petropoulou (1997:243) calls the “Awakening”—refers to the 1970s and the action of the first associations on religious and linguistic matters. During this time there was a systematic effort to convert Grecanici to Orthodox Christianity. In the 1970s a prolific collaboration between Greek monks from Mount Athos, the Greek state and the Greek-Italian college of Rome, Saint Athanasios, resulted in a considerable number of masses, baptisms and marriages following the Orthodox rites to be performed in the villages of the area Grecanica (Petropoulou 1997:216). Despite the fact that the Patriarchate of Constantinople, under whose aegis the Orthodox Church of South Italy falls, would never openly admit initiatives of organized proselytism targeting Grecanici populations,7 ethnographic evidence and an extensive monastic network between Greece, Calabria, and Constantinople highlight the effort to “convert” Grecanici to Orthodoxy. This lengthy though fascinating story goes beyond the scope of this book. The Questione Grecanica and the subsequent salvation and protection of the Grecanico language and culture were hot political topics of local, national, and international import debated by the Grecanico cultural associations. Their policy advocated new outreach initiatives to engage with as many Grecanici as possible, both in the city of Reggio Calabria and the Grecanici villages, proposing a new ideology regarding Grecanico language, heritage and patrimony (cf. Palumbo 2003; Herzfeld 2009a, 2011b). The Grecanico language being considered superior (due to its Ancient Greek elements), the Grecanici were encouraged by the associations to embrace their roots and origins. They further aimed to initiate substantial links with the Greekspeaking populations of Puglia and to evoke an emotive response from the Greek public regarding the minority status of their “brothers” in South Italy. During the same decade, further associations were formed in Greece with the aim to “help” the “Calabrian Greeks” who are constantly threatened morally and financially. These associations put forward irredentist propositions based on diasporic arguments, promoting Greece as the motherland and conceptually expanding the borders of the nation. As a result the Grecanici were, and still are, portrayed in Greece as Greeks of the diaspora, brothers, and “of the same blood,” but scarcely as an autochthonous Italian population.

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During the 1980s, the second period of dealing with Grecanici minority politics, there was a combined effort from the public institutions in Reggio Calabria and the Grecanico associations to develop the area for tourism. Apart from the language, culture as well as music, food, and dance were advertised as exclusively distinctive and unique Grecanico products, resulting in numerous annual tourist visits to the area. Despite the general euphoria of these events, provoked by alcohol-induced high spirits and the tarantella (traditional dance) performed by exceptional local music groups, I was frequently asked by Greek nationals “why do these people not speak Greek?”8 Defining area Grecanica in purely linguistic terms is not a straightforward matter because Grecanico is spoken only in a handful of villages. Viviana Sacco (2007:70) notes that the present delineation is based on language, history, and culture, thus there are comuni Ellenofoni (with the presence of the Grecofoni) and comuni Ellenofili (friendly to Hellenic culture). In such categorizations terms such as Ellenofoni (Hellenophone), Ellenofili (Friendly to Hellenes), and Grecofoni (Grecophone) confuse matters farther and reveal deep-rooted political and sociological discrepancies. Applied liberally and interchangeably such criteria do not adequately justify the inclusion in the area Grecanica of comuni (municipalities) such as Bagaladi or Brancaleone (non-Greek-speaking in the modern era) and the exclusion of comuni such as Cardedo (Greek-speaking until the beginning of the twentieth century) (70). How far back in history do policy makers need to dig to determine inclusion in the area Grecanica? As many anthropologists have pointed out, notions such as culture, language and history are only partial sources people draw on in their quest for representation (Herzfeld 1985, 1987; Jenkins 1997; Brown 2003; Ballinger 2003; Hirsch and Stewart 2005). Provisional identities as they are, history, culture, and language can be manipulated to serve contextual political and economic purposes. At present, the confines of the area Grecanica provoke a conflict between the interested comuni, materialized on many levels and appropriated according to diverse political views. As many Grecanico associations protest, the desire exhibited by residents of nearby areas to be included in the area Grecanica is mainly dictated by the benefits of financial subsidies (from Italy and the EU) and has little relevance to the Grecanico language.

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A Few Words About Reggio Calabria Research on which this monograph is based was primarily conducted in the city of Reggio Calabria on the toe of Italy, in neighborhoods inhabited by Grecanici after their migration to the city at the end of the 1950s. The city of the agrumi (citrus fruits) and gelsomino (jasmine), Reggio Calabria is the largest urban settlement in the region of Calabria, situated between the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. Calabria9 is the most southern region of mainland Italy between Basilicata and the island of Sicily. Mainly mountainous,10 Calabria is divided into five provinces, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio Calabria, and Vibo Valentia, all maintaining a certain degree of administrative autonomy. The province of Reggio Calabria is divided into 99 comuni. The comune of Reggio Calabria covers an area of 236 square kilometers, split into 15 quartieri (neighborhoods). Of a population of approximately 184,500, over 42 percent are employed in wholesale, 11.5 percent in manufacturing, and 10 percent in the construction industry, while only 4.5 percent are involved in agriculture.11 The city itself is an architectural melting pot of the old and the new, a blend of different styles, epochs, and attitudes, with architectural reminders of destitution and despair. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Reggio Calabria was a border town under the Spanish viceroy’s direct administrative control and was repeatedly destroyed by Turkish and Saracen pirates. From the seventeenth century until 1860 it was part of the Kingdom of Naples under the Bourbon dynasty. In places, Reggio Calabria is reminiscent of the medieval city that once was, circled by 17 towers. In 1783 large parts of the urban area were totally destroyed by an earthquake, only to be rebuilt by the Bourbon army under the instructions of the engineer Giovan Battista Mori. Reggio Calabria was unified with Italy on the arrival of Giuseppe Garibaldi on the 21 August 1860. On 28 December 1908, the city was again devastated by an enormous earthquake that left almost 15,000 people dead (Dickie et al. 2007). Aid arrived immediately from many sources and the city started being rebuilt (Pipyrou 2016). Complexes of baracche (temporary hutments) were constructed in order to accommodate the homeless, with most of the new settlements being named after the benefactors (Villaggio Svizzero, Villini Svezzesi e Novegesi, Baracche Nazionali, Inglesi, Barracchamenti Militari of the Ferovieri, Americani). The baracche, visual reminders of the aid received, were situated on the northern periphery of the city, crowded between

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the Santa Lucia, Caserta, and Annunziata relief drains and the gardens of the quartiere Santa Caterina. Citizens of Reggio Calabria, Reggini, exhibit pride in living in the city of Fata Morgana,12 a mythological mirage formed by the reflection of the Sicilian city of Messina on the water of the Messina Strait. Situated on the southwestern coast of the Calabrian region, right opposite the Sicilian port of Messina and facing the snow-capped peak of Mount Etna, Reggio Calabria is blessed with one of the most beautiful coastal promenades in Italy,13 Via Marina (also known as Via Lungomare), which has inspired much poetic and philosophical prose. It is here that monuments and archaeological sites from the classical periods—the Greek Walls and the Roman Baths—are located. On warm and fragrant summer nights Reggini stroll along Via Marina exchanging views on politics, philosophy, culture, and love. One of the most important locations in Reggio Calabria is Corso Garibaldi with the homonymous Piazza Garibaldi. Together with Via Marina, Corso Garibaldi is the city’s heart, the historical center and the main place for philosophizing, socializing, shopping and flirting. In the area of Callopinace, in the Piazza Duomo situated on Corso Garibaldi, stands the neoclassic cathedral of Reggio Calabria, dedicated to Maria Santissima della Consolazione who, together with San Giorgio, is the beloved patron of Reggio Calabria. The former is celebrated on the second Saturday of September when the devoted Reggini form a glorious procession from the Santuario di Santa Maria della Consolazione, in Eremos, to the cathedral of Duomo. San Giorgio is celebrated on 23 April. In the Piazza Duomo during the patronal celebrations the Reggini honor their patrons by dancing the tarantella amid the sound of the Organeto and the Tamborello. Grecanici started migrating to Reggio Calabria from their rural villages of origin in Aspromonte at the end of the 1950s to join the small number of relatives that relocated before World War II. Nowadays, the biggest concentration of Grecanici are found in the quartieri of San Giorgio extra14 and Sbarre, while a considerable number also inhabit the quartieri of Ravagnese and Gebbione. They live in kinship clusters where three generations of family occupy the same palazzo (a multilevel building). On their arrival to Reggio Calabria, the Grecanici were met with hostility and contempt because they were perceived as the embodiment of two “negative” traits. First, they were alloglots and as such faced the hostility of non-Grecanico-speaking populations. Second, they were peasant Southerners, thus already “second class citizens” (Pipyrou 2014c). Grecanici thus experienced the stigma of inferiority

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(Petropoulou 1994:191–92, 1995:4), often called paddhechi,15 parpatuli,16 and tamarriGO17 (all derogatory of peasantry) by the local Reggini. On their part, the Grecanici cultivated a discourse of isolation and superiority toward the locals, further enhanced through endogamy. As far as the Grecanici were concerned, the local Reggini were stupid, inferior, and dirty. Young male Grecanici were instructed by their mothers never to marry a Reggina, for she incorporated all the negative traits of a forestiera (foreigner): dirty (morally and physically), inferior in terms of blood, and destined to deceive him. Many of my Reggini research participants argue that Grecanici are like a tribu Africana (African tribe) because they continue to this day to favor endogamy. Reggini regularly argue that “not changing the blood for centuries has a knock-on effect on their intelligence let alone the health of their children.” Examined in a broader historical framework, Grecanici cannot be contextualized separately from numerous other cases where local communities and disenfranchised peoples find themselves living in the shadow of the Global North, albeit geographically belonging to it (Pipyrou 2013, 2014a). Historically, Calabrians, let alone the Greek linguistic minority, were always conceptualized as peripheral and oriental (Schneider 1998; Moe 2002; Perrotta 2014). Nevertheless, anthropologists have recently brought attention to what can be viewed as a systematic push—mainly by bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—toward a rigid classification based on national competence and hierarchies of value (Wilk 1995; Palumbo 2003; Herzfeld 2004; Pipyrou 2012). What Berardino Palumbo (2003, 2010) calls “Global Taxonomic Systems,” are institutionalized paths through which transnational agencies shape and organize the global imaginary and act as instruments of governance that shape attitudes, emotions and values on a global scale (Palumbo 2010:38). Categories of national competence thus become essentialized measures of economic, political, and moral success (Knight 2013b:157, 2015). In this classificatory schema, large populations are inserted into “hollow dichotomies” such as progression and backwardness. They are not only classified as “such and such,” being denied ideological, political, and historical process, but pervasively imagined as possessing a future disposition firmly located in present imaginaries. These classificatory schemata are contemporary social cartographies that, as Richard Wilk (1995) argues, attempt to succumb local particularity to global uniformity. Nelson Moe (2002) argues that social cartographies concerned with the Italian south as radically different from the north were shaped before the

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unification of Italy. The origins of these cartographies are to be found in the formation of European cultural identity between the mid-eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries. The “Southern Question” is the outcome of such classification, with deep political and scientific roots (see Schneider 1998; Moe 2002; Perrotta 2014). Furthermore, the work of criminal anthropologists— developed between 1870 and 1914—claimed scientific objectivity through positivistic methods that pervasively bound civic groups: “refusal of the rights and obligations of citizenship to those beyond this boundary could therefore rest on rational, scientific arguments” (Moss 1979:484). It is commonplace to return to Cesare Lombroso when discussing physiological determinants with far reaching ideological and political implications. Rightly criticized by scholars inside and outside Italy, Lombroso’s (1980:11) argument concerning the Grecanici of Calabria concentrated on specific physiological and social characteristics that provided a negative deterministic basis for portraying populations. He tells us that Grecanici are of medium height, stubborn, wild of heart and spirit, and with a passion for dominance. For Albanians in South Italy, he notes that they used to resemble the Slavs and the Serbs, being tall, with straight teeth and nose, small eyes, and nervous. They are excellent runners and hunters. Their hearts are fearless and they consider vendetta imperative (Lombroso 1980:40). Similar to other criminal anthropologists such as Alfredo Niceforo (1987) working on delinquency in Sardinia, Lombroso’s work was detrimental in the sense that it created the basis for ongoing discussions regarding the “delinquent zone”: the South (Moss 1979:483). In “Calabria in Idea,” Augusto Placanica (1985) calls for in-depth social studies that do not attribute a priori validity to such biology-based classifications. Nevertheless, Lombroso’s “scientific” arguments about the Grecanici and the Albanians of Calabria are important in this discussion for another reason. They are creatively reworked by local intellectuals and then redistributed in a more intimate fashion to become important tools in the hands of policy makers and civic groups. Locals tend to play with reworked Lombrosian arguments that in some cases justify familiar classificatory schemata about the Other. Present physiological, moral, and political human taxonomies tend to have a pervasive past. We read in Edward Lear, the famous English author, artist, and poet who traveled to Calabria and Sicily in the 1830s and 1840s, According to our friend, Bova (. . . all of whose inhabitants speak a corrupt Greek and are called Turchi (Turks) by their neighbors) is a

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real old Grecian settlement, or rather, the representative of one formerly existing at Amendolía, and dating from the time of Locris and other colonies. The Bovani are particularly anxious to impress on the minds of the strangers that they have no connection with the modern emigrants from Albania. (Lear 1964:53) Taking into consideration that the above snippet was written during Lear’s journeys in the autumn 1847 in the provinces of Calabria and Basilicata (Lear 1964:11), there are clear traces that negatively colored differentiations were cultivated among adjacent populations in the area Grecanica18 (Brögger 1971:29). The initial stages of my fieldwork were influenced by my own pessimism regarding the future of my research. Acting on the advice and warnings of local gatekeepers, and myself alien to the ongoing local conflicts, the first three months I spent collecting material on the minority through all possible resources other than the Grecanici themselves. Without access to the people, I was under constant fear that my research would spell disaster. Such was my terror during these initial months that I could not appreciate the depth of data one can collect through peripheral resources. One such source was a historian from a southern university with whom I spent endless hours historically contextualizing Grecanici. Many of our fascinating conversations would end with him maintaining that the Grecanici “non hanno paura di niente” (have no fear of anything). “They are fearless” he told me many times. Did he share Lombroso’s positions? I have regularly asked him to elaborate on what he means by “fearless.” Does this relate to political, financial or kinship affairs of the minority? Is a fearless minority a paradox or oxymoron? But perceptions of Grecanici as fearless were shared by other local actors and, as I was to find out, by many Grecanici themselves.

Fluid Environments: Experiencing the Landslides From the dawn of the twentieth century the area Grecanica has suffered from regular alluvioni (landslides) as the result of excessive flooding in Calabria, with irreversible effects on the economy and physiognomy of the region. Such was the power of an ever changing landscape that the novelist Corrado Alvaro was prompted to argue for a sense of fatality and conceptualization of life as enmeshed in images of torrents (1950:234, also Teti 2008).

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The floods of 1951 and 195319 that struck Messina, Metramo, and Reggio Calabria left hundreds of families homeless (Pipyrou 2016). The hydrogeological problems of the area Grecanica had long been identified but it seemed that there was no governmental desire to deal with the situation effectively, highlighting a more general neglect of the Italian periphery. In the 1950s floods, and again in the 1970s, Grecanici literally experienced the soil disintegrating beneath their feet, destroying their properties and leaving them homeless. Human lives, homes, and livestock were lost in the floods. After the floods of 1951 the Italian government implemented a scheme concerned with relocating whole villages to other parts of Italy (see Pipyrou 2016). To this detrimental political decision science gave consent. Ironically, according to the report of the government technical committee that accessed the hydrogeological conditions of Calabria, “the necessity to transfer the populations is not only dictated by the danger provoked by the landslides but also by the fact that in some areas the populations will never achieve a stable economic level.”20 Voices that proposed resolutions to the extensive environmental and financial problems exacerbated by the floods existed, but were overlooked.21 Vito Teti (2008) urges a critical appreciation of the relationship between people and environment through the study of the abandonment provoked by natural disaster. For instance, villages such as Africo (a mountainous settlement in Aspromonte, destroyed in 1951) were relocated to the Ionian coast, thus completely losing their former agropastoral economy. The case of Africo is just one among many that highlight the “dramatic reality that the torrents provoked” (Cingari 1982:346). At the national level, what was exposed in the aftermath of the major floods of 1951 and 1953 was that Calabria had always been used for political justification of various taxations imposed on all Italians. After the disastrous earthquakes of 1905 and 1908 the government22 passed special laws (particularly the 12 January 1909 law), according to which Italians were taxed for the reconstruction of Calabria. Yet, over the subsequent years, the enormous amount of money collected never reached its intended destination; it was rather used for other causes such as the Libyan war and World War II, compromising the social and economic rebirth of Calabria. Leftist parliamentary voices expressed their discontent regarding the legislation and the financial allocation, attacking the inefficiency and corruption of the Christian Democrat government. Actually little or almost nothing has changed in Calabria since 1953; the special laws for Calabria have been used as an instrument of

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political power of the Christian Democrats, as a means to extend the electoral clientelism of the governmental party, as motivation for bureaucratic prosperity and corruption.… The sources from the special laws for Calabria were given to the son of the president of the consortium raggruppati di bonifica, an ex-second secretary in the public sector and Christian Democrat. (Atti Parlamentari—29105—Camera dei Deputati IV LEGISLATURA - DISCUSSIONI - SEDUTA DEL 12 DICEMBRE 1966) What was important, however was the self-determination of the Calabrians, who were waging their own battle to recuperate the enormous amount of damage provoked by the landslides. Those united committees, comprised of priests, peasants, intellectuals and workers, not only were not encouraged and financed by the government but also they were rather obstructed by it. (Atti Parlamentari—29103—Camera dei Deputati IV LEGISLATURA - DISCUSSIONI - SEDUTA DEL 12 DICEMBRE 1966)23 The floods constitute one of the major problems in South Italy that, at least in a pre-election period, tantalize every government regardless of political disposition. In line with the Christian Democrat government that decided on the relocation of flood stricken populations, the center-left government in 1966 argued that We must develop the protection of the soil via the evacuation of specific populations. It is not our fault that the Calabresi, in order to survive the Saracen invasions, have inhabited the forests over the centuries. Now, it is clear, that they can no longer live in the mountains; it is not through the mountains that the grandi vie which bring civiltà and prosperity pass. (Atti Parlamentari—29117—Camera dei Deputati IV LEGISLATURA - DISCUSSIONI - SEDUTA DEL 12 DICEMBRE 1966) Comunità Montana—instituted with the law of 3 December 1971 n. 1102—appeared as the most important legal structure of the time toward the development of the mountainous zones as well as the “internal zones”

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indicated by article 4 of the Italian constitution. The new law was intended to stimulate economic development and protect the environment of the mountainous zones. A new “mountainous economy” was to be based on the professional and cultural preparation of the populations. Among the main objectives, Comunità Montana was set up to provide mountainous populations with the proper services, aspiring to “compensate them for their disadvantage of living in the mountains” (Foti and Suraci 1983:19–20). Despite the high publicity of Comunità Montana as a promising autonomous structure that could possibly alleviate the economic and social problems of the mountainous and rural Italian periphery (Foti and Suraci 1983), the Calabrian countryside continued to be abandoned. In the national census of 1971—just prior to the publication of the Comunità Montana bill—the resident population of the mountainous Aspromonte region was 121,702, while that population in the city of Reggio Calabria was 165,822. When the next census was produced in 1981 the resident populations were 110,397 and 173,486 respectively. Not only had the population of the mountains fallen while that of the city had risen, but the difference between the resident populations had grown by approximately 50 percent in only ten years. When coupled with the relatively high internal Calabrian migration rate, it is clear that the results of the Comunità Montana bill in keeping the population in the highlands and ameliorating their lives are questionable. It is interesting to note that in the 2001 national census the resident population of Aspromonte was 97,209, with 180,353 in Reggio Calabria.24 While these statistics do not necessarily suggest that the larger corpus of the Aspromonte population moved to Reggio Calabria, it is clear the Comunità Montana bill did not provide the impetus for people to remain in their place of origin over the past thirty years.

Relocating Populations: Farewell Beloved Village After the landslides of 1951 severely damaged the Calabrian Ionian coast, the Christian Democrat government decided to relocate the stricken populations as a matter of urgency. People from the Grecanico village of Galliciano were relocated to the fortress of Gaeta in Lazio (Petropoulou 1997; Pipyrou 2016), while villagers from Amendolea and Roghudi were relocated to a military camp in L’Aquila, Abruzzo. Some people, very young at the time of relocation, recollect their time in L’Aquila as “very pleasant.” Mario, sixty-four, a

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teacher of mathematics at a high school in Reggio Calabria, vividly, and somewhat nostalgically, remembers the years he lived in Abruzzo as “some of the best years as we were attending a very nice local school and our parents were working in local jobs. A lot of families decided to stay in Abruzzo but my family eventually returned to Reggio after some years.” For people like Mario, relocation is part of a “romanzo of the ruins” (Teti 2008), yet for others it was a deeply emotional experience of forced expatriation. Echoing discourses of genocide and forced relocation as documented in various other European contexts, actors recite deeply experiential stories that irrevocably changed their sociopolitical trajectories (Hirschon 1989; Ballinger 2003; Bryant 2010; Danforth and van Boeschoten 2012). The Gallicianesi were relocated to the fortress town of Gaeta in Lazio where they stayed until 1954, apart from fifteen families who remained in Galliciano. According to Leo, seventy-six, “the first months in Gaeta passed very quickly since we did not have anything to worry about and they were giving us a small amount of money for our needs. But we wanted to return.” Antonia also remembers that “some women got married there with local men but the rest of us returned.” She goes on to say that “we left the village (Galliciano) because it was declared non-habitable and we were evacuated. Our sindaco (mayor) evacuated us” (in Nucera 1984/5:144). During their time in Gaeta, testimonies account for physical confrontation between locals, police, and Gallicianesi as protests erupted due to the squalid living conditions. At one point the administrative authorities only provided the detainees with stale bread, which was duly turned into makeshift weapons and hurled back at police. The relocations are still a highly emotive, distressing, and sometimes exasperating topic of conversation. Memories remain raw and conflict is easily reignited. Reflecting on the events of the relocations, informants criticized their own compatriots—local Christian Democrat politicians—who complied with central government demands and ultimately persuaded their covillagers of the need to relocate, thus avoiding further friction. Hints that point to the corruption of the people in question and their immediate profiteering from the promised reconstruction of their villages are evident. One research participant criticized a fellow villager: “now he discusses the landslides as if it is something outside of his family and he seems to forget that it was his father (a DC councilor) who collaborated with the mayor in order to persuade us all of the vital need for the relocation.” Similarly, there is also heavy criticism related to the favoritism of the same local councilors who

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distributed assets to the stricken populations on their return to the villages. Houses and livestock were allocated to relatives of councilors and people of the same political disposition. Domenico was eighteen when his family, together with more than thirty other families from Condofuri, Brancaleone, Roghudi, Chorio di Roghudi, Amendolea, San Carlo, and Rocaforte, were transferred to a colonia grande (large colony) in L’Aquila. From Condofuri to Rome we took the train. From Rome to L’Aquila we took the bus. In L’Aquila we stayed seven to eight months. It was nice for us youths. We had a cinema. I remember the first time that my beloved grandmother ever saw a train on the big screen. Poor woman, she closed her eyes and fell to her knees because she was afraid that the train would dash out of the screen and crush her. We were eating on metal army plates. I will show you. I brought mine with me when we left. After L’Aquila they transferred us to Messina where we stayed for two months. We were living in a school building. We had a priest as director. He had given instructions that the women should sleep separately from their husbands. The women were sleeping on one floor, the men on another. We did not like that and started protesting. We were given 2.50 lira per head every day. When we returned to Roghudi we were given new houses. My father did not like the new house. My father had a very beautiful house and he preferred us to stay in the house that we were living in before the evacuation. Other houses were destroyed though. The Gallicianesi returned to their village in 1954. Due to the aid provided by “the great benefactor” Umberto Zanotti Bianco,25 whose love for Calabria was renowned (Lombardi Satriani 1985:39), the stricken populations were given assistance in order to restart their lives in the village. Nevertheless, internal aid was tarnished due to scandals of mismanagement (Stajano 1979). Domenico, sixty-seven, bitterly notes, “we were given livestock as compensation for the animals lost in the landslides. The distribution was supervised by the then consigliere communale (communal councilor) of the DC and he was deciding on allocation according to the political disposition of the Gallicianesi. The ones who were voting for DC were given livestock while the communists and socialists were not.” As the above narratives testify, actors very often convey mixed feelings

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about the relocations. Overall, the texture of memory is rough and regrets regarding the level of exploitation and violence sweep into the narratives, as well as feelings of lost opportunities for further political manipulation and compensation claims (Petropoulou 1997). Nevertheless, there is another string of narratives that point to a completely different direction, albeit slightly conspiratorial. A small group of Grecanici leftist intellectuals approach the decision of the Christian Democrat government to relocate the populations so far away from Reggio Calabria with overt suspicion. Drawing from similar narratives of population relocation, such as implemented in Greece during the 1946–1949 civil war (known as “dead zones”; Clogg 1992), leftist intellectuals go to great lengths to speculate as to the real motives of the government. “We were trouble makers,” Leonardo argues, “and they [the DC government] wanted to smoothly get rid of us. We were always a pain in the ass for the government after the unification. They knew that in our area they could not pretend that they were the bearers of the law” (see Astarita 1999:4). The informant does not explicitly clarify why the Grecanici were viewed as troublemakers, even though he admits that historically “in our villages there was no such thing as state tax collection.” So the “anarchic fearless nature” of the Grecanici, as these informants put it, and the governance they were operating were presumably the trigger for relocation with the ultimate goal of cultural extermination. The relocation sites—Gaeta a prison fortress and the military camp in L’Aquila—and the conditions of confinement lend plausibility to the extermination scenario. Christina Petropoulou, conducting research in the village of Galliciano during the 1980s, often attempted to access the state archives of Reggio Calabria. Her attempts were ultimately unsuccessful as she was “discouraged” by the archive administrators on the grounds that “no such thing as population relocations ever took place” (Petropoulou 2011, personal communication). Internal aid after the relocation was tarnished due to allegations of favoritism, political mismanagement and mafia infiltration in the reconstruction programs that followed (Stajano 1979). In his bold research in the village of Africo, Corrado Stajano (1979) reveals the prolific cooperation between the ’Ndrangheta, Church representatives, and local government in building new houses in the stricken villages.26 In 2007 when I visited the state archives of Reggio Calabria I was given plenty of information and support for my research by the director and staff. This archival research not only complemented narrative accounts but further highlighted the depth of imbroglio (deception, cheating) on the part of the government, including money that

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never reached its destination and local uprisings in Grecanici villages as people demanded their lawful compensation after the landslides. The multiple “hidden histories” (Wolf 1982) referred to in the accounts of relocations reveal the multifaceted forces that dislodge people from their physical and emotional environments and the orchestration of political and humanitarian initiatives (Schneider and Rapp 1995; Pipyrou 2016).

Mannaggia Alla Miseria Mannaggia (also mannàiaCD) alla miseriaCD is a common saying in Reggio Calabria, employed in discourse by people of all ages, irrespective of their political or economic disposition. The term is used to express frustration when one wants to swear or curse. As an object, Mannaggia is a wooden construction that resembles the guillotine and was used for decapitation (Condemi 2006:250). In local imagery the mannaggia could decapitate the miseria that surrounded people, allowing them to forever escape socioeconomic poverty. Mannaggia alla miseria is also an existential warning located in the collective memories of relocation, poverty, and death. “It is in the mountains of Calabria,” Rudolph Bell (1979) argues, that “miseria takes its most complete form. It means being underemployed, having no suit or dress to wear for your children’s wedding, suffering hunger most of the time and welcoming death. La miseria is a disease, a vapour arising from the earth, enveloping and destroying the soul of all that it touches” (113). The village of Africo has become iconic of the Calabrian miseria. The report of the Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno in Italia (National Association for the Interests of South Italy) in 1928 highlights the dramatic living conditions of the villagers in terms of nutrition, sanitation and extremely high mortality. According to the report, in 1927 forty-one people were born. In the same year forty-one people died, of whom twentyfive were children under four (Stajano 1979:24–29). Emigration was deemed by many “an economic necessity” (Kenny and Kertzer 1983:15; Minicuci 1994; Pipyrou 2010) if they wanted to escape from the miseria that surrounded them. At the beginning of the century many Grecanici migrated to the United States and Argentina, and seldom did they decide to return.27 Grecanici migrated in high numbers to Switzerland and Belgium, while the internal migration was usually toward the north of Italy, as well as to the city of Reggio Calabria.28

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According to Serafino Cambareri and Pietro Smorto, people from Aspromonte who relocated in waves (especially after the landslides) to nearby cities created “quartieri abnormi” (abnormal quarters) into which were inserted victims of the floods, unskilled building migrants, and families who left their stricken villages in search of any kind of survival (1980:117–37). Geographical mobility of this kind transformed the political context with the reemergence of the old notabilato29 (notabilities/nobles), and the subsequent manifestation of the phenomena of parasitism coupled with administrative corruption (Cingari 1982:380; cf. Pardo 2004). According to a number of local politicians claiming to belong to the old notabilato of Reggio Calabria, the newly arrived populations drastically altered “il pensiero politico” (the political reasoning) of the Reggini. “Not only did they bring with them their misery and incomprehensible languages,30 but also their political deliberation that was reflected in a peculiar system of voting.” Suddenly a larger than usual number of votes were directed to certain politicians “out of nowhere.” These politicians, as one self-proclaimed “Reggino vero” (real Reggino) politician argues, brought with them an attitude of “di essere sempre in giro” (to be always dashing around everywhere), meaning that from time to time they were in a position to literally “take” their votes and change political coalitions.31 The phenomenon of trasformismo, the flexible formation of government coalitions with the aim to consolidate power, is by no means new in Italian politics. It was the policies of Agostino Depretis who exploited a trend that already existed in order to “express or rationalise the absence of party coherence and organised action” (Smith 1997:103; Schneider and Schneider 2001:436). Depretis justified and rationalized the “replacement of distinctive parties and programmes by fluid personalistic parliamentary groupings negotiating their support for a government in terms of purely local and sectional interests” (Woolf 1979:479). Until the mid-1950s, the politics of Reggio Calabria were dominated by center-right coalitions, while over the next decades, despite still being in power, the local DC experienced intraparty conflicts (Walston 1988:189). This was the result of many factors. The ’Ndrangheta, first, was increasingly implicated in Reggini public life, infiltrating public contractors and political circles. Second, and perhaps predominantly, instead of developing the infrastructure of Reggio Calabria the government was exploiting the tertiary sector in return for electoral support (Cingari 1982:380).

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In the Gardens of Eden The quartieri of San Giorgio extra, Sbarre, Gebbione, and Ravagnese, similar to many peripheral quartieri32 during the 1950s, were inhabited by coloni (peasant workers), military and police force pensioners and middle- and upper-class families of Reggio Calabria, who were also small land owners. The areas that surrounded the centro storico were characterized by their giardini (gardens) and sparse residences. In his study of the Plain of Gioia Tauro (in the province of Reggio Calabria), Pino Arlacchi describes the gardens as “the elementary unit of the agrarian system based on medium-sized property and medium-sized enterprise, that is, a piece of territory thickly covered by fruit trees and specializing in the production of one crop only, whose sale on the market furnished a median yield among the highest in Italian agriculture” (1983:77; also Petrusewicz 1989). This mode of agriculture had a further effect on the development of the local market and the “periodic movements of the economy from cereal to pasture and back” (Arlacchi 1983:78) minimizing the annual unproductive periods (Giacomini 1981:13). The agrarian reforms of the 1950s (see Biagini 1952) provided the opportunity for some of the lower classes such as the coloni to step onto the economic and social ladder. Apart from the land to which they were entitled according to their particular tenure contracts,33 they also “inherited” the status of the nobles for whom they were working. This shift in social status needs to be understood in a context of consolidating political power through land ownership (Rossi-Doria 1958:52). Despite the fact that Manlio RossiDoria refers to agrarian reforms that took place between 1880 and World War I—a period also characterized by the beginning of transoceanic migration (51)—land purchase in the peripheral quarters of Reggio Calabria during the 1950s followed the same logic of reconfigured power relations. Doctor Colleti is one such example. He is a medical doctor and his family—originating from the Grecanico village of Staiti—used to be coloni for Baron Taconi’s mansion in Reggio Calabria. They lived in a house within the garden walls, which eventually passed into their possession after the reforms. Colleti’s professional occupation and residence are significant factors contributing to his socioeconomic mobility, also reflected in the respect the members of his family enjoy in wider society. His mother, the baron’s former housekeeper, is now greeted with respect and considered one of the “first ladies” of local society. The family employ a Polish housekeeper as well as a gardener. Living in a house that constitutes part of the manor, and being a

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medical doctor, Colleti is considered by Reggini society as having a very high social profile. During the 1950s the giardini of the peripheral quartieri of Reggio Calabria were cheap and thus affordable to the majority of the Grecanici. Kin clusters bought adjacent plots of land with the view to reside in close proximity. Gradually, with the men working as economic migrants abroad (mainly in Switzerland), they started building their homes. In the absence of their husbands and sons, women remained in the Grecanici villages tending their land and animals and raising their children. As soon as the houses in Reggio were habitable, women transferred to the city, ideally in time for the children to attend local schools. With the money collected from every year of labor, families added an additional floor to the house. The main aim was to build a number of floors that accorded to the number of children. In the same period, Grecanici started entering the public administrative sector of Reggio Calabria. At this time Nicolo was assesore34 of the comune of Reggio Calabria, married to a Grecanici woman. Kinship ties between Nicolo’s wife and other Grecanici families were instrumental for both parties. Nicolo “systemized” (inserted into the system) Grecanici males as public cleaners in the city, with their families offering electoral support in return. Coincidentally, at the beginning of the 1960s, an old ’ndranghetista Giuseppe, from the area Grecanica became close friends with the local Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI). Giuseppe came from a large family with an extensive kin network. He was in the service and a close friend of the president of the committee of the Istituto Autonomo per la Case Popolari (Autonomous Institute for Government Housing) in Reggio Calabria. When the institute started building government housing, Giuseppe exerted his influence on the president of the institute and persuaded him to favor the Grecanici as well as other Reggini who were linked to him. Owing to these relations, many families found themselves with a local authority house. Other families who already owned a house in the city sold their allocated “council house” and released the capital. At the beginning of the 1980s, the president’s (a Craxian Socialist35) power was such that he could control the Istituto Autonomo per la Case Popolari without consulting the board. As James Walston notes, “He goes around with a rubber stamp, signs minutes and takes decisions without having had a meeting” (1985:97). The province-based public housing authority Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari is one of the examples of many public agencies that were deemed to serve political clientelism. Walston argues that “public works and housing

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became another cornerstone of DC policy” (1985:96–97, 1988:55). Indeed, the committee of the institute, precisely due to its provincial character, was in the position to allocate houses, direct funding toward “favorite” comuni, and even distribute jobs. The ’ndranghetista of Grecanico origin, similar to the DC politician, created a kinship-based “clientele.” Grecanici clearly used their various systems of relatedness to find political representation and secure their new livelihoods in the city. From internal rural-urban migrations to natural disasters and forced relocations, Grecanici social history of the past century is entwined with movement, aid, aggression, and competing orders of governance. The ethnographic chapters that follow show how Grecanici fearlessly seek political representation through diverse channels of governance, including civil society, kinship networks, and implication with the ’Ndrangheta.

Chapter 3

The Vicissitudes of Civil Society

The Non-Visit In July 2006, one of the Greek associations in Reggio Calabria, comprised mainly of Greek nationals of the diaspora, invited a high-ranking member of parliament from the governing Greek New Democracy party to visit South Italy. The association acted as a mediator between the mayor of Reggio Calabria, Giuseppe Scopelliti, and the Greek government, and the invitation was intended to foster relations of good will between Reggio Calabria and Athens. According to the president of the Greek association, the meeting was conceived of as a New Democracy initiative toward pastoral care for Greek communities abroad. The association went to great lengths to organize the visit of the Greek politician. For weeks they spent endless hours with the mayor’s secretary and various assessori who could persuade the mayor to agree to a meeting. On my part, I had long discussions with people from the Greek politician’s office, trying to identify what they wanted to achieve from the visit and providing details about the Greek association. After much negotiation with the mayor, who attempted to thwart the plan at every turn, the association was in the position to send an official invitation to Athens with a detailed itinerary of activities for the five-day trip. According to the schedule, the Greek politician would meet the mayor to discuss the possibility of a Greek consul being set up in the city, the foundation of a “Greek Academy,” and further cultural and financial exchanges between Athens and Reggio Calabria. The politician would be entertained with a “Grecanico night out” at a local restaurant with traditional music and food. One day was to be entirely devoted to visiting the area Grecanica and meeting with Grecanici who reside in the villages. This would be followed by

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a workshop with the numerous mayors from area Grecanica, chaired by Scopelliti, where they would “assess the problems of Hellenism.” The schedule addressed three fundamental aims of the association: to promote lines of communication between Reggio Calabria and Greece, to host the politician and introduce him to the historical sites of Reggio Calabria and Sicily associated with Magna Graecia, and to act as an influential mediator between the Greek nationals of the diaspora, Grecanici, the mayor of Reggio Calabria, and the Greek government. Unfortunately, after a rather nasty phone call from the secretary of the Greek politician to the president of the Greek association, the visit was canceled. The secretary found the content of the invitation as well as the “language” employed “poor and unacceptable,” It was argued that the tone of the written language was not suitable for such a high member of the party and that the association “should first know who the politician is before they choose to invite them.” Nevertheless, the fascinating convoluted background that resulted in the non-visit far exceeded the “offensive language” of the invitation. For one thing, the mayor of Reggio Calabria was not really keen to invite the Greek politician and continuously postponed setting dates. Let us not forget that the invitation was not from the mayor personally, but delivered through the Greek association. Having spent a considerable amount of time answering questions regarding the nature of the association, it became clear to me that the politician’s office in Athens was not particularly happy that the invitation did not come directly from the mayor. They were also under the impression it came from a Grecanico association, not an association comprised mainly of Greek nationals of the diaspora. When this was clarified, it was evident they were disappointed and would rather have visited a Grecanico association. Despite that, the Greek association was asked to provide a short paragraph regarding its profile, scope, and initiatives. After all this, it was insinuated by the politician’s office that “they would obviously have to decide on the visit at the last moment.” Decisive to the non-visit was the inability of the Greek ambassador to Italy to be present in Reggio Calabria. It was rumored that the ambassador wanted to avoid implicating himself in the conflict between Greek and Grecanico associations. Very disappointed, the president and board of the Greek association searched for possible reasons behind this rejection. They began questioning their own political position as Greeks of the diaspora as meriting equal attention as the Grecanici minority. Are the Greeks of the diaspora not as culturally worthy as the Grecanici? If not, what action should they take to

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alleviate this lack of worth? Sadly they came to realize that their failure to entice the Greek politician was the outcome of their failure to tap into Grecanico culture in a more systematic and creative manner. Finally, it became clear to the Greek association that the link with the Grecanici needed to be packaged on different terms, resulting in a change in governance for the association. This governance would involve creative tailoring of the scope and profile of the Greek association as directly related to the Grecanici, an “authentically traditional culture.”

A Paradox In the initial stages of my fieldwork I worked closely with the Greek associations that acted in Reggio Calabria. Representing the Greeks of the diaspora, these associations mainly comprised of Greek nationals who at some point in their lives moved to Italy. All cultivated close relations with Grecanico associations in financial and cultural collaborations and exhibited a “protective” attitude toward the Grecanici. As we have seen above, the Greek associations are keen on linking themselves with the Grecanici linguistic minority, acknowledging the powerful capital that is invested in Grecanico language and culture. Very often the common thread in these collaborations is “Hellenism” or “Greekness” that are binding concepts through which history, politics, sameness, and difference are easily glossed over through the mists of time. Through relations with the Greek associations, I was further introduced to a number of religious, philosophical, gastronomic, and card-playing associations in Reggio Calabria. Thus I had the opportunity to participate in administrative meetings, various fiestas, and celebrations that furnished me with data regarding the colorful civic life in Reggio Calabria. In time I managed to gain access to almost all the Grecanico associations based in Reggio Calabria and work closely with their representatives. Generally, presidents and board members were open in talking to me, although in our meetings they usually recited rhetoric regarding language, victimhood, and pessimism about the future of the minority. People also demanded to know with whom I was talking and I was often questioned as to the content of my conversations with other civic representatives. Actors were curious whether they were, or were not, mentioned by other Greeks or Grecanici and, if so, in what terms. Did people speak well of them or not? Parlare bene (speak well) or male (ill, bad) about the other was a confrontational question that

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highlighted not only the level of connection between people but also an experiential anxiety about reputation where the level of connection was the foundation of and directly informed such anxiety. At times the pressure to reveal the topic of conversations reached uncomfortable levels (see also Herzfeld 2009a). Actors were never offensive or aggressive but there was a tone of caution regarding my dealings with people of whom others disapproved. Such comments were scaled from a protective “be careful when you speak to this and that person” to a more cautious “you should not speak with this and that person as they are illiterate, corrupt and mafiosi,” That last comment was accompanied with a stern face, upper body leaning toward me, low voice and a direct look as if to communicate something that the anthropologist was not, but should be, informed about.

As Time Goes By: Contextualizing the Grecanico Associations The development of civic and political associations after the Risorgimento in a united Italy was not a casual event but followed the general revival that the Enlightenment brought to political life among the European elites of the nineteenth century. The Italian associations acted as centers of information and arenas for the exchange of ideas among the elites, inside and outside Italy, without however avoiding localismo (socioeconomic interest related to a locality) and campanilismo (feeling of superiority attached to one’s place of origin), political clientelism and exclusion—especially in cases where membership was determined by birth and status (Caglioti 1996). During the 1870s and 1880s, growing legal concerns1 and alterations to the voting legislation made the associations more appealing to a wider variety of people. Membership was now offered on terms of political affinity, common economic interests, kinship, and locality (Kertzer 1983). The associations’ interests were broad enough to pursue collaborations with local authorities in return for crucial votes and other favors. Political transactions often coincided with clientelism and kinship (Campbell 1964; Allum 1973:93–107), provoking, in some cases, an associationistic shift from the rural periphery to urban centers (Caglioti 1996:4). The creation of the first Grecanico association during the 1960s came as a result of the recognition of the problem of minorities on a European level and the “explicit ethnicization2 of policy preceded the significant

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development of the politics of identity” (Crowley 2001:108). During the 1980s and 1990s Italy experienced a boom in associations which “injected its own dynamics into modern Italian society” (Ginsborg 2001:xi).3 Antonella is a middle-aged woman of Grecanico origin who lives in Reggio Calabria on a part-time basis. She is university educated and used to be an active member of a political party in her village of origin. She is a fluent speaker of the Grecanico language and speaks Modern Greek quite competently. Antonella attributes the love she holds for the Grecanico language to her love for her late grandmother. As a child I loved my grandmother deeply. She was speaking Greco. My mother could understand her, but she did not speak the language. Because both my mother and father were working in administrative positions they did not speak Greco because the language was considered inferior to the official Italian. But I remember my grandmother speaking to me in Greco and her voice was the best music to my ears. I still have her voice in my mind calling us; “Elate pedίa”GO (“come children”). At that age I loved my language deeply. When we first formed Jonica no one was really interested in the language and its salvation. They were saying that the language is outdated and has no use in finding a job. But then, after changes in legislation that made it easier to find funding (she rubs her thumb against her index finger, a gesture which indicates money) suddenly everyone started loving both the Grecanico language and the culture. Especially after the interest of the EU in the linguistic minorities, numerous books were written and you could see action towards language promotion and preservation. In those days I hoped that something could happen, something could change and the new generation would love to speak the language. How young and innocent we were, running from village to village talking to the people and trying to make them see things from a different perspective. But now I do not believe that something can change. They say that the only way to move forward is to introduce Modern Greek into our language. I really do love (Modern) Greek but I would like my language (Grecanico) to be spoken too (she sighs). Apart from directly criticizing the general policy of Grecanico associations past and present as set up only to exploit funding opportunities,

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Antonella further reflects on the issue of “salvaging” the Grecanico language. In her narrative she purposely refers to her language as il Greco (the Greek)— the term Grico, often spelled Griko, is also sometimes used when Grecanici refer to their language. According to Filippo Violi (2004) the terms “Grecanico” and “Grico” are widely accepted with reference to the language and culture of the Greek autochthonous populations of Calabria and Puglia (Lecce) respectively. The two terms—Grecanico and Grico—are not distinguished by Italian law as two different languages; they are both referred to as one Greek language (Greco) spoken by the linguistic minorities of Calabria and Puglia. The term “Grecanico”—indicative of language, culture, and territory (Violi 2004)—that is adopted by researchers as well as administrative and cultural representatives, appears to pose a problem in terms of origin. Grecanici intellectuals like Violi and Mosino, despite drawing on Gerhard Rohlfs (1966, 1972) and Anastasios Karanastasis (1984), fail to give a satisfactory answer as to the origin of the term (Violi 2004). Nevertheless, the term “Grecanico”—first introduced in Rohlfs’ Lexicon Graecanicum Italiae inferioris in 1964—is widely adopted. Antonella as well as a small number of Grecanici oppose the term, believing it is derogatory. Greco di Calabria (Greek of Calabria), Grecofono (Grecophone), Ellenofono (Hellenophone), Ellenofono di Calabria (Hellenophone of Calabria), Calabrogreco (Calabrian Greek) are some of the alternatives proposed. However, these terms have failed to gain popular support. The aforementioned linguistic proposals are not devoid of political interest related to the direct sympathies of their supporters. Especially when the word ends in fonoGO (from foniGO, meaning “voice”), it calls to mind Bakhtinian notions of language where language is never unitary. Mikhail Bakhtin (1981:288) argues, Actual social life and historical becoming, create within an abstractly unitary national language a multitude of concrete worlds, a multitude of bounded verbal-ideological and social belief systems; within these various systems (identical in the abstract) are elements of language filled with the various semantic and axiological content and each with its own different sound. Literary language—both spoken and written—although it is unitary not only in its shared, abstract, linguistic markers but also in its forms for conceptualizing these abstract markers, is itself stratified and heteroglot in its aspect as an expressive system, that is, in the forms that carry its meanings.

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Foni (voice) is ideologically loaded, resulting in heteroglossia. Despite a direct reference to the “High” and “Low” linguistic traditions of the Italian Renaissance (Lepschy et al. 1996:71), it further reflects discourses of authority—be it ethnic, national or anthropological (Clifford 1986). In the present case, foni, expresses the associations’ heteroglossia and echoes nationalistic discourses, albeit on a micro level, as they have been developed around Europe. Similar to various European cases where linguistic minorities carve a historical niche that could possibly legitimize their ethnic claims, Grecanico associations at once make a case for belonging to both Ancient and Modern Greece.

Tracing the Roots 1960–1980: La Jonica dei Greci Since their inception in the 1960s, Grecanico associations have produced fearless regimes of truth regarding how Grecanico language and culture should be handled on local and global scales. The key protagonists of the associations proclaim truths about the minority and have managed to condense Grecanico language and culture into their own personas—they stand as “culture keepers”. The truths, filtered into channels of local and global governance, have secured legal recognition, copious sources of funding, international partnerships, and opportunities for cultural tourism. The first association dealing with Grecanico language and culture, La Jonica dei Greci di Calabria4 was formed during the late 1960s in Reggio Calabria and dedicated to addressing the Questione Grecanica, the “entire recovery of the cultural heritage of the Greek linguistic minority” (Nucera 1984/5:43). Alluding to political, economic, and cultural urgency, the Questione Grecanica, implicated in a wider parliamentary interrogation of Calabria (Pellicano 1970), was one aspect of the “politics of difference” (Poppi 1992) taking place across Italy. For instance, the “Ladin question” was a debate over the consolidation of cultural and linguistic difference of the Ladins in northern Italy. The debate that began in the late 1970s or early 1980s in the Val di Fassa found partial resolution through the proposal of the Ladin language as the primary distinctive feature of the minority. Ladin was eventually recognized as a dialect, although this was “not enough to constitute the difference that mattered” (117). The Questione Grecanica was addressed by a group of local intellectuals and was the outcome of the intense linguistic interest in the Grecanico language that commenced as far back as 1820 after the research of Karl Witte in

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the region of Aspromonte (Karanastasis 1984:xiv). In 1820 commenced a continuous argument over the origin of Grecanico—does it stem from Ancient Greek or from later Greek vernaculars spoken by populations who moved to Calabria during the Byzantine era?5 The origin of the language is not only a matter of linguistics but also conceals deeper claims to cultural ownership and appropriation. Professors Domenico Minuto, Franco Mosino, Barone Adesi and Father Engels—none of Grecanico origin—were the first people to conceive of the creation of a Grecanico association, La Jonica, based on ethnic and linguistic claims (Campolo 2002:234–35). Together with a small number of young intellectuals originating from the area Grecanica, the professors initiated a public campaign to raise awareness of the Grecanici minority and improve their living conditions. It was imperative for the founders of La Jonica to restore the “collective consciousness of pride” of the Calabrian Greeks and introduce them to their glorious past. This invitation was extended to the inhabitants of the Grecanici villages in the area Grecanica and Grecanici migrants residing in Reggio Calabria. The inclusive character of the association made membership also open to non-Grecanici (2002:236). Jonica’s policy revolved around what was perceived as a collective good6 of an inclusionist nature (Olson 1965), the collective “awakening” of the Grecanici who were plagued by feelings of inferiority. According to the association’s rhetoric, the Grecanici should fully comprehend and embrace the value of their glorious Hellenic past. Based on this principle they should re-evaluate their whole political existence. In the public discussion that followed during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, cultural and linguistic matters were conflated with what was colloquially termed cultura Grecanica (Grecanico culture). In publications that reflect the thinking during that era, cultura Grecanica was further associated with folklore, religion and tourist development. Thus, among other Jonica initiatives, we find the attempt to restore Orthodoxy in Calabria, the organization of conferences toward the renewal of interest in Byzantine traditions, the effort to enhance relations with the Greek state and improve cultural tourism in the area (Petropoulou 1995:203). The major result of Jonica’s persistent action was that on the advice of the AIDLCM, the regional law regarding Grecanico language was revised so that “the regione respects the tradition of the populations of Greek and Albanian origin, cultivates the development of historic, cultural and artistic heritage and favors the teaching of the two languages (Greek and Albanian) where they are spoken” (Regional law no. 519/56 1971).

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For almost a decade, La Jonica was the main association dealing with the Questione Grecanica. Yet members of the association soon “created new associations with different political valences” and opposing attitudes (Nucera 1984/5:61). According to Elisabetta Nucera, it was the differing political ideologies between the council of La Jonica and its constitutive members that hastened the dissolution of the association. Nucera here refers to the opposing political disposition of the younger members of La Jonica who were active members of the communist party and “could not bear the fact that the administration of the association was in the hands of a fascist” (1984/5:72). Political mistrust was further coupled with suspicions of financial corruption. According to Filippo Condemi, secretary of the association, “I asked for the archives of La Jonica but they were never given to me. I also proposed to the council that we should speak in Grecanico. I find it only logical: a group that deals with the problems of the Greek minority to speak in Grecanico. It did not pass” (72–73).

Zoi ce Glossa: Other initiatives During the Period 1970–1980 Filippo Condemi founded the association Zoi ce GlossaGO (“Life and Language”) in 1974. The objective of the new association—consisting mainly of Grecanici originating from the village of Galliciano—was twofold: to rouse the migrants from Galliciano from the feeling of quotidian inferiority in relation to the rest of the Reggini and to use any possible political and social source for the “survival of Galliciano” (Nucera 1984/5:74). Yet it soon became apparent that the association would have to include Grecanici originating from the villages of Roghudi, Chorio di Roghudi, and Bova. This was a political tactic, ultimately doomed, to establish relationships with village administrators. The policies of the first two associations were similar regarding the recuperation of the Grecanico language, culture and identity. Politically, it seemed that La Jonica had a more inclusive and international character while Zoi ce Glossa was more exclusive and localized.7 In 1984 in Reggio Calabria the majority of Zoi ce Glossa founders created a new association called Centro Studi G. Rohlfs Zoi ce Glossa (Center of Studies G. Rohlfs, Life and Language). The council of this “non-profit” (article 4 of the constitution of the association) association was organized and run exclusively by Grecanici from Galliciano, Roghudi, and Chorio di Roghudi since they “originated from villages that are

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still today Greek one hundred percent” (Nucera 1984/5:79), while people from Bova, Bova Marina, and Roccaforte were allowed to join as nonexecutive members. Briefly, the other associations of the time dealing with Grecanico, mainly based in Bova Marina, were the Circolo Culturale Greco (Greek Cultural Circle) founded in 1972 in Bova Marina, Jalo tu VuaGO (“Bova Marina”) founded in Bova Marina in 1972, Cosmo CinurgjioGO (“New World”) founded in 1975 in Bova Marina, and ApodiafazziGO (“Dawning”) also founded in Bova Marina in 1977. The majority of the founding members of the aforementioned associations were council members or ordinary members of Jonica (Nucera 1984/5; Campolo 2002).Their curricula exhibited an impressive agenda geared toward the salvation of Grecanico language and culture. To varying degrees their politics affected the operations of the Grecanico associations in Reggio Calabria since board members cooperated on common targets (Campolo 2002).

Civil Society in Italy In his definition of civil society, Paul Ginsborg (2001:95) brings attention to the terms civil and uncivil, arguing that It (civil society) . . . covers an intermediate area between family and state, but intends to distinguish between “civil” and “uncivil’ ” society, between those networks and associations which stimulate democracy and pluralism, and those which do not. Civil society, in this definition, is not a catch-all area broadly equivalent to the English term “society,” but rather an area of interaction which fosters the diffusion of power rather than its concentration, builds horizontal solidarities rather than vertical loyalties, encourages debate and autonomy of judgment rather than conformity and obedience. Ethnographic research in Italy has highlighted the multiplicity of meanings incorporated in terms such as civil, civic, uncivil, civility, and civil society (Herzfeld 2009a:182). Discussing the term civiltà (civilization, also including civic), in Umbria Sydel Silverman (1975:8–9) notes the class overtones associated with a celebration of urbanity, however Antony Galt (1991) in Locorotondo in Puglia, shows that peasants express an open condemnation of the urban ways of life. In its political dimension, civiltà demonstrates a

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communal capacity for economic and political self-government and autonomy (Silverman 1975:3; Pipyrou 2014c:536). Palumbo (2003) examined the relationship between civic and civil in more general terms. He talks of civic identity “as the collective pride enmeshed in familiar traditions of governance which feeds on strong sentiments of local attachment and an attachment to one’s ‘own’ ” ways of doing business. Palumbo (2003:371) moves away from the civil/civic dichotomy and focuses on the two different meanings embedded in the civic—the local and the universal, the first emphasizing civility—a culturally embedded value in Italy—the second assuming that ideals of good governance will have little to do with cultural peculiarities (Herzfeld 2009a:336). In Rome, Michael Herzfeld (2009a) argues that the opposition between civil and civic is often remarkably strong. He notes that civility is often associated with urbanity and simultaneously conceals and displays arrogance, power, and hierarchy, thus subverting formal rules of governance. This implies that on occasion “civil” may include corruption. In this sense a range of actors, from corrupt association presidents to members of illegal (criminal) organizations, can lay claim to “civil society”—“not to be sure in the sense that nongovernmental organizations are often so labeled, but still with a powerful implication of providing a morally coherent alternative to official, bureaucratic norms” (Herzfeld 2009a:182). In Lombardy, Andrea Muehlebach (2012, 2013) associates civic engagement with morality in what she terms the new “ethical citizenship,” which substitutes public systems of social security with voluntarism and collective caretaking (see also Pardo and Prato 2011). According to Muehlebach (2012:6–7), since the 1980s the neoliberal state has invested into areas “seemingly untouched” and “unpolluted” by market ideology. Usually passive and dependent citizens have been marshaled into volunteering, allowing them to purchase some sort of social belonging at times when their citizenship rights are under threat. Here state government and civic governance overlap in the area of civil society that is infused with ideals of moral duty. The government rhetoric regarding the installation of power to the people gives the impression that power can be harnessed from below with the potential to transform the state (2012:62). In light of the above discussion I need to draw attention not only to the terminology employed when actors talk about civil society but also to those terms that are not present. First, Grecanici do not refer to the civic associations as civil society but simply as “associations” or “cultural associations.” Second, terms such as civil, civic, and civility are not employed in discourse.

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Third, actors do however emphasize associazionismo (associationism) in terms of participation, belonging, mentality, and morality (see Herzfeld 2002: 147–49, 2004:33). Associationism at once encapsulates the desire to participate in often exclusive understandings of governance (such as ’Ndrangheta, often referred to as an association in a similar sense), that would conflict with democratic ideals developed in older definitions of civil society (see Putnam 1993).

Poly-Antagonism What characterized the first Grecanico associations (and continues to this day) were the local antagonisms and accusations of a different mentalità (mentality) between and within the association boards. The following testimony of Nino, an engineer and former member of La Jonica who lives and works in Reggio Calabria, further illustrates this antagonism. He first makes it clear that he no longer belongs to any of the associations “that claim to fight for the Grecanico cause” since “there is not such a thing as a Grecanico cause. There are only personal causes,” In relation to Jonica he maintains that things got worse when the Bovesiani (from Bova) entered the club. You see they imported their corrupt ideologies and had their minds on money. When they founded their associations in Bova Marina, they managed to implicate a number of local politicians promising them electoral support. Of course the issue was not to promote the Grecanico cause, but theirs. They utilized the votes of the association’s members for personal reasons. Statements like this are common and are aimed at literally all the association board members, accusing each other of “money eating,” corruption, “exclusivity in arranging the profits,” money that enters the associations either from the regione or from the initiatives twinning Grecanici communities with towns in Greece or various other public institutions. According to Nino, the problem rests on the different mentalità of the association members. Mentalità is viewed as a quality of governance. Caroline White (1980) notes that mentalità—the way people think and behave—accounts for a collective disposition, whether good or bad. Mentalità in White’s case is discussed at the communal level as the way people “do” politics. In a similar way the

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concept of mentalità among the Grecanici as well as in the wider context of Reggio Calabria is related to collective and personal dispositions. Unsuccessful personal choices are thus attributed to the absence of mentalità or bad mentalità. This localized understanding of governance is very often contextualized against the local historical background and the succession of various foreign conquerors of Calabria. Grecanici mentalità is partly the experiential outcome of resistance against the last Bourbons, the newly formed Italian state, and the glorified era of the Brigandi and ’ndranghetisti. Mentalità is a quality of fearless governance, of resistance and self-determination and the desire to author one’s own life project in a dynamic fashion (see Rapport 2003). The concept of mentalità is also employed in a negative manner in order to tarnish individuals and groups of people and violate reputation. “Avere un chiodo fisso” (to have a fixed nail, have an obsession, also further exemplified by the Grecanico translation carfìGO [nail]) is an expression indicative of mentalità. The person whose mind is fixed, stagnant and nailed is usually the narrator’s rival. What the rival almost always lacks is the mentalità for governance, which turns the person into a pawn or puppet or, in the worst case scenario, a non-person. In his above testimony, Mimo makes it clear that the different mentalità of the people who run the Grecanico associations leads to unavoidable ideological and economic corruption and an “obvious hypocrisy” regarding mastering the Grecanico language. Patricia, the president of a Grecanico association, often comments on rival Grecanico associations saying that “they pretend that they fight for the language. Ma quale lingua!!! (What language) My son understands me when I speak to him in Grecanico and slowly he is learning how to use the language. I teach him Grecanico music and he is playing the tamburello. Can you tell me the same about Carmelo’s children? (Carmelo is the president of another Grecanico association).” Patricia at once locates a desire and anxiety for managing the future of the minority in family governance. She is more explicit with reference to shifting the locus of teaching Grecanico from the family to European sponsored seminars. She says: in the families where the parents managed to transmit the Grecanico culture the children are in the position to understand the language but most importantly the culture. You see culture is the values of the family, poetry, music and the love for the history of their ancestors.

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The culture starts from the family. It is not so much what you expect other people to do for your children. It is what YOU do for them. Patricia is repelled at the idea of transferring a project of governance, such as educating her children in the Grecanico language, to European, regional, or provincial sponsored courses.

Historical Constructivism—Governance of the Past The Grecanico associationistic movement in Reggio Calabria commenced with the creation of La Jonica and the search for a collective identity purified by feelings of social inferiority8. According to Nucera (1984/5:43), the revival of the Grecanici collective consciousness was not a “bottom-up effect” but rather “the initiative of some intellectuals, residents of Reggio and Bova Marina” (Martino 1979:326–27) who decided to proceed with a Grecanico collective representation via Jonica. As mentioned, La Jonica’s policy regarding the construction of Grecanico identity, related to two issues that seemed to overlap: the reinvention of history and the cultivation of a certain ideology by Grecanici elites. The first is very much akin to the construction of national consciousness, although on a micro-level, as this is described by authors like Ernest Gellner (1983) and Benedict Anderson (1983). Similar to nationalistic processes followed elsewhere in Europe, the history which was officially communicated by Jonica’s intellectuals was partial and selective. It mainly concentrated on the two historical periods that are directly related to the development of Greek culture in southern Italy—the Classic period of Magna Graecia and the Byzantine era. In effect this essentialist discourse depicted the Grecanici as direct descendants of the Ancient Greeks who colonized southern Italy during the fifth century BCE. The present Grecanici were descendants, in a biological sense, of some glorious ancestors and the idiom of kinship was employed to justify an imaginary link between two communities separated by almost 2,500 years. This historiography was offered as an endless field of potential meaningful and inspiring events toward the creation of a normative discourse where “the discursive idioms of potential sources of opposition” (Herzfeld 1987:25, original emphasis)—historical periods and political episodes considered unimportant9—could be easily excluded. The material published by Jonica members and later initiatives of other Grecanico associations offer

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glimpses of an ethnographic, linguistic, historic, and literary ideology in which the Grecanici constructivists10 were themselves fully participating. Grecanico folklore was ideologically exploited11 to bring together two distant peoples, the Classic Magno-Graeci and contemporary Grecanici. Scholars of Grecanico folklore regularly employ Giambattista Vico, Antonio Gramsci and Luigi Lombardi Satriani in their written and oral arguments. Following the Vichian proposal on the studies of popular tradition (poetry, music, dance, and popular stories), and building on Gramscian insights on folklore “about the birth of a new culture among the broad masses” (Gramsci 1985:191), Grecanico folklore concentrates on “specific cultural conditions and their persistence over the social conditions which initially triggered them” (Lombardi Satriani 1985:59). This insistence on folklore and the constant reference to a mode of life that no longer exists has been heavily criticized by local Reggini intellectuals, who argue that Grecanici folklorists have created a book-lived culture located in a distant and substantially different sociopolitical past. The management of Grecanico identity as projected by the associations was not a straightforward matter. The associations were further faced with sorting out issues of linguistic, ethnic, social, and psychological as well as religious belonging. The Grecanico language, since the genesis of Grecanico associazionismo, was approached as an endangered indigenous tongue. This approach closely relates to Will Kymlicka and Alan Patten’s discussion on biodiversity. The disappearance of endangered languages, say Kymlicka and Patten, is seen as a symbol of the more “general crisis of biodiversity since indigenous languages are seen as containing within them a wealth of ecological information that will be lost as the language is lost” (2003:10). The idea of importing ecological claims and ethics into the discussion on linguistic rights is further explored by Idil Boran (2003). Despite acknowledging that it is not problem-free to bring ecological arguments into discussions concerning endangered languages, she manages to draw a safe line of argument useful to future discussions on linguistic rights and diversity. What is referred to as “bio-linguistic diversity” emanates from the idea of extinction that both languages and species face. According to Boran, linguistic rights correlate with biodiversity ethics as far as issues of collective public good are concerned. In that manner, she maintains, a viable as well as a beneficial public good needs to “be substantial enough to justify obligations” (196). These obligations are explained on a scientific and aesthetic basis. Regarding the Grecanico language, the scientific and aesthetic argument,

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at least as proposed by the associations, is sustained by the extensive linguistic research on the Grecanico language conducted over the last two centuries. Scientific and aesthetic arguments are based on the premise that the language can “provide clues of different systems of organising local knowledge” (Boran 2003:197) in a form of governance, since it appears to contain linguistic elements inherent in the Ancient Greek language. The fear of losing a genealogical knowledge, with all its richness and the grandiloquence of a glorious era, as well as points of reference for future probabilities, directly advocates the salvation of the Grecanico language—a claim profoundly exploited by the associations. Genealogical knowledge is understood to be transmitted through kinship of the specific “ethnico-linguistic” minority “whose culture could enrich everybody . . . the loss of which would be irreparable . . . and constitutes a part of the heritage for which Italy is responsible” (AIDLCM in Nucera 1984/5:40). Apart from highlighting the contribution of the Grecanico language and culture toward a general “Italian public good” and the danger of the extinction of the Grecanico language, international organizations such as AIDLCM encourage Grecanici to claim compensation from the Italian state on the basis of linguistic heritage. Compensation claims are justified by “embodiments and patterns of cultural enactment” (Williams 1989:409) of the bearers of an endangered heritage that needs to be preserved.12

The Greeks of the Diaspora—Diasporic Greeks As the opening vignette to this chapter suggests, the relationship between the Greek state and the Grecanico associations has always been of extreme importance. Both ends cultivate warm political relations that are materialized in reciprocal visits and various political and cultural collaborations. These links are premised on a shared brotherhood between Grecanici and Greek nationals. Rhetoric based on notions of brotherhood and “same blood” as well as notions of diaspora is employed by both Greek and Grecanico associations operating in Greece and Reggio Calabria. In many Grecanico association constitutions Greece holds the place of Madre Patria (mother fatherland) (Campolo 2002:241), and the many music CDs produced by the associations project the image of the Grecanici as Greeks of the diaspora. It has been suggested that the notion of diaspora “denotes displacement in the sense that one lives outside one’s primary land of attachment” (Laguerre 1998:8; see also Clifford 1994). It refers to “individual immigrants or

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communities who live outside the legal or recognised boundaries of the state of the homeland, but inside the reterritorialised space of the dispersed nation” (Laguerre 1998:8). Strictly speaking, the Grecanici are not a diasporic people, in the sense that they are Italian citizens, are not recent immigrants, and have deep historical roots in the region. Yet the existence of the Modern Greek nation-state as a point of reference and the relations it fosters with the communities effects conditions similar to those of a diaspora (Pellegrino 2013). Very often Grecanico associations are self-presented as diasporic thus appealing to essentialist notions of “home” and historical tensions between routes and roots (Gilroy 1996; Ballinger 2003:285; Clifford 1997). This tension is located in an existential search for authenticity. In the rhetoric of the Grecanico associations, authentic Grecanico culture is always rooted in a mythical past that provides the “space where in which the competing claims of ethnic particularity and universal humanity can be temporarily settled” (Gilroy 1987:154). Grecanici communities are equally approached by the Greek state as diasporic since they seem to act as living cultural capital that “expands the space of the nation beyond the borders of the state” (Laguerre 1998:8). It needs to be noted here that the extensive publicity given to the Greekspeaking communities in both Calabria and Puglia by the Greek mass media has managed to generate strong feelings among the Greeks in Greece for “our brothers” in Calabria. Discussing my work among the Grecanici with people in Greece, I realized that perceptions of collective suffering are shared with circles that are aware of the Grecanici of Calabria. “Imagine how much they must have suffered from the suppression of the Italians,” it is often argued. The specific climate around a Greek “diasporic and suffering civilization” has been cultivated for decades in Greece since the first publications on the area Grecanica in the 1960s. In Greece a considerable number of associations have been founded addressing the “Greeks of Calabria,” As Petropoulou notes (1997:264), these associations were of a specific rightist ideology and cultivated further irredentist dispositions. For years, through specific journals these associations expressed their anger and frustration about the “nationally insensitive Athens who permits the language of an Ancient Greek civilization to perish,” the “Greek state that has eaten Greekness,” and the “pure neglectfulness of the Greek state towards its forgotten children” (Petropoulou 1997:264). The triumph of Greek historical constructivism (see Faubion 1993) is apparent not only in history, architecture and other forms of cultural expression (Herzfeld 1987, 1991a; Yalouri 2001), but also in “living human .

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artifacts” and “traditional neighbors.” The Greek tendency to approach the Grecanici communities as diasporic is further illustrated by the frequent visits of prominent Greek political figures to the communities and by the emphasis given to issues of immaterial heritage such as language and common cultural and historical frameworks of reference like Magna Graecia and the Byzantine Empire. Both the Greek state and the Grecanico associations work toward the idea that “old things” could act as transnational mediators of one and the same idea—that of grecità and ellenismo (Greekness and Hellenism). Grecità and ellenismo have become such hollow categories (Ardener 1989; Theodossopoulos 2006) of identification, recognition, and representation that are currently freely appropriated by a considerable number of civic associations throughout Calabria.

Sportello Linguistico (Linguistic Helpdesk): Contested Governance The implementation of act no. 482 of 1999 in Italy substantiated the opportunity to directly link the linguistic minorities with local self-government. Local populations and institutions appeared determined to make use of the law in the territorial areas where the measures of protection applied. After the delimitation of the minority geographic areas by the provincial councils, the linguistic minorities recognized by act no. 482 were granted the right to use the minority language in the field of education both as a mediumlanguage and as a subject in nursery schools, in primary and secondary education, in public meetings, with public administration and judicial authorities, in place names, and in the media. The Sportello Linguistico, inaugurated on 13 July 2004, is an initiative funded by the provincia of Reggio Calabria with the scope of “promoting and protecting the Greeks of the Amendolea valley,” With the first annual funding under the rubric of project Valle dell’Amendolea, three sportelli (plural of sportello) commenced operation: one center in Reggio Calabria and one each in the communities of Bova and Roghudi. The staff employed in each sportello includes one cultural operator, three translators, two simultaneous interpreters, and six cultural-informatics animators. The sportello operates as a cultural and information center for the Grecanico language, as an official interpreter between Grecanici and the provincia, as organizer of promotional activities (conferences and seminars), and as a publisher of relevant material

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relating to Grecanico language, history, and culture. The sportello directive was to inaugurate and promote official links with the Griki (Greeks) of Puglia and other linguistic minorities in Italy and to further strengthen relations with Greece, especially Greek cities that are twinned with Grecanici communities. Finally, the scope of the sportello was to form an official and sufficient body of interpreters and translators with the collaboration of the Department of Philology and Linguistics at the University of Messina. In 2007, according to the Elenco delle Associazioni Culturali che si occupano della tutela della lingua, costume e tradizioni della Minoranza Greca di Calabria (List of the cultural associations that deal with the protection of the language, customs and traditions of the Greek minority of Calabria) provided by the sportello, eighteen Grecanico associations were active in the province of Reggio Calabria.

The Raccomandati: Laureati e Paesani The sportelli linguistici are a good source of employment where people can utilize their origin and knowledge of Grecanico language and culture. As Lucia has put it “I love my language, but without work what can you do? Isn’t it right that through those courses some people can find a job?” Yet, precisely because the sportelli are a possible source of secure employment, places are in high demand. Funded positions on the Grecanico courses are usually open to public competition. The entrance of estranei raccomandati (recommended externals), usually of non-Grecanico origin, to the public quota generates a certain amount of upheaval and discontent among the Grecanici. This dissatisfaction relates to the privileging of education over origin and the power any association has to render Grecanici “authentic.” The raccomandati are usually affiliated with local politicians, intellectuals, and association boards. Enrollment in sportello courses heavily depends on who gives the raccomandazione13 (Maraspini 1968:113; White 1980:59). The value of a university degree over knowledge of the Grecanico language provokes more serious arguments that are articulated on two levels. First, Grecanico origin is played down: “it is not fair for the people who are of a Grecanico origin not to be favored simply because they do not have the university degree. How can people who work as shepherds have a degree? They are not entitled to the jobs because they are not laureati (with a university degree) but paesani (peasants, plural of paesano).” Second, Grecanico origin is played up: “the public competitions are fixed so as to serve the same

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people who once were calling us “paddhechi, tamarri e parpatuli.” Now they want to be the first to profit from our work on our culture. They are like vampires who want to drink our blood,” In the above statements, there is an obvious ambivalence in handling the politics of victimhood. According to members of the majority of the Grecanico associations, local politicians as well as university lecturers and professors are “vampires,” By evoking traumatic memories of the recent past, the rhetoric of the victimized Grecanici is forcefully brought to the fore to assert rights to governance of their language and culture. Before the inauguration of the sportelli, Grecanico was automatically assumed to be the capital of Grecanici alone. Despite being called paddhechi, Grecanici were the only ones to authenticate a tradition of grandiose based on linguistic affiliation with the Ancient Greeks of Magna Graecia. The management of Grecanico capital, be it linguistic, cultural, or folklorist, was in the hands of the cultural associations’ boards and circulated by the same people within and outside of Italy since the 1970s. The exchange of favors among and within the associations was premised on various affective links between actors, such as kinship and friendship. With their inauguration, the sportelli opened another market for possible “authenticators” and “culture keepers” of Grecanico culture who up to a point were disassociated from the culture of the paddhechi. They have also provided scope for creating further links between actors on local, national, and international scales of governance. Political fragmentation and the overlapping of kinship, friendship, associationism, and clientelism offer further possibilities for various groups to crisscross between relations in order to find representation. In the same way that kinship offers representation to Grecanici through exchange of favors, so clientelism offers representation to people of non-Grecanico origin through recommendations. Despite the fact that the laureati receive more obvious social recognition and acceptance in Reggini society, their sistemazione (literally, insertion into the system) into secure employment rests heavily on personal networks and links. It is a public secret in Reggio Calabria that the associations have the ability to provide certificates of attendance attesting knowledge of the Grecanico language, thus provoking further suspicion of corruption and favoritism. As White notes in her discussion of associations in Trasacco, civic associations are “arenas of the playing out of political rivalries,” while the perception that “organisations are illegitimate and corrupt is strikingly akin to reality; they very often are” (1980:66). Grecanici happily become patrons for their

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children. Lorenzo, for example, was adamant never to resort to such clientelistic techniques; he always publicly proclaimed his aversion to favor exchange. However, for the sake of his daughter he asked his brother who is on the board of a Grecanico association to provide him with a certificate that testifies his daughter’s knowledge of Grecanico, despite the fact that she can only speak a few words. After ridiculing Lorenzo, whose rhetoric “around all these matters is very elitist,” his brother provided him with the relevant document. This was a joke much discussed among my informants, illustrating further the casual exchange of favors between kin (Kenny 1961; Lemarchand and Legg 1972; White 1980:148).

The Poetics of Clientela Through the regioni the Italian government is the primary source of funding for Grecanico associations.14 Allegedly, money also enters the associations from other sources, including ghost projects on Grecanico folklore and poetry, sources in Greece, and private benefactors. Association boards are responsible for finding further financial sources for their treasuries and securing revenues from publications, conferences, organization of trips and fiestas, and other promotional activities. In terms of financial allocation, a particularistic stance is adopted. As Ciccio told me, “so Stavroula, do you find it right for other people to eat without bringing food to the table?” Apart from economic issues, associations work at the political level on a clientelistic basis, where they appear as both patrons and clients depending on the specific case. Local politicians and other citizens approach the associations requesting political support—mainly votes during election periods—or other political favors. Minor favors usually relate to certificates that testify to knowledge of the language in the case of public employment competitions. More serious favors deal with the sistemazione of one’s children. To put the children into the system and secure them a career and material wealth (Colclough 1992:21) is a matter every Grecanici family takes very seriously. Parents usually go to great lengths to secure a post for their children, as the following case demonstrates. Natino was a distinguished professor of Italian literature whose son is married to Carmela, of Grecanico origin. Carmela has a degree in Italian literature that enables her to teach in public and private education institutions. But the unemployment rate in Reggio Calabria is very high and the good

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posts are already taken. Natino promised a distinguished Grecanico association his services toward their new educational project for free on condition that after a year they would hire his daughter-in-law. The association was very pleased and agreed to offer a contract to Carmela as soon as possible. Natino worked for free for a year and his name and reputation were well exploited by the association. Unfortunately he died unexpectedly a year after he entered this unofficial commitment and before being able to secure Carmela’s post. The association never kept the promise to hire his daughter-in-law. Lacking her father-in-law as a patron, the fact that Carmela is of Grecanico origin and a laureata is not enough to secure her a career. Unfortunately, she is married to a non-Grecanico and her father-in-law, despite being a distinguished professor in Reggio Calabria, lacked sufficient networks to enforce the informal agreement after he died. Despite being an unsuccessful story of clientelism, Natino’s case illustrates how the whole system of the raccomandati operates and the power invested in the source of the raccomandazione. In another Italian context, Neville Colclough (1992:132) argues, As never before, villagers are being thrust into contact with the state bureaucracy and national and provincial agencies. As citizenship rights are extended and welfare benefits increased, their need for help in preparing documentation and seeking raccomandazioni becomes ever greater. Indeed, even children are not immune from these pressures, and there is considerable evidence to suggest that they are socialised at an early age into the necessity of seeking patrons and raccomandazioni in school. Thus, as an only slightly cynical village schoolteacher once remarked, “The only lesson which children learn here is that in order to be successful they must find somebody to recommend them.” Similar assumptions regarding connections with the “right people” as a prerequisite for being systemized are obvious in Lorenzo’s case examined above. As we have previously seen, Lorenzo was originally not willing to resort to clientelism in order to help his child. He is an educated man who believes in the power of good schooling. Originating from a poor family, Lorenzo enjoys the respect of his compatriots due to his education, yet he too eventually realized that education is not enough if he really wants to systemize his daughter. He employed the overlapping relations of kinship, associationism, and clientelism as avenues to secure his desire to help his daughter.

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Greci di Calabria—Madre Grecia—Le Radici: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly The most controversial associations during the time of my fieldwork relating—directly or indirectly—to Grecanico language and culture in Reggio Calabria were Greci di Calabria, Le Radici, and Madre Grecia. Similar to what is perceived for governmental institutions, the Grecanico associations constitute suspicious entities of political corruption and financial mistrust. I decided to focus on these associations because their conflicts represent on a microscale the tensions between almost all the Grecanico associations that act in the province. These associations are also representative of the various links, networking, and governance that are cultivated on local and international levels. Thus, I decided to give the associations similar pseudonyms, words deliberately chosen from the associations’ ideological vocabulary; words like Greci (Greeks), Madre Grecia (Mother Greece), Le Radici (The Roots). Grecanici fight for their rights to Grecanico cultural ownership and its appropriation, but on these battlefields Grecanico language and culture are regularly smoke screens that mask more elaborate financial and powerrelated interests. The presidents of the associations receive regular public criticism due to apparent discrepancies that relate to their relationship to the Grecanico language. “How is it possible,” it is often argued, “to claim that they care for the language when they do not teach it to their children?” The argument further extends to teaching Modern Greek, toward which not all associations are positively disposed. Founded in the 1980s, Greci di Calabria is the oldest of the three associations. It is self-defined as reformist and supports the exclusive teaching of Grecanico. Membership is granted on the grounds of origin, meaning that only Grecanici can participate. They argue that “ours is the most reformist among the associations which deal exclusively with the Grecanico language and culture and NOT Modern Greek.” Such official statements are direct provocations of other Grecanico associations whose curricula favor the study of Modern Greek, often requesting the dispatch of Greek teachers to the area from the Greek Ministry of Education. Alluding to a hierarchy of authenticity, Greci di Calabria argue that “we prefer to be taught our own language. Modern Greek will condemn Grecanico to death and this we do not want.” Greci di Calabria openly discuss the use of Grecanico language and culture toward the economic development of area Grecanica. This mainly refers to the refurbishment of traditional guest houses in their village of origin which

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were financed by the EU project Leader II, as well as the development of religious and cultural tourism. The association has been extensively criticized for being implicated in numerous local and international scandals and suspicions of financial irregularities. Madre Grecia was founded in the 1990s by Greek residents of Reggio Calabria and their Italian relatives. Strictly speaking, Madre Grecia is not a Grecanico association, though its direct involvement with Grecanico associations on financial and political levels makes its inclusion in this discussion pertinent. Among the main objectives of Madre Grecia we find: advancement and diffusion of the Modern Greek language, culture and tradition; care for Grecanico communities with whom the association shares a special attachment; and support for the Grecanici who through the passage of time managed to preserve their language and culture. Madre Grecia collaborates closely with the Grecanico association Le Radici. Le Radici is a nonprofit Grecanico association working toward the salvation of the Grecanico language and culture. It was founded at the turn of the millennium and the board is comprised of both Grecanici and Greeks. Even though the association has comparatively few members, it holds a relatively prestigious position in the administrative circles of the regione regarding cultural matters. This is due to the fact that the name of the association’s president is inextricably linked with major advances in relation to Grecanico culture over the last two decades. Both Le Radici and Madre Grecia advocate the simultaneous teaching of Grecanico and Modern Greek on their educational curricula. The insertion of Modern Greek into Grecanico language in order to fill linguistic gaps continues to be a thorny issue. Distinguished linguists Rohlfs and Karanastasis argued that linguistic gaps in the Grecanico language should be filled by Italian linguistic elements (Petropoulou 1995:204). The tendency to replace Italian words in the Grecanico language with Modern Greek was criticized by Karanastasis, who argued that the publishers of the Grecanico journals Jonica and Zoi ce Glossa provoked serious damage to the language by forcing it onto an ahistoric course (1984:xiii).15 Since the time of Jonica, the use of Modern Greek was viewed as attempted modernization and an “injection of cosmopolitanism” into Grecanico language and culture (Campolo 2002:241). The teaching of “ti glossa ton papudon ma”GO (“the language of our grandfathers”) and the initiative regarding the teaching of Modern Greek is approached differently by the associations. In selected Grecanici communities the teaching of Modern Greek operates on a more official and organized basis. The dispatch of Greek teachers from the Greek Ministry of

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Education commenced in Bova Marina in 1994 (2002:243) and in Reggio Calabria nine years later. The dispatch of Greek teachers had been requested by certain associations and even though the teachers are subject to the regulations of the Greek Ministry of Education, their presence enhances the prestige of the associations that “brought them to Italy.”

The Collaborations—The Accusations The president of Le Radici was the former president of another Grecanico association. He left the association after “accidents” happened to some of the association’s possessions. It is rumored that these accidents were the result of ’Ndrangheta retaliations. Since he left the association, he seems to live a lonely life and never appears in public places frequented by the majority of Grecanici. Similar to all the presidents of the associations, he is accused of a number of things. Primarily, he is accused of being a member of a Masonic secret society. According to some Greci di Calabria members, the most fearsome opponents of Le Radici, this explains the fact that he is well accepted in the political circles of Reggio Calabria, “which are equally Masonic.”16 Being—or accused of being—a Mason in Reggio Calabria is met with suspicion and fear. Freemasonry spread in Italy during the 1770s and 1780s and was a possible political solution to a future based on egalitarian and rationalistic ideas of the Enlightenment (Woolf 1979:23, 268–69; Mahmud 2014). In 1981 a Masonic lodge under the name P2 (Propaganda 2) was understood to be part of secret lobbies in Italy and America acting under the veil of the communist threat17 (Ginsborg 2001:144, Mahmud 2014:162–63). Calabria is perceived to be the region with the highest number of Masons and it is interesting to note that between 1976 and 1980 many ’Ndrangheta members were understood to have become Masons due to the exclusive political power embedded in this form of association (Ginsborg 2001:201). The president of Le Radici was publicly accused of diglossia regarding the 2006 Grecanico project CalimeraGO (“Good morning”) funded by the provincia, regione, and the EU. While he states that “Ta pendinta pedia ti piannusi, sto deftero chrono, me 500 eura to mina, echusi na ene grecofona asce rize”GO (“the 50 youths who are going to be chosen for the second year, with a wage of 500 euros per month, need to be of Grecanico roots”), he is accused of inserting people into the course who are not of Grecanico origin but directly connected with members of his immediate family.

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Madre Grecia is equally accused by both Greeks and Grecanici residents of Reggio Calabria of “money eating” and the use of Greek teachers for personal ends. Greek members of the community accuse the board of Madre Grecia of being driven by personal interests rather than collective goals. “Why does he (the president of Madre Grecia) not ask for Greek teachers from residents of Reggio Calabria who are qualified to teach, since the Italian law gives that opportunity? . . . But he wants to have political connections with the Greek government for personal reasons.” It is alleged that the power of the board stems from both the president’s extensive parentela and clientela (kinship and clientele). From the perspective of many Grecanico associations, Madre Grecia deliberately cultivates an ambivalent agenda and scope because, despite the fact that the board are not of Grecanico origin, they capitalize on connections to Grecanico associations on a national scale. According to Lucia, an active member of Greci di Calabria, “how is it possible to utilize a culture that is not theirs for personal reasons? And who has crowned them ‘difensore della grecità’ (defender of Greekness) in Calabria?” The president of Madre Grecia on the other hand directly accuses the Grecanico associations and Greci di Calabria in particular of exhibiting a “chiusura culturale” (cultural narrowness). “Why do they object” he argues, “to a broader use of Grecanico culture that could benefit us all?” The boards of Madre Grecia and Le Radici are on relatively good terms— members of Madre Grecia appear on the board of Le Radici and vice versa. They further collaborate when it comes to projecting Grecanici-ness to Greek tourists who come to visit the “Greek-speaking villages.” For similar reasons, Madre Grecia initially collaborated with Greci di Calabria. The collaboration worked perfectly for a few years as Madre Grecia could capitalize on Greci di Calabria’s folklorist music and dance group—one of the most prominent in Reggio Calabria—to entertain the Greek visitors. In return, Greci di Calabria benefited from the contacts the Greek president of Madre Grecia had with political and cultural circles in Greece. Yet, after serious allegations that both associations were implicated in an international scandal, the two irretrievably drifted apart. The organization of fiestas for the tourists usually follows the same pattern. A welcoming speech in Grecanico sets the scene and creates a climate of togetherness. Food, drink, and the tarantella dance—from a traditional folk group if possible—are an absolute must for a successful occasion. Usually the fiesta closes with a small open fair where books on the Grecanico language

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and CDs of Grecanico music are sold. According to what Pierre Bourdieu (1977) has defined as the necessity of tempo, Grecanico associations have invested considerable time and effort for over forty years to create a marketable Grecanico culture. It would be a mistake though to assume that this selffashioning is solely the aggressive pursuit of symbolic capital reducible only to economic and political interests. In the following chapters we will see that personal relations are engendered with deeper ties to the land entrenched through the sweat and blood of the ancestors.

Challenging Civil Society The Grecanico associations are ambivalent in their policies, for at once they employ exclusive and inclusive techniques of governance. Despite their success in packaging and disseminating an “authentic” Grecanico minority culture, Grecanici and Reggini seem to agree that the associations constitute a “job among others” despite their ideological content. As Nucera notes (1984/5:43), the “Grecofoni themselves participate to a very small degree in those initiatives.” While in their constitutions the associations appear as nonprofit political bodies of an inclusivist nature, when it comes to financial management their actions are, in practice, exclusivist. The main argument against the associations and their failure to include the Grecanici majority in their activities is illustrated by the fact that “we cannot stand for them to make fortunes on our backs. They have taken our memories and made them books. They did not give anything back to us. I do not mean money, figurati,18 just an acknowledgment, just to mention our names. We are illiterate, not stupid,” argues Toto, age seventy. The associations appear as “culture keepers” and as representatives of the Grecanici within and outside Italy, governing knowledge production associated with the minority. They also promote Grecanici identity through selective historical and folk narratives and propose a culture literally lived through books. While one might question the degree to which Grecanici require other people to represent them, associations do play a significant role in the political representation of the minority, spanning the channels of local governance (implication with the sportelli), regional and provincial programs, collaborations with the Greek state and associations based in Greece, and applications for EU-funded projects (Pipyrou 2012). Despite differences in the interpretation of Grecanici identity between those who participate in

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Grecanico associations and those who do not, all recognize the associations as lucrative political bodies possessing a considerable degree of power and authority. The associations fearlessly appropriate the Grecanico language and culture in an aggressive manner that does not shy away from internal conflict. When Reggini and Greek informants discuss the Grecanici they refer to the associations. Thus the Grecanici who comprise the association boards are at once “all the Grecanici,” a fact that further explains the general surprise provoked by my desire to include in my research Grecanici from beyond the membership of associations. The various forms of governance materialized in Grecanico associationistic policy are based on descent, linguistics, and blood, aimed at preserving language and culture from the classical era. The politics of collective victimhood is carefully played by the associations, elevating the first Grecanici migrants to Reggio Calabria to the status of martyrdom. Memories of the paddhechi, parpatuli, and tamarri are put forward to facilitate further claims for recognition in local and national political arenas. By claiming victimhood, the associations have been successful in awakening political sympathies from Italian and Greek states. On regional and national levels, Grecanici were offered protection and promotion of their historical and cultural heritage, culminating in act no. 482 of 1999 and the subsequent opening of the sportelli linguistici. The sportelli were the materialization of a successful attempt to acquire a degree of selfgovernment. During the first three years of their existence, the sportelli proved to be respectable sources of employment for Grecanici and Reggini alike. Grecanici can use their autochthony and certified knowledge of the Grecanico language to pursue a place in the sportelli, while the Reggini raccomandati can equally employ their education and connections with local politicians, professors, and other associations to achieve similar ends. The appearance of the sportelli drastically altered the collective perception of the associations, as it demonstrated how civil society organizations can decisively influence local authorities both economically and politically. They have proved efficient channels of power through which to affect the official governance of material and immaterial resources (see Zografou and Pipyrou 2011). On the one hand, the associations are an example of the success of civil society—the associations lobbied the government from below and eventually fulfilled their desire for partial self-determination. However, this was a messy and often exploitative process and it could now be said that the degree of autonomy from the state previously experienced by Grecanici civil society has been substantially curtailed.

Chapter 4

Hegemonic Networks, Kinship Governance

Sacra familiaria perpetua manento —Cicero

Kinship, Herzfeld argues, “carried the dead weight of outmoded assumptions” (2007:315). Like Fabian’s (1983) perceptions regarding the subject of anthropology, kinship became the “Other,” perpetually locked in direct association with Africanist structuralist theory. Nevertheless, kinship “has insidiously slipped back everywhere” (Herzfeld 2007:315) and is here to stay. Grecanici kinship is highly politicized and contributes to dense networks of governance and representation. With a strong emphasis on patrilineality, kinship is a political and genealogical order with far-reaching consequences for socioeconomic organization. The coordination of the next generation of relatives is desired by people who know exactly their own lines of relatedness. Grecanici regularly argue that “we are all relatives, we are all one big family.” From a very young age they learn how to depend on and care for their kin, emphasizing and justifying their political and moral dispositions according to kinship association. Family networks, obligations, and responsibilities significantly influence political decision making and affectively inform a sense of minority belonging. The first part of the chapter outlines Grecanici kinship with special emphasis on the preference for endogamy and first cousin marriage, preferably to the father’s brother’s daughter (FBD). Often, practices of first cousin marriage challenge preconceptions of the incest taboo in western contexts and reinforce locally reproduced concepts of the Grecanici as a “tribe” inhabiting

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the margins of Europe. For the Grecanici, endogamy maintains the rich cultural heritage transmitted through blood, as well as perpetuating strategic alliances and securing control of economic resources. On biological grounds, endogamy provides a linear connection to Greece, reinforcing Grecanici brotherhood with contemporary Greeks. The institution of marriage is an outstanding platform from which to examine the control of political and economic networks on a local and global level, especially as the expansion of ’Ndrangheta is based on prioritizing marriage alliances, consolidating global operations through a model of dense familial networks. The second part of the chapter highlights the political significance of Grecanici migration to Reggio Calabria and the moral and ideological implications of residence patterns. When the minority migrated to the city during the 1950s and 1960s the political scene was destined to change forever as Grecanici “colonized” whole neighborhoods (Cambareri and Smorto 1980). While the notion of geographical zoning is pertinent to analyzing residential patterns, it also has significant consequences for electoral support, affecting municipal and regional council representation. There is a pyramid effect as seats on the city council mean more influence at the level of regional government and in turn more authority on the national stage. When coupled with ’Ndrangheta infiltration and clientelism, family residence patterns are pertinent to further discussion of political representation and the harnessing of economic resources.

Part One: The Family and Kinship Identification Grecanici maintain a system of bilateral kinship classification that has a strong patrilineal emphasis. YeníaGO (“patriclan”) is the primary unit of organization comprising all patrilineal descendants who trace their origin to one apical ancestor (Alexakis 1980:36–37; Herzfeld 1980:344–45; Seremetakis 1991:25–26). The term yenía is most frequently used by people of the first and (to a lesser extent) second generation of migrants to Reggio Calabria. The Italian term razza1 is employed by the third and fourth generation and is the term I will use. Each razza may contain more than one sub-razza formed of male descendants who acknowledge a common ancestor. Both razza and sub-razza are organized around patrilineal descent (see Palumbo 1991), which is premised on two fundamental idioms: blood and name. First, the substance of blood is believed to be transmitted through males and is shared

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among people of the same patriline; second, naming practices favor the patriline. Luigi Lombardi Satriani (1989, 2000) has extensively examined the symbolism of blood and purity in Calabria (cf. Douglas 1966). Blood, in the Calabrian imagery, stands for life and continuity, immortality, and memory (Lombardi Satriani 1989:84–93, 2000:107–8). In the rituals of blood—for instance, flagellation during Holy Saturday at Nocera Terinese—blood symbolizes the sacrifice of the victims for the purification, prosperity, and pride of the family and community (Lombardi Satriani 2000:111). Following the Gramscian tradition on hegemonic relations between classes, Lombardi Satriani has associated the perseverance of ideologies of blood with the resistance of subcultures to external forces of modernization and globalization. In other Italian contexts, blood stands for the transmission of culture through affective qualities passed down generationally. In Burano, North Italy, economic interests and physical competence for hard work were once considered the outcome of common blood ties among economically strong families of fishermen and boat builders (Vianello 2001 in Sciama 2003:85). When researching Calabrian-born women who migrated to South Australia, Giulia Ciccone (2006) argues that women wish to “maintain their culture and traditions by marrying a man who had the same cultural background as their own.” Despite the fact that female Calabrian migrants emphasize cultural background rather than blood, in a foreign environment the terms are employed almost interchangeably. A similar argument for endogamy is put forward by Grecanici men, who insist that precisely because Grecanici husband and wife share the same blood, they are able to better understand each other and foster all the cultural traits—honor, respect, value—necessary for a happy and prosperous marriage. In Sicily, Maria Pia Di Bella (1983:231) notes that collective honor rests on the equilibrium between the “preservation of the purity of the blood and the name” through complementary gender roles. Women must secure the purity of blood through chastity while men are responsible for the social status of family name (see also Peristiany 1966; Davis 1977; Gilmore 1987; Herzfeld 1985; Dubisch 1995; Sciama 2003). Naming Practices The transmission of patronymic surnames further substantiates the emphasis on patrilineal descent. As in many European countries, Grecanici children adopt their father’s last name. For this reason Grecanici families strive for

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male descendants that can “transmit and reproduce the name of the relative” (Clastres 1994:134 in Butler 2000:94). Grecanici come to think of themselves as members of a particular family associated to an apical ancestor whose name must transcend time. Furthermore, Grecanici naming systems pertain not only to the patronymic surname, but also the first name and the nickname. The father’s surname is transmitted to the children, while the wife maintains her father’s surname. As a result of widespread endogamy, surnames are few and far between and continue to be circulated for generations. The firstborn child takes his or her first or “given” name from the father’s family—usually from one of the father’s parents—while the second child takes a name from the mother’s family. Nicknames (ingiuria, literally “insult”), usually inspired by physical or behavioral characteristics, are the primary code of identification among people of the same surname. For instance, in the village of Galliciano, Petropoulou (1999:136) notes that the nickname giatrosGO (“medical doctor”), was attributed to Raffaele Nucera, a medical doctor and landowner of the 1800s who is considered the founder of one of the first Gallicianesi patrilines. His nickname is passed down through subrazze in a similar manner to the genealogical first name and patronymic surname. It could be argued that at the moment of creation the nickname temporarily escapes the rigid structure of Grecanici naming systems. Yet, similar to the surname, the nickname is inherited by members of successive generations. After marriage, Grecanici women take the nickname of their husband but also keep the nickname of their father2 (Petropoulou 1999:144). Grecanici clans that lack male descendants must face the “extinction”3 of surname and nickname, as no fictive apical ancestor is employed to justify fusions or absorptions into other razze.4 Relatives are classified in two broad categories. Close relatives, a category that includes an individual’s consanguineal relations and parenti per rispetto (relatives deserving of respect), including the in-laws. First cousins form a special category of blood kin. The zzetreffáddeGO (“cousins”) are further classified into subcategories. First are parallel patrilateral, also known as cugini di sangue (cousins of blood), cugini di primo sangue (cousins of first blood), cugini veri (real cousins) (Petropoulou 1999). The terms are especially employed by younger generations while older Grecanici may refer to “cousinbrothers,” thus further emphasizing the partiline. It is often stated that the patrilateral cousin is “more than a cousin, is like a brother,” or “we are not relatives, we are cousins.” Second, parallel matrilateral cousins who are the children of two leddádeGO (“sisters”), also known as cugini di latte (cousins of

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milk). Finally, cross cousins, conceptualized as “just cousins.” The father’s brothers are considered “real uncles” and enjoy paternal respect, but the father’s sisters are not “real aunts.” Further complexities are introduced by rendering kinship terms in either Grecanico or Italian. Grecanico allows for a distinction between the terms anispíoGO and anispíaGO (niece and nephew) and angóniGO and angónissaGO (grandson and granddaughter), in Italian both orders are rendered with the term nipote. Similar complexities are encountered in the terms singeníGO (“male relative”) and singénissaGO (“female relative”), referring to a spouse’s brother and sister. Terms employed by Grecanici such as cognato and cognata refer to sister’s husband and brother’s wife and are regularly used by younger Grecanici who no longer employ the distinction in Grecanico. These four distinct terms account for four distinct relationships. One could argue that these are merely suggestive examples of language incommensurabilities encountered when working with multilingual people. However, depending on which kinship terminology is employed in discourse, power relations become more or less obvious. Accordingly, the Grecanici statement “here we are all relatives” is obviously true but does not exactly account for the question “what sort of relatives?” There is a fundamental epistemological concern here. For instance, the distinction between singeníGO and cognato clearly denotes the preference to patriline and blood relations while the homologation of the two relationships that of “kin of respect” and “kin of blood” in the term cognato denotes a bilateral system. Admittedly, a linguistic analysis is important, yet as Herzfeld (1983) argues, kinship terminology should not be confused with kinship ideology.5 For instance, the Grecanici concept of spitiGO (“house”)6 is an important relativizer of the patriline. It refers not only to the household—or more than one household—but also to patrilineal, affinal, and cognatic relations. Here the notion is threefold: first, the term accounts for the physical construction of the building, second, to the family that reside there, and third, to family descendants. It is then the ethic of spiti and the later used Italian term famiglia that dictates the equilibrium between economic, social and political relations (Davis 1973; Bell 1979; Minicuci 1994; Goddard 1996; Yanagisako 2002). Scholars of Italy have often pointed out that family does not hold an all-embracing meaning7 (see Goddard 1996). Grecanici kinship is at once an effective and affective formation of relatedness that has political as well as emotional dimensions premised on an intricate mix of desire and aggression.

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Kinship Endogamy Grecanici strongly believe that marriage between kin guarantees familial happiness and prosperity as well as economic and emotional security. Many female informants aged thirty to forty, from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, concluded that being married to a Grecanico man gave them the security that “nothing bad could happen.” They implied that divorce is highly improbable among Grecanici. Over the course of two years I only encountered two cases of divorce. The best case scenario for a Grecanico woman is marriage to a cross or parallel first cousin.8 As argued by both sexes, feelings of marital security emanate from the shared blood of spouses. Grecanici endogamy is thus dictated by economic, ideological, and ethical agendas. Until the end of the 1950s the majority of Grecanici resided in the inhospitable environment of Aspromonte, where cultivation was difficult and land needed to be kept within the family. Land comprising the patrimony was usually inherited equally among siblings, and dowry and marriage settlements were similarly important.9 On marriage Grecanici women were sponsored by their families with movable and immovable dowry. Corredo refers to the trousseau, comprised of the biancheria and the arredo della casa. Biancheria are the white sheets, towels, underwear, lace handicrafts, and other white linen or cotton cloth with which women “endowed themselves and were endowed by the womenfolk of their natal group  .  .  . all goods which defined them as brides and as daughters rather than merely heirs” (Sant Cassia and Bada 1992:99). Arredo designates the furniture and other functional household objects. In the majority of Grecanici villages before the migration to Reggio Calabria it was customary that a woman “porta la casa in dote”10 (brings the house in dowry). Even today the dowry is a tangible indicator of family status and economic wealth. Currently, both spouses contribute to the movable dowry and to household furniture, as well as to the expenses of the marriage, while both are usually provided with a house by their families. To a considerable extent, the land that once formed part of the dowry has been substituted by apartments, shops, and other real estate in Reggio Calabria that need to be kept within the family. The official abolition of dowry— introduced into the Civil Code in 197511—did not alter the Grecanici custom of sponsoring their children with a house. Closely related with the movement to Reggio Calabria and the change in the inheritance law that favors intestate successions, there has recently been a noticeable shift toward inter vivos

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transmission of property. Patrimonial property is transmitted equally between the siblings as inter vivos gifts. The issue of providing children with a house belongs to the sphere of responsibilities related to the general anxiety of “systemizing” the children, making them secure and independent adults (Galt 1991:312). The Ethics of the Corna Further ethical obligations associated with endogamy relate to taking care of one’s corna12 (horn). It is the responsibility of the male first cousins to marry one of the unmarried women of the family. “Prima cumbogghiu li me corna, poi cumbogghiu li corna di ll’ altri”CD (“I must first cap my own horn and then the horn of the others”). The corna here is something that needs to be capped, shielded, and kept inside. As an ethical obligation toward the family, “to cap the corna” regards a moral governance of family affairs, ultimately enhancing collective respect for the family name. To “cap the corna” closely pertains to the ideology of keeping women within the family. To “cap the corna” thus refers to a further disposition to keep women shielded and kept inside or “to keep all the girls of the family for the boys of the family” (Tillion 1966 in Goody 1983:43). The case below highlights a variety of dimensions pertaining to gender and power relations and why a family should cap their corna first before capping the corna of others. Antonio, age seventy, remembers: first I had one fidanzata [fiancée]—from the village—but I left her. She was puttanella [little slut]. First she had sex with me and then with another man. Then I met another woman who was originally from our village but her family had migrated to America. She wanted to marry me. She was very rich and tempted me. But the deal would be for me to leave the village. That was out of the question. Then I met Maria. She was 12. My mother did not want her. She wanted me to marry my first cousin. My mother was furba [canny]. She preferred her niece [her brother’s daughter] because she knew that she would take care of her when old. But I was determined to marry Maria. Maria continues the story: We were fidanzati [engaged to marry] for six years. One night he sent his grandfather to tell my father that he would not proceed to

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marriage until they gave me a sort of dowry. My father was negative. Then Antonio threatened to elope with me. After that my family agreed to a compromise. This story hardly represents a unique event in the lives of my informants and poses questions for the ethical reasons for endogamy. Antonio’s mother was determined to keep the women in the family for reasons primarily pertaining to her own welfare, for it is strongly believed that only people of the same blood are capable of caring for elderly parents. She insisted that Antonio should marry her niece. Antonio’s mother never really got along with Maria, despite the fact that the latter originates from the same Grecanico village and was obedient to her mother-in-law. In the same sense, Maria’s family did not want Antonio as a son-in-law because he was infamously lazy. They did not wish to provide a lazy person with a house, especially when he did not stem from their razza. For this reason, when Antonio made his demands clear after six years of being Maria’s fidanzato (fiancé), the family did not hesitate in refusing him. Maria’s wounded honor did not seem to matter as her family prioritized her systemization with a worthy man, possibly a relative. It was also clear that Maria’s family, being a razza buona (good razza), was already compromising by giving their daughter to someone inferior, let alone providing him with Maria’s dowry. Nevertheless, when Antonio threatened to run off with their daughter they succumbed. The honor of the family in this case is not related so much with Maria’s virginity, or, for that matter, retaliation for the lost virginity, but more with actually losing one of their own. Further reasons for endogamy pertain to the ’Ndrangheta that encourage, and often demand, marriage between kin. Carolina is twenty-seven, with a university degree. Domenico, twenty-four, is a painter. He was flirting with Carolina for a year but she did not seem interested. As a matter of fact she was negative about marrying him. A year later, Domenico asked his relatives—who are allegedly distinguished members of the mafia hierarchy—to intervene. Carolina eventually accepted, a fact that deeply displeased her grandfather from her mother’s side who still lives in the village. The grandfather’s reaction toward his daughter, Carolina’s mother, who passed him the news, was: “Puttana (whore)!!!!! What have you done? The people of this razza were my servants.” Carolina’s grandfather here, allegedly a high-ranking member of the ’Ndrangheta in his village, based his rejection of Domenico on his being from a razza tinta (poor razza). In such cases the intervention of

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’Ndrangheta members for specific Grecanici marriages results in the creation of possible new alliances between families of diverse socioeconomic status. However, the majority of Grecanici marriages take place within the same kin group and only in some exceptional cases do young men and women aspire for social mobility through marriage. For instance, educated young people such as Carolina aspire to a better marriage, possibly to a person of similar professional qualifications. Yet Carolina is already twenty-seven, presenting a social problem for her family. They eventually agreed to her marrying Domenico, despite the fact that he is a painter and of lower family status. The intervention of the ’Ndrangheta significantly contributed toward this decision. In relation to marriage dictated by ’Ndrangheta culture, Letizia Paoli justifiably argues that “women are also used as a commodity to strengthen the Mafia brotherhood.” While there are an increasing number of exceptions, she continues, “marriages are usually a means to establish ritual kinship bonds among Mafia adherents, and specifically to seal alliances with prestigious and powerful Mafiosi and their families” (2003:88). I certainly agree that marriage among mafia families does create strong political and economic links between the families in question. For instance, Ombretta Ingrascì cites the testimony of the pentito (penitent)13 Saverio Morabito who discusses crosscousin marriages in Plati, a village on the Calabrian Ionian coast, The cross-cousin marriages have served to maintain peace in Plati, which indeed is the only place where a vendetta has not taken place . . . the daughters and sons marry to each other, they become compari (co-godparents), they become relatives between first cousins, second cousins and third cousins. Thus, everybody knows that if they wanted to start a vendetta this would implicate everyone, and thus before they punish somebody they think of it three times. (2007:39) She further emphasizes the course of action that the famiglia Papalia resorted to concerning the case of a widowed female relative. In Plati a widow is always deemed as sexually available.14 Moreover, the chances of a widow with a child remarrying are severely curtailed or nonexistent. In order to avoid the stain on the family name it may be decided that the brother of the widow’s dead husband will marry her (Morabito 2007:37). Levirate marriage in such cases preserves the name of the family. The widow in the Papalia family, precisely because she is a member, albeit an affine, is privileged to remarry within the family. Thus she avoids possible sexual scandals that would stain

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her and her daughter’s name. This means her daughter would not be deprived of a respectable future marriage. Returning to Paoli’s argument on the commoditization of women, I believe we should shift the focus from sex to marriage. Young men are equally persuaded to marry women with whom they are uninterested in order to further consolidate relatedness and power between certain families. The ethnographic examples from Reggio Calabria are plenty. In one case a father of four married sons is jokingly said to have four young wives. This does not imply sexual relations between father and daughters-in-law, but refers to the fact that he chose the young girls for his sons. His sons have enjoyed happy marriages for many years, a source of pride for the father and a reassurance that he chose well. The following case of Lorenzo, thirty-five, married to a nonrelative, highlights the level of family desire invested in marriage. Lorenzo’s parents were planning on marrying their son with one of his mother’s brother’s daughters, Maria. The two families discussed a possible union between Lorenzo and Maria, since Lorenzo was studying at the university to become a mathematician. During his studies, Lorenzo had a variety of non-Grecanici girlfriends who were deemed acceptable by his family provided that he would eventually marry Maria. During this time Maria avoided courting possible fidanzati (fiancés). However, in his last year at university Lorenzo fell in love with a Reggina; not a problem in itself, as long as he would eventually end the relationship. But the relationship seemed to last longer than usual and his parents started nagging Lorenzo to abandon his girlfriend. When after two years his girlfriend fell pregnant with Lorenzo’s child, the family reluctantly succumbed to Lorenzo marrying a forestiera (foreigner). After fifteen years, Lorenzo’s wife is still considered by his kin as an “inappropriate and unfortunate choice,” one that “is destined to fail.” With an extreme aversion toward Lorenzo’s wife, his mother and Maria hope for the wife’s premature death, and for Maria to eventually take her rightful position in the family.15 When the desire for relatedness is the only thing that matters, kinship can appear as aggressively wielding an imposing force upon individuals (Gay y Blasco 2012a). By shifting the focus from sex to marriage, it could be argued that the greatest importance of marital union is the projection of two people as constitutive of effective and affective kinship networks, past, present and future.

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Taking Care of One’s Kin Grecanici migration during the 1950s and 1960s and rapid shifts in livelihood strategies did not impede inter-generational links (Pipyrou 2010). As Ginsborg (2001:74–76) notes, the Italian version of the postmodern world acquired a profoundly familial flavor. Moral considerations and material dependency caused Italian families “to express particular qualities of spatial and emotional proximity.” Similar to other Calabrian urban environments (Minicuci 1994:294), Grecanici reside in close proximity to extended family. Grecanici grandparents play a vital role in family life and are actively involved in raising grandchildren. The following case is illustrative. Amedeo is very proud of his palazzo, a building with multiple apartments on different floors. He never misses the opportunity to give me a brief report on how “expensive all these things are.” The house is comprised of his apartment on the ground floor, where he lives with his wife Giulia, and four apartments for his children, one on each floor. When entering the house, one must first pass through Giulia’s kitchen in order to “salute” her and whoever else happens to be present. Giulia helps her daughters with their young children, tending to them when the daughters are out shopping. Both the daughters and their husbands are grateful that their parents provided them with houses, “especially at present when you know how expensive it is to buy a house in Reggio.” Caring for elderly parents is something the majority of Grecanici consider their moral obligation dictated by cultura e umanità (culture and humanity). Despite the fact that the elderly are usually financially independent, they do not approve of professional carers. In a similar vein, the children do not permit a stranger to “touch the body” of their parents. The children, irrespective of sex, wash, clothe, and feed their parents when the latter are bedridden.16 To supervise the carer is also not good enough. In one rare case, two sons hired a professional carer for their mother. Even though the sons did not put the old woman into a residential care home, the fact that a stranger was attending to their mother was enough to result in losing the respect of their kin and neighbors. When the sons were mentioned, the conversation would always end in moral condemnation. Fortunata, forty-one, shifts the discussion in another direction. “Living in the same house with all the relatives, one never feels lonely. I remember that when my mother came from the village in order to go to the hospital I was terrified. But I was never left alone in the hospital. All the relatives were visiting us in rotation. We overcame the crisis easier because we were not

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alone.” Fortunata lives in the palazzo that her father-in-law built for his sons. Fortunata’s cognata (sister-in-law), Elisabetta, argues that things are not always easy living together, especially when their mother-in-law is “particolare” (particular, implying difficult). This last comment was actually made in front of her cognato (Fortunata’s husband), who did not raise any counterargument to support his mother. Despite being sisters-in-law, Elisabetta and Fortunata engage in different forms of kinship management. Elisabetta is always very critical of her in-laws and does not seem preoccupied in providing rhetoric of the united family. Fortunata is very careful not to reveal anything that would give me any hint of friction between her and her in-laws. On occasion I expressed a preference toward her elderly father in-law, Pietro, a very cordial seventy-year-old man. In one conversation with Fortunata and her brother Natino, I expressed my sympathy toward Pietro. “Yes, yes,” Natino said, “he is not as good as you think.” “What do you mean?” I asked. Fortunata’s reaction was instantly to stop the conversation that could reveal something bad about her father in-law. In a flash she nudged Natino in his thigh from the side she believed I could not see. That gesture was enough to make Natino divert the conversation. Fortunata wanted to end a conversation that could possibly damage the reputation of her in-law and also reveal secrets to an outsider. Natino also understood the meaning of his sister’s gesture. I understood Fortunata’s intervention to protect her in-law and pretended not to see anything, jokingly commenting on Natino’s nature of pazzia (craziness). Fortunata is married to Mario, forty-four. They originate from the same Grecanico village. Mario was born and raised in the neighborhood of San Giorgio extra in Reggio Calabria, while Fortunata, until marriage, remained in the village. Their marriage was combinato, which means it was arranged by the parents. The parents knew each other and were sure of each other’s social valore (value), assessed intersubjectively in terms of rispetto (respect). Fortunata did not know Mario because he did not go to the village as a child. Nowadays Mario and Fortunata reside in the village at weekends and spend all family holidays there with Fortunata’s parents. Natino, twenty-eight, is Fortunata’s brother, who lives with his sister and his cognato in their apartment. He is single and works in the local market in San Giorgio extra. Natino’s possible move to a rented flat is considered completely absurd for a variety of reasons. In terms of finance it is rather difficult for a person who earns 500 euro per month to sustain a flat. It would also entail Natino’s detachment from his own sister and the rest of Mario’s family.

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Natino living in a separate residence was never discussed by the family as an option, or assessed further in economic terms. This case is somewhat different from what Pitkin (1999) has described as “assisting the members of the family in need.” When contextualized in Grecanico culture, “need” automatically places the subject in an inferior and vulnerable position. Grecanici kinship morality does not allow for relatives to be in need. This perception accords with actors’ argument that family is an enactment of “relationships we live by.” First degree relatives who are not married stay indefinitely with their parents or siblings. Fortunata, Mario and Natino have a common bank account to which they all have direct access and collaborate closely on financial matters, as do Fortunata’s and Natino’s parents, Santina and Calogero, who live in the village. Apart from exalting the economic benefits of living with relatives, taking care of one’s kin exceeds physical preoccupations. The actors appear equally interested in taking care of kin reputation. On first impressions, Grecanici readily construct a façade of being “united in love,” as everyone speaks well of their kin. Parlare bene or male (speaking in a good or bad manner) about a person is a consideration that tantalizes Grecanici quotidian life. The phrase le parole volano (the words fly) denotes the constant fear that reputation can be harmed by words. In Sicily, Di Bella (1980:612) makes an interesting argument when contextualizing the notion of the phrase la sanguinità cammina (the blood walks). She notes that reputation is considered as inherited in a biological sense through the blood, in the same manner that reputation is transported through word of mouth. Therefore a mother considered to have a bad reputation bequeaths this negative attribute to her daughter. In a similar manner, a father bequeaths his reputation to his son. Words transported or transformed through gossip create a sense of community as open-ended (see du Boulay 1974; Herzfeld 1997:255; Schneider and Schneider 1976; Di Bella 1980; Dubisch 1986; Gilmore 1987; Zinovieff 1991). Actors are consciously preoccupied with protecting, constructing, or subverting other people’s reputations through conversation. Pervasive gossip as it may be, one must always keep in mind that “community is as much a forum of gossip and the generation of stigma as it is about communication and respect” (Edwards and Strathern 2000:151). Grecanici construct a strong sense of belonging by aggressively claiming membership of a wide web of kin relations. Taking care of one’s kin involves a fine balance between protecting and constructing family reputation.

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Gender and Economic Administration The everyday economic administration of the home is considered a female responsibility and women have direct access to family bank accounts. This gives them the opportunity to budget according to the family’s needs, pay the bills, and save money for unforeseen occasions. These obligations derive mainly from the prominent position Grecanici women assume in their households. Unlike the Neapolitan women discussed by Goddard (1996:184– 85), in the presence of guests my female informants do not remain silent. They perform their duties as mistresses of the house and their opinion is held in high esteem by the family. This is not to be confused though with public male rhetoric on patriarchy, where the man boasts about being the capo famiglia, the head of the family. As one Grecanico man argues: “I am the head of my family. In my house everybody is following my orders.” In a form of rhetorical auto-celebration, most of my male informants argue that their families are patriarchal in the sense that men are recognized as heads of the family. This primarily relates to particular concepts of honor that are cultivated among the first and second generation migrants and pertains to successful family representation. The head of the family, it is argued, “has the chance to establish himself as a good and rich man—to make alliances, to pursue the interest of his family, to establish his own reputation—from which may occur further advantage” (Davis 1977:179). Nevertheless, the following case challenges this rhetoric. Elvira and Bruno are a couple of thirty-nine and forty-four, with three teenage children. Bruno works for the provincia, Elvira in a sportello linguistico. She is politically active and despite the fact she is experiencing serious health problems she manages to balance her work inside and outside the house. Elvira has shouldered the task of emotional support for the family, including Bruno, whose introverted character has had disastrous consequences for his health, and also her children. Elvira is also dealing with her sisters’ financial, personal, and health problems. When I visit them Elvira is always in a very good mood, happy and humorous, never giving the impression of experiencing any serious problems. One day she confided her problems in me, which I already knew from other sources. She explained that if she collapses nobody can support her family; “Bruno and I know very well that I am the wheel of the family. I have my obligations toward all of them and that’s why I need to rectify my case [she refers to a serious health condition] as soon as possible.” Elvira strives to keep the morals of her family high

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and “to safeguard the household’s prosperity and prestige” (Davis 1977, 107; also Theodossopoulos 1999), and precisely because she is a woman of high social value she enjoys collective recognition and respect as “unofficially” head of the family. The role of women as economic administrators of the household has been documented by various ethnographers of Italy (Minicuci 1994; Goddard 1996; Pardo 1996). Grecanici believe that a female is more furba (canny, implying more effective in lifemanship) than a male. In discourse, the term furbo/a does not acquire negative connotations. As Davis (1969) notes, furbizia/ furberia is a positive aspect that shows the actors’ craft in effectively managing difficult situations in life, while Jane and Peter Schneider argue that the term is ambivalent as it denotes a capacity for plotting successful strategies (1976:83). Despite ethnographic substantiation that highlights the central role of women in the family (Goddard 1996; Ginsborg 2001:76–77), the stereotypical idea of the patriarchal family is a concept that is reworked from both within and outside South Italy. It further feeds the wider stereotype of a divided Italy between backward Southerners and progressive/modern Northerners. Gribaudi, interviewing southern students at the University of Naples, found that generalized assumptions ranging from the type of familial organization to the powerful southern woman and inheritance equality to be particularly mythologized, circumvented, and “rooted in the naturalness of common opinion” (1996:84). Ethnographic representations concerning patriarchy are built on previous material relating to concepts such of amoral familism (Banfield 1958) and excessive individualism (Tullio-Altan 2000). As Gribaudi rightly argues, the North/South divide fosters deeper political and economic interests and has provided “an ideal vehicle for rekindling conflicts and channelling hatreds” (1996:85). Assumptions concerning Grecanici patriarchy are mostly associated with a romanticized notion of tradition, as this is promoted by Grecanico cultural associations. In the majority of Grecanico textual representations, patriarchy, precisely because it is associated with Grecanico folklore, is endowed with positive, almost biblical notions of living in the Garden of Eden.

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Part Two: Spatial Organization The Way We Were The typical rural Calabrian house exhibits architectural similarities throughout the region and is built of materials dictated by local geology. The most common dwelling in Tropea consists of two levels and is of square or rectangular shape, while in Bova, Gasponi, Drapia, Brattirò, Spilinga, Lampazzone, and Zaccanopoli there are also three-story dwellings (Meligrana 1984:101). Houses in the area Grecanica are usually two-story dwellings.17 The first floor is used as a storage room and to keep animals, while the next floor is designed to accommodate the living needs of the family. The focolare (hearth) or a large wood-burning stove in the kitchen is used for preparation of the meals and for heating, making it the perfect location for family gatherings and socialization. The kitchen in Grecanici homes is a multifunctional room where people cook, eat, sleep, and socialize. The contrast between rural residence patterns in the area Grecanica and present urban patterns in the quartieri the Grecanici inhabit in Reggio Calabria merits special attention, for it is clearly a spatial context of kinship formation. Most Grecanici that reside in Reggio Calabria live in multigenerational families occupying an entire palazzo. This pattern is common not only among the Grecanici that inhabit Ravagnese, Sbarre, Gebbione, and San Giorgio extra, but among the majority of rural populations that migrated to Reggio Calabria during the 1950s and 1960s. Residential patterns are most easily observed in the neighborhood of San Giorgio extra for two main reasons. First, the quartiere represents the center of socialization for the Grecanici who live in adjacent quarters and who on an almost daily basis visit relatives and friends. Second, it hosts a conglomeration of Grecanici who originate from various villages in Aspromonte. Of 84 Grecanici extended families who live in San Giorgio extra, 73 have managed to build a palazzo. The families who managed to build were those who created a successful economic situation from migration to northern Europe and commerce. The families who do not own a palazzo are either very poor or one-parent families. Every floor of the palazzo is occupied by a nucleo familiare, with the elderly parents inhabiting the first floor for reasons of “necessity and control,” because “we are too old for all these steps and we have a good idea of what is going on in the house.” The concept of nucleo familiare in the Grecanici context should not be conflated with the anthropological term “nuclear family.” As Lidia Sciama notes in Burano, the term nucleo familiare denotes the household in conventional

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anthropological terms, while the term famiglia designates the nuclear family but sometimes implicitly refers to units of three generations (2003:20). Grecanici seldom speak of nucleo familiare, but when the term is evoked in conversations, it refers to the household and denotes the economic rather than moral and affective entanglement of kinship. The term is often applied by third and fourth generation Grecanici migrants in combination with the English term “privacy” (cf. Herzfeld 2009b:138).18 A large proportion of Grecanici who migrated to Switzerland have since returned to San Giorgio extra and built a palazzo, with the number of floors corresponding to the number of children in the family. After working hard for several years, they are proud to exhibit their modern palazzi, which can effectively accommodate their children and their children’s children. Other elderly couples of the first generation, who migrated to Reggio Calabria after having lived for many years in other adjacent quartieri, are finally residing in the palazzi they gradually built in San Giorgio extra. Accounting for a “history of the house,” its use and functions and transformations in Zaccanopoli, Calabria, Maria Minicuci is concerned with the symbolic and ideological dimensions of the house by juxtaposing la casa natale (house of birth) with la casa sognata (dream house). Living in a separate house reflects the progressive views Zaccanopolesi cultivate in relation to economic administration of the family. Extended family, when it exists, is viewed as an “anomalous situation” associated with old ideologies of family economic organization with the father as its head. This congregation of consanguines refers to a clan type of family organization (Minicuci 1984: 158 n. 14) that denotes the “solidarity of [a] group of people closely related to the head, living under the same roof perhaps in several domestic units but working as one productive unit” (Davis 1977:173). When the Grecanici use the term “clan” they refer to famiglia. Additionally, the contrast between la casa natale and la casa sognata, Minicuci argues, reflects the “diverse images and life aspects of the urban reality of which the tension between ‘reason’ and ‘pride’ becomes deeper” (1984:143). La casa natale is the beloved house that signifies the past identity of the individual, the family, and the community. La casa sognata embodies the amelioration of life and the dream of a better and more beautiful house (154). This type of house, especially the villetta (detached house), introduces new elements of social and spatial organization and becomes a symbol of social status, which reflects a successful professional and economic situation (157). In the same line of thought, Donald Pitkin argues that the extended

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house that “Giacomo built” to accommodate his children should be understood in the context of the economic rationale of the postwar economic boom. He maintains that “the close connection between the working-class family and the forces of production is in turn linked to changes in expectations of consumption” (Pitkin 1999:21). Grecanici palazzi in Reggio Calabria accommodate extended families because it is economically and morally advantageous. Instances of flexibility regarding family arrangements have been documented around Italy. These studies reveal the degree that kinship and relatedness is lived as encompassing humans, land, people’s constructions, and animals.19 In Montecastello, Sydel Silverman notes that a town house may be occupied by a single family or be divided into apartments occupied by other nuclear families (1975:20), while it is not unusual that farmhouses are clustered together or a single house is divided for two families (23). Silverman contrasts the three-generation family20 with the nuclear family. By so doing she maintains that “the family types existing at any given time are best regarded not as ‘regular’ or ‘deviant’ in relation to an ideal, but rather as alternative outcomes of certain principles that guide residence decisions” (Silverman 1975:180–81; Sciama 2003:76–85). Silverman is right to make a clear distinction between ideologically preferred family types and actual family organization. When asked, the Grecanici would readily identify neolocal and nuclear arrangements—in conventional anthropological terms—as the ideal type of family organization in their villages before the migration to Reggio Calabria. As one of my informants put it, “the couple needed space away from the parents.” In practice, though, the majority of family arrangements were not nuclear. The morality of Grecanici kinship and further inheritance rules contradicted possible ideals regarding nuclear arrangements. The primogeniture (daughter/son in various Grecanici villages) would determine who would inherit the parental house and the responsibility to care for elderly parents. This arrangement would never be perfectly nuclear. Other cases include an unmarried brother or sister who would never be left to live alone. The constant movement of my informants back and forth from their villages of origins, where they become active members of another household, problematizes anthropological notions of the family and household still farther. Grecanici understandings of family allow for the conceptualization of households as familial constitutive moral parts rather than physical entities. Household membership is fluid, allowing for multiple “potential households” (Lineton 1971). Despite the fact that members constantly move in and out of

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the household, they recognize their moral and economic obligations. Placing emphasis on the fluid nature of the household, “the possible misleading nature of the standard categories which anthropologists are apt to use” should be questioned (Davis 1977:174). Concepts of Space Reflecting Minicuci’s thoughts on la casa natale, Meligrana (1984) maintains that the distinction between a peasant and a noble house is ever-present in Calabrian imagery. He argues “that the peasant house is the point of a symbolic departure  .  .  . is the annulled point, dialectically connected with the search for another status or a different situation” (1984:108). On the contrary, the palazzo signorile (senior or noble house) “with its special architecture and its different levels materializes the social stratification of the community. The peasants ‘climb’ on the palazzo signorile and this has a symbolic as well as a real dimension. It marks the point of arrival, a higher social status and a possible life without obligation for hard work” (109). Meligrana maintains that the peasant/noble house distinction reflects deep-rooted peasant/patron and slavery/authority dichotomies present in Calabria (108). Polarities on the bases of power, Italo Pardo argues, are not so clear in the urban environment, “where relations of power may be unbalanced” since “urban life makes more immediate what is latent in rural settings” (1996:165). Grecanici palazzi are clear demarcations of family status and power. While they are tangible indicators of family success and their owners are exceptionally proud to show them off, they do not stand in opposition to Grecanici houses in the area Grecanica, being endowed with equal emotion and pride for different reasons. By examining the palazzi as embodiments of kinship arrangements I would like to further account for specific notions of privateness and publicness as they are understood by Grecanici and the centrality of particular spaces of socialization inside the house.21 Giovanni’s palazzo is the typical Grecanici house in San Giorgio extra, comprising of five floors—two occupied by the married daughters, one destined to the younger son, one spare floor and the ground floor occupied by Giovanni and Elisabetta. Every time I visit them we remain in the kitchen, sit around the table and they offer me coffee, homemade liqueurs, or other alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, or grappa). The kitchen is a large space focused on a striking kitchen table—I have never come across a small or mediumsized kitchen table in a Grecanici house, no matter the dimensions of the

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room. For reasons of practicality and sociality, the kitchen table is “the most important item of furnishing . . . where all formal gestures of hospitality are performed” (Hirschon 1993:77). In some rare cases where the kitchen is particularly small, the large table restricts movement but is still considered an indicator of the family’s social standing and therefore the bigger the better. The centrality of the kitchen table further symbolizes the control of the purse and hence control over the economic resources of the family22 (cf. Pitkin 1999:289). A Grecanici kitchen is a constantly transformable space subjected to the intentions of the family as well as a forum for politicization. It is not only used as the main space for family gatherings but also brings the outside of the house in, in the sense that a constant stream of people pass through the kitchen. Most serious discussions are held in the kitchen, where knowledge and information change hands. In this sense a kitchen is as much about the private as about the public.23 Grecanici conceptualization of space could not be captured in strict public/ private dichotomies. We need to understand that the terms private and public are better seen “as ideological constructs that define spaces, activities and persons in differing ways. The meaning and significance of actions and spaces need to be contextualised and we should not underestimate the capacity of agents to redefine and/or undermine such boundaries and distinctions” (Goddard 2000:17). I would like thus to account for notions of privateness and publicness that further problematize spatial arrangements. Visiting friends and relatives is on the daily Grecanici agenda. Most of the time people—usually men—arrive at homes uninvited.24 The upheaval that this creates does not seem to bother the patrona (mistress) of the house. For a very short visit the patrona offers coffee in small white plastic cups. In the case of a prolonged visit the guest is treated with more coffee—on request—or grappa (Italian arrack) or homemade limoncello (a liqueur made from lemons), beer, or whisky. Male guests are offered a variety of alcoholic drinks while women usually do not indulge in hard spirits. Visiting unexpectedly denotes the close relationship shared between guests and hosts. During these visits the kitchen loses any connotations of gendered space. The Grecanici kitchen then is frequently transformed during the day according to who is using it and the nature of that use. The kitchen space becomes public in conventional terms when it is intentionally treated as such—it becomes a forum for public debate or an intimate site of private conversation. When visiting Grecanici villages with my informants, I have

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noticed that not only do people appear at homes uninvited, but also they just knock on the door and after having asked for permesso (permission) enter the kitchen without waiting for a reply. Kitchen doors in the Grecanico villages are constantly open, even during winter. Ambasciata (communication of important messages), a concept that relates to passing on information and knowledge, immediately transforms the kitchen into a censored space as it presupposes a one-to-one discussion between the host and the guest. The host and the person who brings the ambasciata usually perform a formal, semi-ritualistic introduction if others are present, before entering into further discussions. The guest employs the Voi (“you” in plural) when addressing the patron of the house and asks for his bontá (kindness) for a requested conversation; “Col permeso degli amici e con la vostra bontá ho una ’mbasciata per voi” (with the friends’ permission and your kindness, I have an ambasciata for you). The patron must then address the people present and request forgiveness for the interruption; “Date mi permesso” (give me permission). The people present respond; “Permesso accordato” (permission is granted). After the private conversation the patron reenters the kitchen and says to his friends “Scusatemi” (excuse me), to which they respond, “E di che cosa cumpare?”CD (what for, cumpare [co-godfather]?) The formality of the above conversation indicates the degree of spatial transformation according to the eminence of the conversation. Before entering into a conversation, the two people must withdraw into another room. Notions of publicness and privateness within the house transcend any notions of physical space. “Boundaries can be moved, institutions overlap the private and public, and there are a variety of factors which define a situation as either public or private. These factors can be social, spatial or metaphysical” (York 1997:215). It is then the ambasciata that affects spatial transformability as well as one-to-one conversations in a public space (Herzfeld 2009b). Two people who, up to a point, may be part of a larger group in the central piazza, may detach themselves. They may sit near the other people or stroll for a while in a nearby road. They remain in public view and are still considered part of the original group. Yet, what is created by the presence of two people together, their one-to-one discussion and the fact that the rest of the group will not interrupt their conversation, is a manifestation of privateness. A collective understanding of privateness that accounts for these types of conversations renders them visibly private within the public space.25 We follow then a series of spatial transformations. In the first place, the kitchen becomes a public space where knowledge and information are

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circulated between hosts and guests. For the needs of the ambasciata, people withdraw from the kitchen seeking a more private place for their conversation. It is indeed the meaning of the conversation that renders the space private. Intention thus mediates and engenders public and private spaces. Palazzi and Palazzi The apartments in Grecanici palazzi are regularly comprised of three bedrooms, a kitchen-diner, a huge parlor, and two bathrooms. In the big bathroom there is occasionally a Jacuzzi. The large parlor is usually heavily furnished with separate three- and two-seater sofas, an armchair on one side of the room, a dinner table to accommodate eight to ten people, and a sideboard with a grand curved mirror. The curtains are most commonly made of silk or high quality cotton. Modern chandeliers are used to light the room while expensive carpets are “thrown” on the floor. However luxurious the parlor may be, it is rarely used apart from formal family gatherings such as important religious celebrations. While its purpose may be casually explained by the actors as “this is what modern houses have,” a more careful inspection reveals that the image of the family is played out in the display of this room (Silverman 1975:20). Its purpose is to reflect the modern vision of the proprietors that keeps them in line with the rest of the Reggini, as well as demonstrating the economic status of the family, which elevates them above the Reggini. Thus objects that resonate with life in the village are absent from Grecanici parlors. Affective objects (see Stewart 2012; Navaro-Yashin 2012) such as pictures of dead ancestors and close relatives, as well as religious icons and crucifixes, are displayed in the kitchen and bedrooms to keep people safe from social contamination. People believe in the “need for adaptation to the city life” and that “dobbiamo andare avanti” (we must move forward). These dispositions of love/hate for city life pose an interesting contrast to the “pro-tradition” representation of Grecanici life proposed by the Grecanico associations. In the studies published by the associations, an uncritical image of the Grecanici as stubbornly clinging to traditional life renders them living artifacts. Socializing in the kitchen is not a uniquely Grecanici practice; the majority of my Reggini informants use their kitchens as the principal room for receiving guests. Only people who belong to a higher socioeconomic status have received me in their parlor, where family affluence can be not only displayed but lived. These parlors, unlike those in Grecanici houses, usually are

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lived indicators of the history of the family, for they comprise elements such as antiques, rare jewelry, and coins endowed with memories and feelings, partial recreations of the family’s past (Seremetakis 1991:215–17; Sutton 1998; Kirtsoglou 2004:84, 97). Photographs depicting past relatives in political office are displayed on walls, and a library with rare and expensive books often dominates the room. The furniture is usually handcrafted with elaborate carvings and the upholstery is velvet. A combination of silk and velvet curtains and expensive Persian carpets are atmospherically lit with heavy antique chandeliers, while intense political discussions mingle with the smoke of the finest cigars. Neighborhood Identification As has already been noted, Grecanici residential patterns in Reggio Calabria were initially dictated by economics and kinship (Pipyrou 2010). In particular the quartiere of San Giorgio extra is the geographical conglomeration of people from Grecanici villages who are either blood relatives or spiritual kin. As a result, the neighborhood is comprised of palazzi that belong to first degree relatives and their extended families. The streets in the quartiere are narrow, and large palazzi on either side make them feel even more cramped. The piazza in San Giorgio extra represents the symbolic passage into the quartiere where the homonymous church of San Giorgio is located. Opposite the church there is a small haberdashery as well as a bar. The piazza, haberdashery, and bar form the main triangle of socialization, so that hardly anybody—on foot or by car—can pass without being noticed. Thomas Belmonte describes his area of Fontana del Re in Naples as the “defended neighbourhood.” Neighborly interaction, Belmonte argues, is based on “territorial limits, loyalties and ritual modes expressing local solidarity” (1979:41). San Giorgio extra, similar to Fontana del Re, provides sanctuary and security for the Grecanici who claim that they feel happier and more secure in the territorial limits of their quartiere. These positive feelings for one’s quartiere have also been documented by Richard Jenkins (2002). In his discussion of Sicilian identity Jenkins builds on previous understandings of belonging (see Cohen 1985) to argue that the neighborhood “conjures up positive, warm images of inclusion, mutuality and security” (2002:118). In the piazza of San Giorgio extra there are four benches that accommodate the men of the neighborhood, less often the women who visit the church, and occasionally the curious anthropologist. Despite the fact that the space of

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men’s socialization is actually the churchyard, they do not visit the church to light a candle or attend the liturgy apart from the Saint’s celebration day. To go to the church is considered a female task (see Dubisch 1995:210–11) and thus my male informants are absent from the everyday liturgies. The religious environment does not inhibit the men from being boisterous and rowdy. They argue about politics and football, and gossip, while enjoying each other’s company. When it rains, they gather in Carmela’s bar despite the fact that both Carmela and Elisabetta (Carmela’s daughter) “sono piperedde” (literally have pepper in the tongue, implying that they are sharp gossipers). Family competition is apparent in San Giorgio extra, for every family competes with relatives in terms of economic affluence exhibited in material possessions (Pipyrou 2014c). As Sebastiano put it, “if my neighbor has a house with three rooms, I must have one with four. If he has an expensive car, I must have a more expensive one.” The role of women in this economic competition is fundamental, and Grecanici men claim their wives to be the drive behind the increasingly ameliorated economic conditions of their households (cf. Kertzer and Hogan 1989:20). Even though these qualities are mostly grounded in female invidia (jealousy), their positive effects are widely recognized. The political language employed when describing San Giorgio extra is mainly spatial. The space itself is ambivalent, as it has been created recently, at the end of the 1950s, an era when no strict building regulations applied in Italy (Dickie and Foot 2007). It carries spatial notions of marginalization, inferiority, and peripherality, as it used to be an area of gardens beyond the city walls. It could be argued that the space is characterized by the vertical representation of kinship in architectural terms and the partial re-creation of village life—socializing in front of the church and in the local bar—within the spatial limits of the quartiere. San Giorgio extra is also called San Giorgio Extra Moenia (San Giorgio outside the walls). In local perception vivere fuori le mura (to live outside the walls) accords to the attitude of negation and conformity to the social rules, thus the Grecanici of San Giorgio extra are collectively considered as outcasts and rebels. These perceptions are equally shared by Reggini and Grecanici. Grecanici are proud of being Gallicianesi, Roghudioti, Bovesiani, contadini (peasants), to name but a few, and not Reggini. Such assumptions not only reflect ideological separations between cittadino (citizen) and contadino (peasant), city and countryside, but they echo pre-urban ideologies of the eighteenth century:

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the urban centres of Italy were “closed” cities, usually surrounded by walls. The walls, constructed and often expanded in the communal, seigniorial and Spanish period, served a fiscal rather than a military purpose by the eighteenth century, facilitating the exaction of customs duties on goods entering and leaving the gates. But they also acted as a clear demarcation line between the cities and the countryside. The cities were consciously and deliberately closed in upon themselves. The walls might (and usually did) include unbuilt areas, often intensively cultivated, but above all they acted as a visible boundary, within which space could be planned according to aesthetic criteria, food supplies ensured, public order policed and vagabondage excluded. (Woolf 1979:284) Diverse perceptions of urbanity and citizenship accord to different neighborhoods (Pipyrou 2010, Cambareri and Smorto 1980). According to Gaetano, forty-three, an intellectual and resident of San Giorgio extra (not of Grecanico origin), “San Giorgio extra is divided between the people who live ‘inside the walls’—the Reggini—and the people who live ‘outside the walls’—the Grecanici. The Grecanici residents of San Giorgio extra are fearsome, usually delinquents and they are implicated in the ’Ndrangheta.” The similarity between Gaetano’s and Lombroso’s (1980) argument on delinquency among the Greek and Albanian linguistic minorities is astonishing. Like conflicting Grecanici assumptions regarding their Greek inheritance of grandezza (grandiloquence) as well as their rhetoric of being victimized by the Reggini citizens, Reggini intellectuals shape their assumptions of the Grecanici on the influence of preexisting intellectual ideas. Lombroso is only one example of intellectuals who have explicitly influenced local assumptions regarding origin. Yet again, this is another example which substantiates the argument that literature and specific assumptions regarding identity are shaped in a dialectical fashion (Arpaia 2002). The ideological separation that demarcates status according to geographical delineations is also shared among Grecanici who do not reside in San Giorgio extra. Giuseppe, Antonio, and Patrizia (residents of Gebbione) claim that they share a more pro-Reggina identity, thus are more “urban, open, modern, and progressive.” They are proud to be somewhat free from the traditional family oppression, the over-excessive gossip, and the obligations posed by the parentela (kinship). For them the mere geographical separation emphasizes their distance from the paddhechi and their elevation to the

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social status of Reggini. They do not socialize closely with their cousins who live in other parts of the city; instead their social circle comprises mainly Reggini. The three of them belong to the third generation of Grecanici in Reggio Calabria and are married to people of non-Grecanico origin. These unions did not occur smoothly. Antonio cannot forget the threats of his mother, warning him that his marriage would fail because his wife-to-be is a Reggina and therefore a second-rate woman, dirty and without morals. Giuseppe, a professor of mathematics, was also instructed by his mother to choose not only “one of us” but also a woman of a similar profession. His mother’s argument could not be clearer; “I did not put all this economic effort to make you important for nothing,” implying marriage to an unemployed outsider. Patrizia’s father seriously threatened not to speak to her again after her marriage to a forestiero (stranger, but here meaning “outsider”). After eight years of marriage her father is still bitter about her choice, despite the fact that Patrizia’s husband is a bank administrator with a good salary, his own house, and two cars. He originates from a village close to Reggio Calabria and his family is well respected. Despite all these apparent positive assets, he is considered by Patrizia’s father as an unsuitable son-in-law on the premise that he is not a relative. In these cases, notions of pollution (Douglas 1966) as well as economic status interrelate in an indistinguishable manner. Of course, perceptions of inclusion and exclusion are relevant to the actors’ existing socioeconomic status and are dialectically shaped by it. In other words, Patrizia’s and Antonio’s parents pose a cultural argument while dismissing an economic one, partly because they are both of a high economic status, a razza buona. Giuseppe’s mother, on the other hand, who is a widow, equally emphasizes the cultural and economic qualities of the future bride. Giuseppe, Antonio, and Patrizia do not socialize with each other despite the fact that they are related through kinship ties and live in close proximity. Their parents live in San Giorgio extra and, especially in the case of Patrizia, “they feel very bitter with the fact that I married a stranger.” Yet, Patrizia maintains, “the things I was trying to escape from, turned against me because my husband’s family is really traditional (implying peasants from another rural area).” Patrizia allocates a lot of her daily time to “transporting” her mother-in-law by car to and from her appointments. Even though their relationship is not the warmest, Patrizia is very serious about her practical obligations toward her in-laws. Giuseppe, Antonio, and Patrizia openly express their admiration for their

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parents’ determination “to live according to their traditions.” They also admire their parents for being so close to each other and sharing the “special community” of the Grecanici. The three of them allocate a considerable amount of their weekly time to their parents who live in San Giorgio extra. They are informed of the latest gossip, and participate in all family events: baptisms, christenings, funerals, traditional holidays, and communal village patron saints’ celebrations. They also own shares in their parents’ assets—a flat each in the family palazzo. Further claims of avoiding neighborhood identification with San Giorgio extra are premised on the notion of backwardness. Elisabetta, for instance, born in one of the villages of the area Grecanica, lives in Sbarre and enjoys a high profile life after her marriage to a local politician. Her main argument is that the Grecanici of Reggio Calabria still operate as a tribu (tribe) because they still favor endogamy and exhibit a chiusura (closing, locking). Luigi, on the other hand, of Grecanico origin, born and raised in San Giorgio extra and a friend of Elisabetta, counter-argues that Grecanici have been incorporated into Reggini society without losing their distinctive identity. Luigi is a lecturer at an American university and spends his summer vacations in Reggio Calabria. His family owns a mansion in San Giorgio extra, where his widowed mother lives together with two immigrant Romanian helpers. Despite the fact that Luigi’s mother is still a very active patrona of their estate, Luigi strives to find a university job close to Reggio Calabria—in Messina or Cosenza. In our discussions he expresses his feelings of solidarity with his Grecanici neighbors with whom he grew up, but he carefully maintains his distance from them by emphasizing the fact that he is a lecturer and thus only a part-time San Giorgio extra citizen. Similar to Luigi, Diego maintains his distance from Grecanici identity by putting forward arguments of backwardness, emphasizing his professional occupation and place of residence (in the historical center) for his nonGrecanici identification. He is a distinguished dentist and politician and cannot afford to be associated with negative stereotypes. He claims that I, for my part, should not “frequent specific people for their connection with the ’Ndrangheta and under no circumstances to contact N., P., and A. for they are the most horrific among the Grecanici.” Allegedly, Diego is also implicated in illicit activities but this does not hinder him from adopting a stance of discernment (Pardo 1996:ch. 4) when it comes to compatriots of lower status with whom he does not enjoy the warmest of relations.

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The Building Blocks of Governance According to David Kertzer, a “people’s sense of community and neighborhood identification in southern Italy is subject to conflicting forces” (1983:68). In Reggio Calabria, the geographical division of the city into quartieri remains a significant basis for social identification due to strong stereotypical assumptions relating to diverse local areas. The movement of different populations with distinct local identities over the past decades, in the same urban area, has created the basis for new intralocal political and social possibilities. After almost sixty years since their initial settlement in San Giorgio extra (and to a lesser extent Sbarre, Gebbione, and Ravagnese), the neighborhood is still widely acknowledged and stigmatized as the quartiere of the paddhechi,26 Despite the fact that many Grecanici are politically prominent and with considerable economic affluence, they are still considered of lower social status by their Reggini co-citizens. The Grecanici inhabitants of San Giorgio extra appear reluctant to socialize in more central places like via Marina or Corso Garibaldi, which are considered the focal points of local Reggina life. They attribute this negation to the fact that they are psychologically and socially secure in their environment and put forward narratives of discrimination (see Goddard 1996:76 for a similar ethnographic case). This has resulted in a double negation on both sides. The Grecanici do not trust the Reggini, who are considered to be “twofaced,” “stupid,” and “dirty both in their houses and in their hearts”; “If they do not want us, we do not want them either.” Despite the fact that the Grecanici and Reggini coexist and collaborate in their political activities, they carefully cultivate a social distance from each other. When deeper forms of relatedness exist between the two, this is the result of a sharing of common histories forged over long periods of time. Local chauvinism is prominent in San Giorgio extra because the Grecanici have selectively re-created parts of their lives in the village in an urban quartiere. Even though the place of origin still remains a huge influential factor in social identity, the fact that people from different villages reside in one quartiere has created a different dynamic in the city. In the wider perception of the citizens of Reggio, the paddhechi are no longer of distinctive social origins but are homogeneously acknowledged as Grecanici, with all the paraphernalia that this representation entails. While kinship organization is the principal motive of family organization among the Grecanici of Reggio Calabria, community ties are weaker outside the geographical territory of San

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Giorgio extra and among temporary residents. Community ties in San Giorgio extra are the direct outcome of strong kinship relationships that “organise space and resources” (Goddard 1996:75). More than one household may constitute parts of the same family with permeable boundaries and kin flowing in and out as needs arise (Kertzer 1991:168). Furthermore, when actors mention the term nucleo familiare, this is to denote the coexistence of people under the same roof. The term Grecanici explicitly use to describe their kinship is famiglia, a term that encompasses effective as well as affective relatedness based on patrilineal preference. Family and kinship in Italy, as in many other Mediterranean contexts, are as much questions of morality and values as property relations (Sant Cassia and Bada 1992:16). The family palazzi are social and spatial demarcations of status and economic affluence, and their form came as an epiphenomenon of wider urban economic, social, and kinship discourses. Upon these bases of neighborhood identification, mutual stereotypes of superiority/inferiority and close kinship identification minority governance are built. Family and kinship governance, endogamy and the organization of the next generation of relatives are coordinated by people who know exactly their own lines of relatedness and strongly depend on their kin. Governing the future of the minority means securing blood succession through closequarter marriage alliance. As the outcome of the governance of relations, one observes how spatial governance takes place both inside and outside the home—from the kitchen and palazzo to the piazza and whole neighborhoods.

Chapter 5

Messy Realities of Relatedness

So far I have discussed conventional kinship organization among the Grecanici, based predominantly on sharing the same blood. Alongside blood kin, further lines of relatedness are pursued that create equally strong politicized links between the related parties, thus forming dense networks for minority governance. This chapter discusses amicizia (friendship) and comparatico or Sangiovanni (godparenthood)1 in order to account for kinship-like arrangements that infiltrate political domains. Civil society factions are predominantly based on friendship, godparenthood, and kinship, creating an ultra-dense matrix for claims to national and international resources available for the governance of the linguistic minority. In their desire to create new political relations and strengthen already existing ones, the Grecanici readily transform conventional kinship into non-conventional and vice versa. Non-blood relationships such as amicizia and Sangiovanni are exceptionally strong, and breaking such connections has severe repercussions played out in the mass media and on transnational stages.

Who Is the Relative? Kinship endogamy, which permits unions between first-parallel or crosscousins, has meant that Grecanici kin groups have varying degrees of binding biological ties. Grecanici kinship appears inherently embedded in biology, yet the ethics entailed from various other arrangements of relatedness provoke scrutiny of what is construed as “biological” and “social.” Kinship arrangements are further premised on fundamental nonbiological modes of

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relatedness that effect strong bonds between the related parties. Previous understandings of kinship based on a strict separation between nature and culture has led to the assumption that only non-western cultures are marked by kinship systems sustained by blurred lines of relatedness (Strathern 1992, 2001; Carsten 1995, 1997, 2000, 2004). Yet, as Janet Carsten has argued, “in the Western contexts, where we might most expect to find sharp distinctions between ‘social’ and ‘biological’ kinship, these boundaries often seem irrelevant, blurred, or difficult to ascertain” (2004:29). Arrangements that are kinship-like are mediated by “oscillating appeals to biological and cultural codes of relations by the various actors involved” (Howell 2001:204). These arrangements are characterized by degrees of handled ambivalence and tolerance that in the end permit the actors to consciously “negotiate a fine balancing act between biological and social accounts in which they undermine the paradoxes” (204; Thompson 2001). Nevertheless, in most cases these nonbiological modes of relatedness appear as another level of connection that reinforces already existing ones. As we have seen in the previous chapter, actors’ desire to belonging and to coordinate kinship governance is so strong that already prominent links premised on first-cousin marriage are fortified by further relatedness. This affects the way kinship-based governance is played out on the political scene of Reggio Calabria. Natino’s case is paradigmatic of this knotted mode of governance, which oscillates between what actors are supposed to do and what actors are actually doing. I have been told his story by numerous sources, as gossip leaves no space for private life in Reggio Calabria. Such an approach to people’s histories allows no secrets, and the most “personal” stories are quick to come out into the open. Stories that account for corruption, violence, love, passion, and deceit become public property circulated by word of mouth, narrativized, and ultimately historicized. Similar to many other ethnographic contexts, the subsequent events of some particular stories become a matter of local history in various versions, according to personal sympathies and collective alignments. Yet Natino’s story in its multiple versions epitomizes the negation of boundaries in the creation of relatedness that is exemplary of the governance I am sketching in this book. Natino is a successful politician with conservative leanings. He has been in the political limelight for the last twenty years, successfully climbing the ladder of power in his party and thus being elected to the regional council for the last ten years. He originated from a big family that has now spread to other parts of Italy and beyond. Natino’s biological father, Mario, was

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married to Patrizia, who was unable to conceive. Then—the story goes— Mario had a sexual relationship with his mother-in-law, Antonia. As a result Natino was born as a union between his father/brother-in-law and his mother/Patrizia’s mother, which makes Patrizia Natino’s half-sister. Natino was raised by his biological mother, Antonia, and her husband, who worked in the fruit market. Natino’s biological father, Mario, enjoys a respectable and mighty circle of friends, politicians and clergy. It was only inevitable that when Natino exhibited his desire to be involved in politics, Mario provided him with the most appropriate affective and effective support. Two striking points—apart from the obvious complication of kinship terms—emerge from this story. First, the narrators do not convey any feelings of disgust or anger for the apparent entanglements of sex and illegitimacy in the story. Honor and shame, while clearly being played out in this account, appear in a multiplicity of nuances.2 One is the shame of Patrizia, a woman in her prime who is unable to conceive. She is classified as barren3 and thus perceived as a half-woman. To make matters worse, her husband is rumored to enjoy sexual relations with her own mother, who in the end gives birth to her husband’s child. Patrizia’s mother, Antonia, apart from being caught in an extramarital relationship with her son-in-law, ultimately gives birth to his child—Natino. Natino was never recognized by his biological father as his legitimate child; instead he bears the name of Antonia’s husband, who finally raised him. Antonia’s husband in the end not only found his wife pregnant with the child of another man, his son-in-law, but ultimately raised and provided for Natino. It becomes apparent that all these actors need to succumb to a fundamental and pervasive desire to maintain relatedness; at all costs relatedness must be defended. The second point of the story is that we are not sure whether Mario was messing around with his mother-in-law for purposes of pleasure or because he wanted a biological child. In such cases, extramarital sex is a technique of relatedness and not of pleasure. Narrators leave a window open for speculation as they build their justifications on origin. Mario indeed was striving for relatedness but ultimately his methods (we are not entirely sure of his motives) follow the fact that he is not of Grecanico origin, so a cloud of ambivalence is conveyed surrounding the motives behind the extramarital relationship. It is assumed that a man of Grecanico origin would never do something like that just for pleasure but only out of necessity to produce children at all costs. I often counter-argued that if indeed Mario wanted a biological child he could have one outside his wife’s family or get a divorce. Surely, I

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was reasoning, the hassle would be much less. These suggestions raised many eyebrows and were immediately rejected as absurd. “Why would he want a child outside his wife’s family? Why did he need to ally himself with a different household? Divorcing a Grecanico woman was more or less out of the question. Surely logistically it did not make sense.” Indeed, according to this logic it would not be appropriate for Mario to divide his resources of power between two family networks. Having Mario as his biological father was decisive for Natino’s political career and subsequent success. It is narrated that Mario pulled out all the stops for his son and used all possible political connections to systemize Natino and teach him a safe way to walk in the murky world of Italian politics. It seems Natino was a very good student of an excellent teacher. Being a conservative, it is rumored that Natino consolidates his political power through close cooperation with the Church. The relationship is assumed as reciprocal since he is always supportive of the Church’s financial matters. Yet, according to local gossip, Natino has many other sponsors: the local ’ndrine and other economic lobbies are behind him. The narrators of Natino’s stories, in a very ironic manner, mentioned the miracle of the “Feeding of the 5000” to justify the fact that the required number of votes to come to power in one of the elections were far beyond the number of his electorate. His political manifesto revolved around family rights, which he promoted with eagerness. “Of course he appears as defender of the family,” the narrators continue, “But whose family? Most clearly his own, since he has appointed his wife, children, and other relatives to administrative positions close to him.” Apart from the obvious mistrust toward local politicians, the narrators do not condemn Natino for “playing a peculiar game,” since this is the “only game suitable for doing politics.” Playing with the system or more precisely come un uomo cammina (the way one walks) in his life, and more particularly in the political environment, is crucial for success and survival. Using and abusing the system is considered the landmark of governmentality in Reggio Calabria. More specifically, thinking about and doing governance is related to an ability to be in and out of the system in a simultaneous fashion. Historically, the “system” in Italy is associated with governmental institutions (Minicuci and Pavanello 2010), faceless and abstract bureaucracy (Herzfeld 2005), and the kind of civil society that further replicates this model. Carlo Levi’s (2000) observation on the centralized and abstract nature of power and governance or “governing at a distance” (Rose and Miller 1992) could thus never go out

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of fashion, especially since the European financial crisis that surfaced in 2008. He says, What had the peasants to do with Power, Governance, and the State? The state, whatever form it might take, meant “the fellows in Rome.” “Everyone knows,” they said, “that the fellows in Rome don’t want us to live like human beings. There are hailstorms, landslides, droughts, malaria and . . . the state.” (2000:77–78) The crucial issue of alienation between citizens and policy-makers resurfaces with a striking force when one looks at neoliberal policies as concepts and instruments used to organize contemporary societies (Shore and Wright 1997:3–4; Muehlebach 2012). The distance and abstraction regarding the position of the state vis-à-vis the citizen that Levi so colorfully captured so many decades ago seem to be revitalized in current neoliberal policy making, as it happens in Italy, which gives birth to irrevocable categories of classification of the populations (Palumbo 2003; Herzfeld 2004). Shore and Wright suggest that any modern analysis of the state apparatus should problematize policy, which in tandem with other organizing concepts such family and society has become “a major institution of Western and international governance” (1997:6). Natino’s case suggests a mode of governance of managing various sources of power at relative degrees of abstraction. Narrators view state bureaucracy, the ’Ndrangheta, family networking, and individual politicians, as indistinguishable sources of power that need to be managed and managed well. Family holds a dual position in the story. As a political manifesto, employed by almost all political parties in Reggio Calabria, family appears more as an abstract idea, a purified and unmistakably Christian entity. Its pervasive centrality in the political scene of Reggio Calabria is manifested in its constant appropriation and reappropriation, especially during election period. Stripped of its moral and political implications, the notion of the family is reworked—this time at another level—in order to be thrown back to the electorate by the majority of political representatives. Thus in his political manifesto Natino is a fervent “protector of the family,” a family that indexes at once inchoate and intimate relations, an all-encompassing context that hopefully will translate to votes. But in his case family is more like an intimate study in walking safely in politics that provided him the financial and

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emotional valences to reach a point in his life when he can return the favor to his own family.

Friendship Governance Further political alignments are premised on strong affective and effective relatedness such as friendship. Grecanici friendship refers predominantly to any long-term relationship that is imbued with emotions of love, devotion, and respect. People who grow up together irrespective of social status and economic affluence may create a meaningful relationship. Special emphasis is placed on childhood as a magical context where true relationships are shaped (see Toren 2011). Hierarchy and social asymmetry are no hindrance to the creation of friendships because Grecanici value friendship as affective bonds mediated by experience and common histories. Both sexes emphasize sociality and sharing time as important factors in the establishment of any friendship, and they engage in meaningful albeit performatively different relations.4 Gendered Accounts of Relatedness—Female Friendships Friendships among the first generation Grecanici women who moved to Reggio Calabria at the end of the 1950s are mostly realized within their kin. Female kin who live in the same palazzo usually socialize in the yard of the building where other women from adjacent palazzi gather to gossip and escape domestic boredom. Female Grecanici of this generation are very careful when they discuss issues of relatedness. While they admit they enjoy socialization with same-sex kin and other neighbors, they do not identify these relations as friendships and predominantly avoid use of the term amicizia (friendship). Women of this generation discuss relationships in terms of trust, cooperation, reservation, and respect; amicizia is more readily employed by women of the second and third generations. Older women cultivate a strong sense of antagonism that is materialized in gossip and invidia (envy). Any further thought of creating a relationship with non-kin is usually dismissed on the basis of mistrust. The women of this generation often put forward a social argument contextualized in the hostile social conditions of Reggio Calabria during the late 1950s, where “no nonkin were to be trusted.”

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Maria was seventeen when her parents moved to the city. “My family wanted me to marry Fillipo (her first cousin). Immediately after the marriage I got pregnant. Where could I find time for friends and who could I trust? I was afraid that other women from Reggio Calabria who were living in the same block of flats in Sbarre would make fun of me. I was the peasant and they were Reggini.” From Maria’s testimony, time and trust arise as two fundamental explanatory reasons for why her generation did not make friends outside the kin group. Especially after marriage, women were so tied to their domestic obligations they were restricted in creating friendships that would oblige them to socialize away from the house and with non-kin. Maria’s experience is paradigmatic of the nature of friendship owing to geographic mobility. As various studies of displacement have demonstrated, conflict, social exclusion, and the trauma of transition are experienced differently by successive generations of immigrants (Loizos 1981; Hirschon 1989, 2004; Cohen 1997). Especially in rural-urban migration studies and the massive movement of populations to the economic and administrative centers of Europe after the Second World War (Kertzer and Hogan 1989), the profile of the peasant was always negatively contrasted against the one of the urbanite (see Lisón-Tolosana 1966:16–17; Silverman 1975:107; Colclough 1992:44). The specter of social uneasiness looms in almost all narratives regarding the first years of settlement in Reggio Calabria at the end of the 1950s. From this period onward, a dense kin network has provided women like Maria with an affective space to counterbalance the hostile urban environment. She learned from a practical point of view that a female kin member can become friendlike, one who could listen and provide help with utilitarian matters. In these conditions trust mediates the kinship connection, in order not to abolish but to reinforce it by adding the social element of friend-like relationships. The experience of friendship among women of second- and thirdgeneration Grecanici in Reggio Calabria is very different. These friendships are not restricted to the household environment or the kin group. They are rather the outcome of women experiencing higher education and pursuing jobs in the public sector. Nevertheless, female friendship between kin is still considered the safest option. Relatedness in such contexts is expressed in kinship terms. A female friend (kin or non-kin) is considered as sorella (sister). Similar expressions of friendship that collapse relatedness into classificatory biological terms are also documented elsewhere in Europe.5 When established and galvanized in time, friendships may last for a lifetime.

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Possible reasons that could provoke the dissolution of the relationship pertain to moral and physical discourses of harm. Elvira is in her late forties and unmarried. She has two sisters, both married and living in Reggio Calabria. Elvira’s parents have both passed away, and she has inherited an apartment in the city and the paternal house in a Grecanici village. She works for the provincia during the winter and at a tourist-oriented cooperativa (cooperative) back in her village during the summer, when she is released from her contract with the province. Elvira has a university degree and is interested in politics. She has an array of very close friends, two of whom are her sisters. The other two women with whom she has built friendships are both from Reggio Calabria, and she met them both almost ten years ago. They are university educated with well-paid jobs, their own city apartments, and cars. Elvira always acknowledges that her sisters and friends have helped her with crucial health and financial problems, claiming that these four women are her family. As her friends are unmarried, the three women enjoy each other’s company almost every day Elvira goes to the city. Every time I visited Elvira I experienced her friends constantly coming and going from the apartment. Once the situation was so exaggerated that Elvira decided to put her mobile phone on silent to find some peace for our discussions. Elvira experiences friendship as “an idiom that often accomplishes roles typically performed by consanguineal kinship” (Kirtsoglou 2004:63). Friendship in this context is the result of a “fine balancing between emotion and practicality where friendship and biological kinship are not clearly differentiated” (2004:65; Bell and Coleman 1999:6; Weston 1991/1997). Elvira’s friendships are realized primarily outside the household and are thus easily observable because she is not a married woman and has more time to be publicly visible.6 I must also note that Elvira is one of the few Grecanici women of such an age that, due to being tied to education and politics and having experienced some past broken relationships, they have avoided marriage altogether. Married women in their mid-forties enjoy each other’s company equally inside and outside the home and draw their friends from both kin and non-kin environments. With reference to her work in an Andalusian town, Sarah Uhl (1991) argues that south European literature has mainly concentrated on the issue of male friendship while female friendship has been severely ignored. Similar to the material I have presented above, female friendship is ethnographically portrayed as “of the house” (Chapman 1971:125; Silverman 1975:208; Cronin

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1977:83). Uhl challenges the widely held assumption that women in southern Europe do not have friends by arguing that women solve their need for friendship “through a process of cognitively and behaviourally veiling friendship in domesticity.” These friendships are realized in a social space that involves the women’s households. A dense network of household-based female friendships “imperceptible in public contexts” (1991:92) stresses the importance of these relations throughout the town (101–2). I certainly agree with Uhl that the amount of literature on female friendship in southern Europe is very small compared to the material on male friendships. However, I do not believe this is the result of any sort of conspiracy—albeit unintentional— “between anthropologists and informants to portray friendship as public, male, and important, while minimizing or denying the existence of adult female friendship” (92). More recent studies in Europe locate the configuration of female friendship in the multiplicity of cultural roles that are performatively expected by the modern female subject where women are of the house as well as of the world (see Kirtsoglou 2004). Furthermore, it is my understanding that the problem of the misportrayal of female friendship rests on the ethnographic conceptualization of friendship as one-dimensional. In other words, there is an assumption that there can exist only one kind of friendship, invested with the same qualities and experienced the same way—not only by both sexes but by people of different origins, ages, and political agendas. Yet, for example, Grecanici women of the first generation in Reggio Calabria endow their friend-like relations with a more practical sense than women of the second and third generations who appear to stress the emotional aspect of their relationships. Of course one needs to keep in mind that the views of the actors are shaped in specific sociohistoric conditions and thus the way they choose to talk, or not talk, about their relationships, as well as how they categorize such relationships will differ (cf. Carrier 1999). Contextually variable concepts of personhood result in different appreciations of relatedness—friendship included. If we treat relatedness among Grecanici women “as a multivalent context with historicity and cultural depth” (Kirtsoglou 2004:63), then I would argue that we definitely cannot account for a one-dimensional model of female or male friendship. Locking male and female identities into one-dimensional gendered representations “offers limited opportunities for dialogical autonomy and empowerment” (Seremetakis 1991:222). With the ethnographic appreciation of various identity contexts, one can safely argue that gender roles seem more flexible and divergent (Dubisch 1986), hence proving that “many of the

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gender-related beliefs are categories that stand for and symbolize rather than define the nature of their subjects” (Kirtsoglou 2004:110). Gendered Accounts of Relatedness—Male Friendships Wolf emphasized the affective character of non-kin ties when he argued that they “are the product of social synchronisation achieved in the course of socialisation. The private relation of trust may thus be translated into cooperation in the public realm” (1966:9). Nevertheless, he distinguishes between what he calls “expressive or emotional friendship” and “instrumental friendship” when he brings attention to the clear balance of gains and costs entailed in a non-kin tie (10). Most Mediterranean ethnographers tend to agree that when a friendship can no longer be instrumental it ceases to exist (Brandes 1973). Furthermore, friendship is analyzed as a contractual dyadic model (Foster 1961) between people who exchange services and goods (Galt 1973). Galt maintains that “people become friends and maintain friendships through the exchange of services or goods such as small gifts or even small loans. Social organisation outside the nuclear family is a network of such exchange relationships” (327). Grecanici appear ambiguous when employing the term amicizia. While there is no linguistic difference between amicizie e “amicizie” (friendships and “friendships”), actors maintain that not all the relationships called friendships are of the same value and depth. Friendships formulated solely on the basis of exchanging services or goods, as the actors understand them, are to be respected, but they do not constitute true friendships. These relations are colloquially described as political or economic coalitions of a utilitarian nature. When actors say that “here we are all amici” they are conscious of the ambivalence of the term. As we shall see soon enough, amicizia is an affective term invested with moral qualities that are highly binding. In this manner, a purely utilitarian relation does not acquire negative connotations because the term that describes it is primarily invested with qualities embedded in the amizicia di cuore (friendship of the heart; see Papataxiarchis 1991). In this respect, Wolf ’s initial distinction between emotional and instrumental friendships is a sound analytical point (1966:10). An instrumental friendship in the Grecanici context may be short or long term, but it is not the result of shared experience, love, and common history; its utilitarian notion is consciously accepted, recognized, and respected as such. Furthermore, a utilitarian relationship also lacks a kin-like quality and a morality embedded in the

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Grecanici kinship system. My informants point to these utilitarian friendships as necessary and important if one wants to walk safely in the world of politics.7 Biological kinship is not restrictive in the creation of strong “true” friendships. Grecanici recognize a morality embedded in their kinship system and, despite the severe conflicts of interest that sometimes result in fatal ruptures, they manage to maintain their relationships. Grecanici men also generally pool their friends from the kin group, and these friendships are mediated by various degrees of managed ambivalence. The way Grecanici men practice and live their friendships between kin is a process of balance between biological determinism and social creativity and choice. The initial biological bond mediated by processes of time and shared experience is de-biologized in order to become contextually re-biologized. This is most evident in contexts where relatives refer to the quality of the relationship with their kin as one of friendship. “We are more than relatives, we are friends” it is usually said, in order to contextually privilege friendship over the kin relation. The opposite happens when a friendship between non-kin is translated into one of biological kinship. Terms that are indicative of biological categories of fratello (brother) and sorella (sister) are thus employed as binding qualities of kinship in a non-kin relation. Grecanici friendships can be highly asymmetrical. Nevertheless, social status and clearly demarcated hierarchical positions—as in the case of the ’Ndrangheta or politics—are not restrictive to creating and nurturing heartfelt friendships. Saverio, fifty-two, is a successful politician and member of the provincial council. One of his most beloved friends is his paternal first cousin, Enzo, who works as a self-employed builder. Enzo is not educated, nor does he enjoy the social status of Saverio’s family. Saverio’s father migrated to Reggio after the Second World War and was married to a woman from a very influential family in the city. Enzo’s family is of low economic status, but they are highly respected by kin and friends. The two men meet daily in a city center bar. They confide their anxieties and always manage to effectively help each other in critical situations. Their seemingly asymmetrical relationship does not really affect their dispositions to one another. Saverio does not feel superior to Enzo because of his involvement in politics. On the contrary, due to Enzo’s dense network of effective and affective relations, Saverio is very much benefited by their friendship. One may expect that Saverio, being a politician, could offer more—in terms of connections and patronage—to his friend. Yet, in the Grecanici context, visible power and

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social or economic position are not necessarily coextensive, as the two men consecutively operate as each other’s patrons and clients. In such cases instrumentalism is a necessary corollary of friendship. One simply cannot claim friendship without being able to demonstrate it with actions. I find it thus essential to further examine particular concepts of instrumentalism, morality, and love as they are articulated and manifested by Grecanici men. Onore (honor), reputazione (reputation), and amore (love) are analyzed as constitutive of wider moral taxonomies understood in the local context and correspond to particular ways of thinking about governance. These taxonomies “have to do with the public evaluation of behaviour, with degrees of conformity to a social code, rather than with hypothetical inner states” (Herzfeld 1980:341). By examining how instrumentalism is perceived among Grecanici I would like to sketch an outline of the morality of Grecanici kinship. The morality of caring for one’s kin and friends incorporates otherwise instrumental manifestations. In that sense one cares for one’s friends on multiple levels, material and emotional. Friendships that are considered as invested with emotions of deep love, respect, and devotion are tested in practice. When one cannot prove with actions that he cares for the friend, then emotions are seriously disputed. The morality embedded in friendship allows for emotional, practical, hierarchical, and egalitarian notions to coexist. Grecanici cherish their friendships precisely because they are the fruit of choice; you cannot choose your kin but you can choose the kin who could become friends. In the case that genuine friends fall out, a wall of hatred is often erected between the two. The following case is one of love and hate between ex-friends.

Brothers at Odds Lorenzo and Diego are cousins who grew up together in the same Grecanico village. At the end of the 1950s they came to Reggio Calabria to attend the liceo (high school) with the further aim to attend university. They were both perceived as youths of great expectations, and indeed they both flew high in their academic lives. After finishing university they became members of La Jonica, the first Grecanico cultural association, destined to promote Grecanico linguistic and ethnic issues in Reggio Calabria. Being cousins of first blood (patrilateral cousins), they were deeply devoted and called each other “brother.” They further supported each other on every perceivable matter.

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Yet, after almost forty years of devoted friendship, they fell out. The consequences were catastrophic. Lorenzo’s wounded feelings turned him into an animal every time Diego’s name was mentioned. Lorenzo often lamented: I was his soldier and he was my commandant. I respected, admired and loved him devotedly. I won all the battles for him. Until he started messing around with the power we had as an association and ignoring me. He wanted to gather all the power in his name. That did not bother me because he was always my leader. But gradually I started feeling betrayed. He had changed; he was not the same person I grew up with. Until I found out that he was preparing a big job without me. That was it! He had completely bypassed me and erased me as a friend. This battle materialized on every possible level—from micro-level informal conversations between kin, to macro-level public displays of conflict through local newspapers. Since they are both distinguished figures among the Grecanici (they are currently members of different Grecanico associations), they were further crossing swords at the national level when invited to Greece as cultural representatives. On one occasion they were both asked to participate in a European Union and provincial sponsored Grecanico course, which Lorenzo initially refused to take part in. That was a strategic move, knowing very well that the organizers needed him for the success of the course. After playing hard-to-get the first few days, Lorenzo issued an ultimatum to the organizers for his participation. He demanded three times more money than Diego, who had already signed up for the job. After his demands had been satisfied, he approached one of his best friends, a lecturer at a Parisian university, to help him prepare his tutorials for the course. As a consequence of his friend’s assistance, Lorenzo’s tutorials were a huge success and he was highly praised by both students and colleagues. Diego’s reputation as the expert on Grecanico culture was under serious threat. Two months after the completion of the course Lorenzo’s shop was blown up. Lorenzo, accompanied by one of his best friends, who is allegedly implicated with the ’Ndrangheta, made exhaustive inquiries among the local mafia affiliates as to by whom and for what reason his shop was attacked. After three days of investigation, the possibility of the attack having been instigated by the ’Ndrangheta was ruled out. Gathered in the kitchen of his first cousin,

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Maria, Lorenzo and his relatives tried to recall any possible details that could provide them with a clue as to the perpetrator. They discussed people’s invidia (envy) toward Lorenzo and how his reputazione (reputation), especially after the course, had reached phenomenal levels. But who wanted to harm this reputation? Invidia, Maria argued, is a strong motive for inflicting damage on the onore of another. After many days of long discussions with his relatives and friends, Lorenzo reached the conclusion that it must be Diego behind the attack. It was Diego, he insisted, who was humiliated by his initial veto of, and subsequent academic success on, the Grecanico course. This made Diego so invidioso (envious) that he plotted the whole thing to harm Lorenzo. Obviously, apart from spreading rumors, Lorenzo was not in the position to prove anything that could incriminate Diego. He was thus strongly recommended to forget the story and pretend nothing happened. This recommendation in the sense of advice and warning was given to Lorenzo by his older kin out of fear of a possible vendetta that would unavoidably implicate the relatives of the two men. Grecanici men are used to the practice of asking for advice. Chiedere consiglio (asking for advice) is a morally guided practice, one that regulates personal and collective interests. Consiglio (advice) provided by a person who is recognized as a charismatic individual may suppress immediate aggressive impulses and feelings of wanting to cause destruction. The carismatico (charismatic) is a person whose life has been forged through “the fire of hell” and has managed to survive the cruelty of the malavita (underworld). The malavita usually relates to criminality and prison. Only a person who has managed to preserve his soul after experiencing criminality and prison life can provide highly respected advice. The above raccomandazione was a carefully deliberated decision by Lorenzo’s older kin who acknowledged the powerful position of Diego. If Diego was indeed in a position to pull off something like that “right under the ’Ndrangheta’s nose,” then it would be better not to mess with him. It is rumored that Diego is not part of the ’Ndrangheta but instead a powerful Mason with strong political links inside the Italian Masonic lodges. Additionally, a possible feud between Diego and Lorenzo would implicate common kin, something the carismatico would like to avoid. Unlike similar situations when the kin would support a possible vendetta, in this case Lorenzo’s older kin deemphasized the event by highlighting the ’Ndrangheta’s ignorance. If the local ’ndranghetisti could not account for the perpetrator, then Lorenzo should humbly accept their deliberation and forget the whole

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thing. A friend has already offered to fix the almost 4,000 Euros worth of damage to Lorenzo’s shop, gratis.

Family Conflict Grecanici point out that when “so many things are involved in one relationship, it is expected that things like that (fatal ruptures) happen very often.” They all highlight that when a deep brother-like relationship endowed with love ends it often results in a deep brother-like hatred. Violence between brothers is as expected and accepted as love and cooperation. This is an old story “born in violence to the Bible” (Schwartz 1997:5). Violence is born within kinship and “structures of inheritance, descent and the conferral of symbolic property in the narrative are in the service of the system wherein identity is conferred at the cost of the (br)other” (80–81). The principle of scarcity regarding material resources that engenders violence seems to equally apply to emotions.8 Aggression and conflict seem to be derivatives of powerful emotions of love, hatred and envy and are constitutive parts of the local moral systems of relatedness that effectively indicate contextual—individual and collective— cultural and political regulations and transformations (Piselli and Arrighi 1985). Morality embedded in kinship, Maurice Bloch argues, is analogous to the “degree of tolerance of imbalance in the reciprocal aspects of the relationship. The greater the degree of tolerance, the more the morality” (1973:77). In the case presented above, Diego and Lorenzo are constitutive parts of a hierarchical relation described in military terms.9 Lorenzo was the soldier and Diego the commandant. It appears that Lorenzo is aware of this asymmetrical relationship, which does not seem to fundamentally bother him. As long as the two men share the same feelings of love and respect, Lorenzo in his confrontation with Diego displays a high degree of tolerance of imbalance as far as material reciprocity is concerned. The problem starts with emotional scarcity. What Lorenzo does not tolerate is an imbalance of values and emotions. Reciprocity in this case is a blurred territory that encompasses material and emotional goods in an indistinguishable manner. When Diego fails to reciprocate Lorenzo’s emotions, Lorenzo feels betrayed, and this constitutes the reason for his further allusion to Diego’s malice. It is Lorenzo’s wounded feelings that need to be retaliated against. Even though Lorenzo does not have firm evidence that the person who harmed his reputation by bombing

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his shop is Diego, he fashions a narrative aesthetic, whose “moral content undergoes constant revision and reinterpretation” (Herzfeld 1985:206). In his influential work on conflict, Georg Simmel has identified family conflict as a “type of its own” (1955:68). “It is the very intimacy of its common life,” Simmel argues, “the social and economic interdependence, the somewhat violent presumption of its unity—all these give frictions, tensions, oppositions a strong chance to occur.” Simmel is clear in his argument regarding the potential of kinship to be aggressive. Examined in the previous chapter, Grecanici endogamy constitutes an aggressive manifestation of kinship desires. Deepest love and deepest hatred seem to grow indistinguishably within the family. The conflict between Diego and Lorenzo is thus the broken outcome of a “premise of belonging together, of an external or internal, real or presumed claim to love, friendship, recognition, union of some sort” (Simmel 1955:52, original emphasis). The next case is one of deep love between Grecanici and a Reggino. It highlights common upbringing and sharing of time as fundamentals for relatedness. Giovanna was raised in San Giorgio extra, and she vividly remembers when the first generations of paddhechi, as she calls the Grecanici, came from their villages to settle in Reggio Calabria. For us those people were so different in terms of appearance and language. I remember a family living in a tiny house with two rooms, attached to mine. For us these different people were our living theater. We were watching them in their poor lives, speaking their strange language. When they noticed that we were watching them, they were switching to something that did not resemble the Calabrian dialect— now I know that they were speaking in Grecanico. One day they had a quarrel. They started exiting from that small house with the two rooms. But how many of them were there? Have you seen the advertisement for the small car where people keep coming out of the car without end? It was something like that. Imagine their living conditions. My brother was very fond of the children of the family. They were of the same age and he preferred to go and play with them. Even though my mother did not permit us to play with them, my brother managed to escape her attention all the time. He was spending a lot of time with the family. He was practically raised with them. When he went to the university to become a medical doctor he left Reggio Calabria for some years. When he returned, and even though our family

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had moved to another neighborhood, his first job was to visit the people he grew up with. They had all found out that he was studying to become a doctor. There is a system here in Italy. When you want to have a specific doctor you give him your National Health Number. When my brother visited them, even though he was just a student in the university and not a proper doctor, they collected all their medical numbers to give them to him. They wanted him to be their doctor. They were very proud of him. He was one of them. During the discussion Giovanna’s husband, who originates from a village in the area Grecanica, remains silent. While he has done considerable work collecting and publishing archival material on the Grecanici villages, he fundamentally does not identify himself as a paesano (peasant) and he keeps his distance from the Grecanici. He was brought up in Reggio Calabria, educated in the local liceo, and attended the University of Milan to become an architect. His wife Giovanna comes from a wealthy and politically important family. His links with his relatives are deliberately loose, and he too identifies Grecanici as paddhechi. For Giovanna’s brother, family status was not an obstacle for his realization of a meaningful bond with the “peasants” he grew up with, a bond that effectively lasted until his premature death ten years ago. Many of my research participants still mention his name with respect and love and become deeply emotional about their relationship with him.

Buoni di Lavoro/Buoni di Amicizia For Grecanici, instrumentality and emotion are equally important in friendship. Instrumentality is positively highlighted in the moral sense. When Grecanici say that “if I am not of use to my friend then who could be?” and “if I don’t go to my friend for help then to whom could I go?” they clearly pose an understanding of morality in Bloch’s sense. They are profoundly moral because the observed degrees of tolerance do not only refer to reciprocal services, goods, and alliances, but also to reciprocal feelings, respect and reputations as the following case highlights. Caterina is seventy-two and currently lives in a village in the area Grecanica. She has a considerable amount of buoni di lavoro—a particular type of shares from when her late husband was working in a factory in Switzerland. The shares are worth approximately 7,000 euros. Due to the fact that the

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shares are quite old, Caterina is facing the daunting prospect of losing the money. She asked her cousin Antonio who lives in Reggio Calabria for help cashing in her shares. After having carefully considered the possibilities and having sought legal advice, Antonio concluded that legally the shares could not be exchanged. He then asked Caterina if she would permit him to use one of his best friends, who is a broker—with a small commission of course. Without establishing exactly how small this “small commission” would be, Caterina authorized Antonio to consult his friend. Antonio immediately contacted Bruno and explained the case. Bruno appeared thrilled with the prospect and was willing to pull the necessary strings—allegedly illegally—in order to successfully exchange the shares. However, he demanded a commission of 3,000 euros. Antonio protested this was too much money, but Bruno argued that Caterina is an old woman; “how many years is she going to live?” and that “if we do not exchange the money then she will lose it all.” Bruno also calculated how best to spend the money earned through his commission. He planned to give a considerable amount to one of his best friends, without the latter having any prior knowledge of Bruno’s intentions, on the grounds that “he has had financial difficulties recently and my heart aches to see him like that.” In this case some points are of particular interest. First, it becomes clear that a dense network between kin and non-kin effectively facilitates services or goods to be successfully exchanged between people who live outside the city (Campbell 1964; Kertzer and Hogan 1989:69) and otherwise lack access to legal or illegal mechanisms of problem-solving. Mediators act as bridges between disparate geographical, cultural, and political contexts (cf. Blok 1974; Campbell 1964; Silverman 1975; Schneider and Schneider 1976; Pardo 1996). As patrons, or “friends of friends” (Boissevain 1974), people in strategic positions able to bypass labyrinthine bureaucratic mechanisms of the Italian state are highly appreciated. Second, there is no clear distinction between instrumentality and emotion in Grecanici friendship. When asked, the actors portray a sense of morality embedded in their friendships that appears as constitutive of their long-term relationships. Bruno and Antonio call each other brothers and their friendship is driven by a kin-like morality. Bloch clearly suggests that “if informants stress the morality of kinship then this is what we must understand” (1973:86). Grecanici friendship is effectively instrumental when it is emotional in its conceptualization, and instrumentality is then the real test of emotional friendship (see Pitt-Rivers 1973:97). Grecanici very eloquently

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and plainly argue that “if you cannot be of use to your friend you cannot effectively prove your emotions.”

Godparenthood: Sangiovanni Godparenthood in many Catholic Christian cultures designates “the particular complex of relationships set up between individuals primarily, though not always, through participation in the ritual of Catholic baptism” (Mintz and Wolf 1967:174). As a form of relatedness, godparenthood has been theorized in relation to practicality that privileges instrumentalist relatedness: more precisely what kinship does (Bourdieu 1977, 1990). With reference to Mediterranean societies, godparenthood is classed as spiritual kinship (kinship based outside relatedness through blood) and is practiced with the aim to establish “some kind of link which will transform an otherwise impersonal confrontation into a personal relation” (Campbell 1964:218). Most studies have analyzed the political and functional aspect of godparenthood, the creation of strong links with people who are not consanguineal kin (Pitt-Rivers 1973). In the seminal works of Campbell, Wolf, and Davis, godparenthood is approached as an essentially dyadic contract of economic character between the sponsors of the child in the case of baptism, or the bride and groom in the case of marriage (Loizos and Papataxiarchis 1991). Roderick Stirrat offers another view when examining compadrazgo among the Catholic population of Sri Lanka, arguing that relationships set up through baptism and confirmation are almost entirely devoid of political and economic content. Sponsors are not thought of as patrons either of oneself or of one’s child. Neither are economic ties important. In practice and in theory the relationships are without instrumental content, and it would be difficult to reduce the principles defining the relationships of compadrazgo set to some sort of epiphenomena of more ‘real’ or more ‘important’ economic or political factors. (1975:596) Godparenthood is an affective mode of relatedness that does not lack practicality. In the previous chapter I introduced a young couple, Fortunata and Mario, who, together with Fortunata’s brother Natino, live in Mario’s father’s

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palazzo in Reggio Calabria. The three of them collaborate closely in terms of finance with Fortunata’s and Natino’s parents, Santina and Calogero, who live in the village. In addition there is another person, Angelo, forty-eight, who is considered a constitutive member of the family. Angelo’s late parents were compari with Santina and Calogero, Angelo’s godparents. The two families had deep respect for each other, to the degree that according to Santina “the villagers were envious of us because we were collaborating so closely and effectively. We were respecting and caring for each other deeply.” Before Angelo’s mother died, she asked her comaraCD, Santina, to protect her only son as if he were her own child, “From now on, pretend that you have another child among your children; my son.” Santina and Calogero have honored their comara by giving her their parola, as dare la parola (give the word) was considered to be one of the most binding oaths in people’s lives. Angelo, in his forties when his mother died, works for the province of Reggio Calabria and was one of my best friends in the field. Every time he resided in the village, especially during the summertime when he was released from his work, he ate twice daily with Santina and Calogero, Fortunata, Mario, and Natino. As a personal friend of Angelo, I also ate with him in Santina’s house. In Fortunata and Natino’s absence, Angelo takes care of Santina and Calogero. He is responsible for emergency transportations to hospital, for minor issues such as when the telephone does not work, and for taking Santina and Calogero on day trips. He often takes them to various traditional music festivals in Bova Marina or other seaside towns, especially during the summer. The links created by Sangiovanni (comparatico) are of great importance, for they establish precise and reciprocal obligations and restrains based on respect and affective care between the parties involved. Comparatico di battesimo (baptismal sponsorship) is considered the most binding connection between the padrini/madrine (godfathers/godmothers) and the child as well as between the godparents and parents of the child. The comparatico di anello (sponsorship of the ring) refers to the sponsorship of the marriage, and despite being considered less binding than the comparatico di battesimo, it is becoming popular among younger Grecanici. The marriage sponsors are usually the couple’s best friends, but can also be the couple’s closest relatives. Lola Romanucci-Ross has argued that “putting a relative in a double-bond situation is considered strategically smart as well as emotionally satisfying, and it is somehow virtuous in the sense that it is a way of exalting the family” (1991:85).

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The links created with comparatico extend to the rest of the family members of the sponsored individual and the sponsor. The term compare is also used by the relatives of the people who have established Sangiovanni. Il compare del mio compare è mio compare (the compare of my compare is my compare) is a saying among the politicians of Reggio Calabria that highlights and summarizes the density of relatedness based on compari networks. Grecanici consider their compari extensions of their consanguineal kin and treat them with utmost respect. In the not so distant past when a man passed outside the house of his compare he would remove his hat as a sign of respect (see also Minicuci 1994:304). Further reciprocity characterizes Sangiovanni. The case of Angelo, Santina, and Calogero is exemplary for some fundamental issues, including the affective obligations padrinini/padrine assume toward their godchildren. Apart from being present at the most important moments of the child’s life (marriage engagement, wedding, university graduation, or other ceremonies related to personal, academic, or professional success) and the traditional gifts they offer, the godparents assume an intimate and dynamic role in the lives of the people with whom the relationship is created. For example, the two comareCD presented above, Santina and Angelo’s mother, facing the imminent death of Angelo’s mother and the daunting prospect of Angelo finding himself without parents, decide that Santina will count Angelo as a child among her children after his mother’s death.10 Despite the fact that Angelo is a mature man and economically independent, the prospect of being without immediate family is undesired. Santina and Calogero gave their word to assume the role of the parents in the event of the biological parents’ death. Dare la parola is a binding contract that legitimates claims and secures privileges. Angelo is promised a family and assumes the position of a biological child in Santina’s family. His privileges and obligations are in further accordance with the privileges and obligations of the rest of the family, relating to practical as well as emotional assistance. Suitability of the godparent is not reduced solely to sentiments that are thought proper for the relationship. Parents and godparents appear to be concerned about the fundamental well-being of the children in case of the parents’ premature death. At the beginning of this chapter I discussed female friendship and the various elaborations such relatedness assumes according to generation, age, and professional status. I have argued that Grecanici older women usually choose their friends from among kin and these relationships are endowed with strong yet indistinguishable notions of emotionality and practicality. As

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in the case of Santina and Angelo’s mother, the relationships between Grecanici comare are equally strong. These relationships are best described in terms of friendship, love, respect, and mutuality. The comare usually live in close proximity to each other and are often linked through kinship ties. They usually exchange visits on an almost daily basis and shop together in the local grocery stores and butcheries. Women who work outside the house usually meet their comare in local bars during their breaks. Comparatico transcends space and time. Giuseppe is a forty-two-year-old civil servant from the area Grecanica residing in Reggio Calabria. When Giuseppe’s compare fell terminally ill in Switzerland, Giuseppe flew there just to see his beloved compare one last time. Despite living apart for several decades, the two men deeply loved and respected each other. When his compare finally passed away, Giuseppe mourned for him in an elaborately passionate manner.11 Giuseppe’s wife describes the scene as “him screaming and pulling his hair out, throwing himself on the floor and howling so passionately that I had to remove the child from the house.” In various contexts I have experienced Grecanici men with trembling voices on the telephone when sudden news referring to the health of their compare is relayed. As I have noted, friendship is described in biological terms—specifically “brother” and “sister.” Sangiovanni among the Grecanici is a highly significant and binding relationship, yet in its linguistic expression it is not conflated with biological kinship terms. Despite the absence of linguistic references to biological kinship terms, the bond between sponsored individuals and sponsors and their families is intensely felt.

Simple Complexities of Governance In this chapter I have argued that amicizia and Sangiovanni are strong binding forms of relatedness. When relationships are not biologically ascribed, they are created through amicizia and Sangiovanni. Existing biological kinship ties are otherwise reinforced through the aforementioned media of relatedness. I have conventionally described both amicizia and Sangiovanni as socially ascribed, not because I wanted to maintain a line between socially and biologically produced relatedness. On the contrary, by exploring how Grecanici live their relationships I opted for a clear idea of how unclear it is to determine ethnographic paradoxes of relatedness in descriptions of social life

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(Strathern 1996). In the Grecanici context, biological relationships are articulated in terms of social relatedness and nonbiological relationships are cultivated in a biological fashion. Family relationships are thus created based on the sharing of common values, morality, time, histories, and social conditions. These relationships—far from perfect and harmonious—reveal a deep, almost aggressive desire of belonging whose aesthetic expression and evaluation find their way through love and hatred, conflict and mediation. Sangiovanni, as in the case of Santina and Angelo, indicates the multifaceted nature of Grecanici relatedness. In linguistic terms, Santina and Angelo address each other as compare/compara. This relationship, apart from the inscribed customary reciprocity, allows for a further enactment of parenthood on Santina’s side. Angelo is at once Santina’s compare but also, in his late mother words, an “assumed child” among Santina’s biological offspring, an entailment of emotional, economic, and residential character. Furthermore, Santina and Angelo’s mother were comare and friends. While in anthropological terms friendship is a social idiom of relatedness, in the Grecanici context friends borrow from biological kinship in order to account for these types of relationships. While the assumption that blood is what makes a Grecanico individual what s/he is, the explicit belief is that the same biological indicator accounts for the continuation of Grecanico culture. Grecanici claims to relatedness are claims to creation, as Marilyn Strathern has argued in relation to Euro-American kinship (1996:531). Longing to belonging guides actors to “join together disparate reasons for relatedness.” Thus “whereas paradoxes exist in the mind of the anthropologist and can become highly problematic, the same paradoxes need not bother one’s informants” (Howell 2001:204–5). The previous chapter gave a clear idea of Grecanici kinship in a traditional anthropological fashion. The present chapter comes as a realization of how murky Grecanici kinship is in its lived dynamic reality. Starting with the case of Natino, my further aim was to problematize and provide an insight into the kinds of governance exerted by Grecanici families. So far we have encountered various actors entering the category of family not just as “simple layers that sit tidily upon the other” (Simpson 1998, 2006:6) but as agitating particles that wrinkle the smooth façade of family. Grecanici always look to build layers of relatedness through as many channels as possible—godparenthood, friendship, kinship, ’Ndrangheta, and associationism. The channels oscillate, overlap, and rebound and all provide potential routes for governance. But this is not to say that the creation of such thick relatedness is purely instrumental. As was seen in the case of Lorenzo

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and Diego, the consequences of not fulfilling the emotional obligations of the relationship can have catastrophic consequences and end in hatred, violence, and possible vendetta. In the chapter that follows, the notion of family will be further problematized and critiqued in relation to the ’Ndrangheta, offering yet another example of dense, overlapping nexuses of relatedness and governance.

Chapter 6

Ancestors, Saints, and Governance

Under the generic rubric “Italian mafia” are classed the four well-known underworld organizations that exist in Italy: Cosa Nostra in Sicily, ’Ndrangheta in Calabria, Camorra in Naples, and Sacra Corona in Puglia (Gambetta 1988; Fentress 2000; Lupo 2009; Dickie 2011). In discourse, the term “mafia” is often used interchangeably with any of the aforementioned “mafias,” as an indicator of specific dispositions and type of organization. ’Ndrangheta is one of the most successful networks of political representation in Reggio Calabria that exceeds solely violence and extortion (Gambetta 1988:168–70). In local oral and textual accounts, examined in this chapter, ’Ndrangheta is a kinship-based mode of governance that places relatedness at the core of its conceptualization. Relatedness created through ’Ndrangheta ritual forms dense political networks that transcend the borders of the Italian state (Dickie 2011:9–10; Varese 2011). Legitimization of ’Ndrangheta is further consolidated via kin-like relations with the divine world through saints and ancestors that watch over and protect the mafioso. Saints and ancestors are employed to facilitate cultural and historical genealogy and justify claims to power. Playing a pivotal role in political life and acting as mnemonic devices, saints and ancestors guarantee historical continuation. ’Ndrangheta is analyzed here as an art and as a rationality of fearless governance, with a pedagogical potential constructed through oral and written texts. Grecanici as well as Reggini consider divine entities, including their Madonnas and saints, as their most distant ancestors whose memory is kept alive via ritual itineraries and collective narratives. Ancestors are tangible and their worship exceeds religious representation. For instance, it is

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remarkable that the connection between Madonna di Polsi and Saint Michael the Archangel is a constant point of reference used to legitimize ’Ndrangheta governance. Furthermore, the considerable number of civic associations in Reggio Calabria dealing solely with religious celebrations highlights the entanglement of religion, politics, and civic life (Brögger 1971:125).

Genealogical Memory For Grecanici, governance is realized through relatedness and genealogical memory. Grecanici are raised to depend on their relatives, who constitute the most significant part of their daily lives. Their points of reference—whether psychological, social, or political—are their kin. A narrative usually starts with reference to the closest and most respected relatives, namely the parents of the narrator, and proceeds to his grandparents. Even though emphasis is placed on patrilineal descent, no relative after the parents is considered as less “valid”—irrespective of being part of the patriline. Genealogical memory is very profound and is ritualistically exchanged on every possible occasion during encounters between relatives and friends: in bars, shops, familial gatherings, and even job interviews. Simple quotidian events and moral dispositions are analyzed, deconstructed, and reconstructed in terms of genealogical memory. When a person expresses his or her disapproval regarding bad encounters with another individual, this is automatically explained genealogically, such as: “I was always told that our famiglia had problems with them.” More important, these narratives inform present choices and provide pedagogical material for future generations. Grecanici were very happy to reconstruct their genealogical memories at my request because this complied with their mode of being in the world. Sitting around a large kitchen table and literally shouting at each other, assuming “a sort of theatrical performance, played out in front of others” (Bourdieu 1979b:141), they were amused to discuss their ancestors as well as their own deeds. Similar to the kitchen, the piazza of the quartiere is a prominent space where stories are exchanged, constructed, and reconstructed in a process of self and community formation and maintenance (Hinchman and Hinchman 2001:xvi–xvii). Grecanici almost liturgically listen to older men narrating stories of the distant past. As Paul Ricoeur suggests, there is a direct link between time and narrative. The externalization of experience, he argues, starts from the time the experience is spatialized and leads to the “proliferation of

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divergences through the deviation of individual works” (1983:80). Through story telling Grecanici engage in a creative game of governance. Not only elements of narrative such as the scene and action but also agency are deliberately transformed in order to convey and propose different interpretations, loaded with different messages (Bennett 2001:xxi, Pipyrou 2014d). Powerful metaphors such as blood, moral virtues, and love for the ancestors that pertain to Grecanico culture become parts of the story thus unavoidably informing reflections on the past and semantically loading current interpretations. The past adventures of dead ancestors are mythologized and usually romanticized. When an old ’ndranghetista nostalgically refers to his “past times of honor” while “the younger generations [of ’ndranghetisti] have lost the old sense of honor and respect,” this is an attempt to create a truth about a whole epoch he was part of, rather than to pose a discontinuity between generations. Narratives develop regimes of truth in a Foucauldian fashion that target present and future political dispositions.

The Pedagogical Deeds of Banditi, ’Ndranghetisti, and Others Predominantly through oral history, Grecanici emphasize the distant past and construct their stories through blood, descent, and kinship. Most narratives start with the phrase “La buon anima di mio  .  .  .” (The good soul of my . . .) and expand on events that refer to the person’s blood relatives. These events pertain to livelihoods, emigration to northern Europe, and heroic actions of their ’ndranghetisti relatives. Events of heroic action even date back to the time of the brigandaggio (banditry)—narratives regarding the famous brigand Musolino shift quite smoothly to narratives of other famous ’ndranghetisti of the area. Born and mainly active in Aspromonte, Giuseppe Musolino (1876–1956) is one of the most famous bandits, whose persona—endlessly reconstructed through narrative—closely resembles that of Robin Hood (Douglas 1915:287–92; Dickie 2011:196–209). His deeds are mythologized and romanticized and he is frequently evoked by the Grecanici as a fearsome man who fought against the rich baroni and passionately protected the poor. In one particular narrative Musolino is playing cards in a local bar in Aspromonte. He is admired by his co-players because he is clever and “a man of real beauty.” The villagers love him. In order to express his love and affection

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toward a specific man of the village, Musolino claims that the man’s mouth and chin belong to him (to Musolino) and that nobody has the right to touch them (a direct order that no one was to harm the person). Narrators who convey the story have never met Musolino personally, despite the fact that older Grecanici claim a blood connection with him. Nevertheless, the manner in which these stories are freshly circulated create a “Musolino presence” about a man who glorified his place of origin by being beautiful, an outlaw, kind and humble, and having his own rules of justice. Beauty, humility, and resistance constitute lawful governance in these stories. Active during the 1970s, the famous ’ndranghetista Enzo captures the imagination of many Grecanici who tell and re-tell his stories. Enzo also originated from Aspromonte and came from a large family. He was arrogant and very good with guns. Allegedly he was a killer (commissioned assassin) until one day “he met his creator by being assassinated by an opposing family.” He used to offer his services to the teacher of the village school by offering him regular lifts to Reggio Calabria in his car. The teacher was scared to death every time he entered Enzo’s car. “I could not refuse the offer of taking me back to Reggio Calabria, but I was scared to death. What if they decided to take him out whilst I was in his car? Yet, he was such a good honorable person. He was always very humble toward me.” These narratives of violent characters are endowed with a specific sense of morality and provide a navigational essence. Violence is not only justified as essential but further conceptualized as vital to any potential governance. Fearless characters such as Musolino and Enzo needed to be violent if they wanted to walk safely through their lives, because otherwise they would be eliminated by their enemies. Primordial assumptions of the survival of the fittest are often postulated as pedagogical dictums of governance. Ancestral stories are endless and fascinating, and are presented in such a manner that, lacking previous historical understanding of the area, one can easily be chronologically and thematically confused (see Knight 2012b). For instance, narrations that refer back to the era of the last piracy (1700–1827) (Errante 1986) are intertwined with stories of defending the Grecanici territories against ladri (villains). Informants refer to the era of the last Bourbons in the nineteenth century, which, both politically and economically, is considered the toughest era in recent Calabrian history. Further episodes of conflict with local barons to whom Grecanici have frequently refused to pay tax are linked with similar incidents of economic opposition in the newly formed Italian state (Astarita 1999). Stories of how their people humiliated the

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policemen who wanted to arrest them shift easily to the ways Grecanici women revenged their honor by stabbing to death the men who betrayed them. Further accounts of female glorification pertain to the women’s protests during the 1950s, demanding promised state economic support for their damaged houses after the devastating landslides. During these protests, the women, despite their absent migrant husbands, frequently burst into local police offices and threatened to kill the policemen. Narrations of men slicing the faces of women who betrayed them at the beginning of the twentieth century are mixed with contemporary narratives of crimes of passion. The ordeals of living outside Calabria in ex-military camps during the periods of heavy rainfall and the landslides in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s are exaggerated or played down depending on the narrators’ political sympathies. Stories accounting for the honor of ’ndranghetisti relatives are fashioned together with stories of local priests who used to have illegitimate children and carry guns. There is a consistent element in these Grecanici narratives, one of seamlessly shifting from the past to present and back to the past (see Knight 2012a, 2015). This does not mean that local history is recounted holistically and is thus homogeneous. Ideologically speaking, a person originating from one village of the area Grecanica would never associate the village’s history with that of another village of the same area because “those from . . . are a razza maledetta” (cursed). Depending on the speaker’s perspective, some histories do unite different localities because the protagonists “belong to the same shared space and time” (Minicuci 1995:79). Maurice Halbwachs has argued that collective memory is socially constructed within contextual matrixes such as kinship and other religious and social collectivities. Memories are contextualized, constructed, and reconstructed within groups with different pasts that provide diverse mental spaces for identification. “But these memories . . . consist not only of a series of individual images of the past. They are at the same time models, examples, and elements of teaching” (Halbwachs 1992:59). Reconstructed pedagogical models are not void of individual reflection or moral and social evaluation of the present (63). Genealogical histories provide a structure in which life, loyalty, and morality are mutually determining and are granted by members of one generation to members of the next in the form of ancestral heritage. Genealogical “representations of pastness” are geared toward the present and future and are reproduced in discourse, legitimizing power relations and lawful social claims through histories (Tonkin 1992:1–3). Through genealogical histories Grecanico culture is constituted in performative fashion in a

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discourse of “doing’ ” culture, successfully persisting through successive generations. The following case is suggestive. Toto, forty-three, comes from a very wealthy Grecanico family who migrated to Reggio Calabria before the Second World War, and ever since both men and women of the family have been implicated in politics with the PCI (Italian Communist Party). I usually met Toto in his office, where I had the possibility to observe his devotion to his father, who, albeit elderly, still visits his son at work almost every day. Even though they live in the same palazzo, Toto is very happy to receive his father in his office on such a regular basis. Toto says, If it was not for his and my mother’s effort we would not be able to lead the life we lead. My father always narrated to me the stories of our ancestors. Now he is doing the same to my children. I am not aware of the exact history as proposed by the Grecanico associations. I personally do not participate in any of them even though I know most of the people who administer them and they are my personal friends. I was invited once to be on the board of [name of the association] but I refused. I do not have time. What I know about our history is what my father has told me. Now he narrates the same things to my children about our village which he calls Covo di Ladri [den of the villains]. Because he refers to the era of piracy my children are making fun of him and they say that Grecanici were pirates. Toto’s understanding of the past runs in his blood, he argues. Structured by his father’s narratives and handed down to his own children, it “is a constantly moving process that does not fix a group of blood relations in motionless time but, as it were, accompanies the group as it forms and reforms with each generation” (Minicuci 1995:96). Toto approaches the history of the area through his father’s narrations. He is unaware of the historical accounts regarding the Grecanici, as these are communicated by the Grecanico associations, yet at the same time he is aware of local details he was never taught at school. His children, on the other hand, make a different interpretation of the same histories. For them, Grecanici are like the “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The film, together with their grandfather’s narratives, has produced a fascinating interpretation of their ancestors. Remarkably, these narratives have had a significant impact on Toto’s political life. He mentions that through these stories he became aware of protecting himself in his career: he is now

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fearless of political debate, standing up to his opponents and inviting potential violence. “These stories,” he argues, go back at least two hundred years. They are manifestos of truth that propose solutions to my problems. I am fearless of endless negotiations with my political opponents, I can bargain hard in order to succeed in my affairs. Nobody in my family is afraid of any form of violence not even my sisters. As people we have endless stories to look at. What anyone does with these stories is up to them.

Chalònero Chalònero, by Grecanico author Salvino Nucera (1993), is a novel written in Grecanico and translated into Italian. It is the only Grecanico text that—at least to my knowledge—refers extensively to the life of the Grecanici villages as organized and performing governance in terms of the mafia. It is considered an alternative voice that narrates another kind of story and is probably one of the most celebrated Grecanico texts. A piece of micro-history, the novel gives another perspective of the past that may not be circulated openly but nevertheless has immense power in structuring political subjectivities. From the beginning of my research, I was directed to Nucera’s text by many of my informants. “There is a specific literary importance with this account that you need to be aware of ” I was told on many occasions. “Chalònero”GO (broken dream) is the allegoric name the young protagonist of the novel assumes. The story unfolds in the year 1958, in a Grecanici village that Nucera calls Filosceno GO (hospitable). Chalònero is a young man of high expectations; he is eighteen years old and attends high school in Reggio Calabria. His dream is to study at university in order to become an engineer. He and his school companions are dreaming of changing their lives through their professions; they also aspire to eradicate old forms of governance that are present in their villages. Chalònero’s father Platocalo GO, (the one who speaks well), is the “optimal” among the “friends” of Filosceno. “Everybody knows him in Filosceno and in the nearby villages and everybody respects him. Nothing happens in the village without his permission. Not a single leaf moves1 in the area—it has been this way for the last eight years. Among the ‘friends’ he is the King” (Nucera 1993:15). Platocalo is getting

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rich by building new houses, restoring old ones, and constructing roads in Filosceno and the nearby villages. Chalònero is silently criticizing his father’s life and his lack of “good rules.” At that stage he is planning his life away from the village and the “friends” that govern it. In the opening scene of the novel we are also introduced to ScerocardiGO (hard-hearted). He is also a “friend” in the village and does not approve of Chalònero’s dreams of becoming a professional engineer. Every time they meet on the village roads, Scerocardi offends Chalònero. Scerocardi antagonizes Platocalo, because in recent years Scerocardi has climbed very high up the ladder of the “friends.” During the Christmas feasts of 1962, Chalònero kills Scerocardi with a gun his father gave him as a gift. As a fugitive at Polimandro’s GO (having many flocks of animals), house, Chalònero reflects on the real motives behind his father furnishing him with a gun. It is true, he reasons, that a man needs to defend his honor, but on the other hand isn’t there a hidden ulterior motive on his father’s part? Isn’t it also true that Platocalo was partly conscious of Scerocardi’s rapid succession in the hierarchy of the “friends”? Wouldn’t Scerocardi’s possible elimination then be a “solution,” without his father however having “ordered” it? In the first part of the novel, Nucera presents the mafia of the Grecanici villages, which he allegorically calls the “friends.” We are also given indications about the “friends’ ” operations and governance at the time. The “friends” are earning a lot of money due to their capitalization on the state scheme to provide infrastructure for the South. After 1948 the regions were allowed a degree of autonomy concerning town planning, regional road building, and public works, as well as other sectors included in the regional law, which however, only materialized at the beginning of the 1970s (Walston 1988:44). We are also given further information about the close networking of the “friends” in and outside Filosceno. In the story, Polimandro and Platocalo are friends of the heart. When in Polimando’s house, Chalònero assumes the role of one of his children. This role stems from the kin-like relatedness between Polimando and Platocalo. In Polimandro’s house Chalònero is gradually introduced to the life of the “friends.” Every night after dinner, Polimandro narrates to Chalònero the stories of the “friends” of the village, dead and alive. These stories are reserved only for people who are “friends” themselves. Gradually Chalònero is completely taken in by the ideology and life of the “friends,” until one day he is baptized. According to the ritual of the baptism, Chalònero gave the oath to the Madonna della Montagna (Madonna of the Mountain, also known as

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Madonna di Polsi) and recited various “secret formulae.” Thus he “was made” a “friend,” or better he was made a “man.” Now he would be able to enter the house of the “friends” and, due to his relationship with the “optimal” of the “friends,” he could rapidly climb up their hierarchy. The rumor that Chalònero killed Scerocardi spread in Filosceno through female gossip. One woman from Scerocardi’s kin saw Chalònero running away from the crime scene. She did not witness the actual murder, but nevertheless she, together with other kin women, put together various unrelated information and concluded that Chalònero was the perpetrator. In order to avoid his son being captured by the police, Platocalo arranges to move Chalònero to Rome to stay with some relatives. Without Nucera narrating how it happened, Chalònero is arrested and is taken to Reggio Calabria to face trial. He is sentenced to twelve years in prison. In the Calabrian prisons Chalònero has an easy life. He is treated well by the co-prisoner “friends” and is further introduced to their deeper secrets. His father uses his contacts to help his son appeal for a reduced sentence. Due to a well-prepared defense, the initial sentence is reduced to nine years and six months. The years in prison changed Chalònero drastically. Gone are the days he was dreaming of a life away from Filosceno and the suffocating “friends.” Now, not only does he fully embrace the life of the “friends” but he further aspires to inherit his father’s high position. The day Chalònero is released from prison his father offers him a Jaguar car as a gift. By that time Platocalo’s businesses have expanded to incorporate the whole provincia and beyond: in Sicily, Naples, and America. Abroad, the “optimal friends” respected Platocalo, but in Filosceno his support was in decline. “Platocalo was taking all the contracts. Where there was money, there he was. Gradually he was accustomed to keeping all the profit to himself without distributing to the village “friends” not even his ‘crumbs’ ” (Nucera 1993:187). Platocalo was eliminated by two killers. It was said that it was possibly Scerocardi’s family who ordered his death. The other rumor— probably much closer to the truth—attributed Platocalo’s death to the dissatisfaction of the “friends’ ” of the village, due to his augmenting prestige and notoriety. Other much younger “friends” were aspiring to occupy his post. In the subsequent elections among the “friends,” Chalònero was not elected as the “optimal” of Filosceno. The pain provoked by his father’s death combined with a constant fear that the new “optimal” could also order Chalònero’s elimination devoured his life. In his desperation he buys a huge plot of land by the sea where he builds

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a new modern house; he also brings his mother from Filosceno to live with him. He even marries the daughter of an “optimal friend” of another village, hoping that way he can regain his lost position in Filosceno. In time his star declined and faded more and more in the village. Lost friends, others eliminated. Nobody knew who was to be killed next. Only voices. Nobody knew the motive. Voices . . . Chalònero was residing by the sea, constantly delusional, pulling in money from wherever he could. The new power equilibriums did not change. The years were passing but he was dreaming constantly. He was dreaming that one day he could occupy his father’s post among the “friends.” But he could not do anything about this. He was just waiting and dreaming. Who knows if one day he will realize his dream . . . Dreams, dreams born during the night and destroyed by the first morning light. (Nucera 1993:193) Why is this novel important and why is this story included here? Salvino Nucera himself is a very important person in Grecanico history and local politics. His account holds a specific importance in the sense that it paved the way for a particular literary pessimism and style of writing when addressing Grecanici matters. On many occasions it has been argued that his work is important as he manages to critique mafia on the one hand but on the other he captures something of our history in a fashion that is not condemnable. You see nobody dares to discuss the mafia openly as a historical and cultural reality—but he was clever, very clever. If you know the context you could figure out the events he refers to but who could condemn a novel? It is clever don’t you think? Nucera’s quasi-ethnographic account offers a critical view of the Calabrian mafia from within. The name he selects for his protagonist is not casual. Chalònero—broken dream—is more than a name. It represents the life that is broken because it is conditioned by the presence of the mafia. Nucera appears very pessimistic, almost fatalist, and mafia is represented as a vicious circle from which nobody escapes. It is almost a kind of panopticon in Foucauldian terms, where people are continuously watched and controlled. In a similar vein, Chalònero himself is presented as caught between two opposite worlds: the world of the “friends” and thus the world of his family, and his

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own view of a world fashioned through the power of education. The whole novel is principally about violence, governance, and violation—a constant resolution of conflicts through violence—and we are left to wonder whether things would have been different had Chalònero not killed Scerocardi. Nevertheless, the circle of violence is completed when Chalònero aspires to inherit his father’s top position among the “friends” of Filosceno. Nucera concludes his novel abominating the fatal determinism of a system of social and economic dependence that allows access to power only through highly restrictive channels.

The ’Ndrangheta The term “’Ndrangheta” has been adopted by many scholars in order to indicate the Calabrian mafia and most prominently the mafia of Reggio Calabria (Paoli 2003:29). The word derives from the Greek andragathía, translated as “act of courage, prudence, artfulness, glorious action, the mode that pertains to a man of glory” (Messina 1990:60). Etymologically it is the culmination of the prefix ’ανήρ, ’ανδρός (anér, andrós = man), and the suffix αγαθός (agathós = good, virtuous).2 In the best-seller Grecanico vocabulary of Filippo Condemi the word appears as andranghetaGO, “a name that the organized criminality in Calabria, assumes” (2006:479). The Calabrian mafia appears in the accounts of local courts and in police reports from 1880 (Paoli 2003:36; Dickie 2011) under different names such as “mafia,” “camorra,” uccelli di rapita (birds of kidnap), associazione di malfattori (association of the perpetrators), associazione dei picciotti (association of the picciotti3) (Gratteri and Nicaso 2007:219) when they operated in the territories of Nicastro to Palmi and Reggio Calabria. The definition honorata società (honored society) appears after 1903 and refers to a formal body with a proper hierarchical structure and constitution (28). The story behind the adoption of the term ’Ndrangheta is not that clear. ’Ndrangheta appears for the first time in Alvaro’s article published in Corriere della Sera on 17 December 1955 (Gratteri and Nicaso 2007:37). It captured the imagination of journalists and scholars of the era because it alludes to a distant past when the whole of Calabria spoke Greek. Alvaro himself, born and raised in San Luca, a village of Aspromonte where much Greek vocabulary has been preserved, used the term to describe a type of association comprised of the men of the village (37). In a very interesting article, Paolo

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Martino (1988) has suggested that the Calabrian mafia worked on a kind of historical/religious constructivism of its own, capitalizing on techniques of identity construction similar to nationalism. It could be argued that the adoption of the name ’Ndrangheta was a conscious effort to tap into the powerful cultural capital of a glorious past and evoke the prestigious ancestry of Magna Graecia. ’Ndrangheta suggests a cultural continuation among people of diverse origin, social status and political dispositions in the province of Reggio Calabria (Arlacchi 1983:1), with myths of origin systematically circulated in narrative, on the internet and through music. “Once upon a time—in a nebulous past—three Castilian brothers of noble origin, Osso, Mastrosso and Carcagnosso, devoted to San Michele Arcangelo (Saint Michael the Archangel) and the saints Cosma and Damiano escaped from Madrid because they fell out with a potent local noble. After having found refuge on the isle of Favignana, they decided to follow different paths. Mastrosso went to Naples where he founded the Camorra, Carcagnosso went to Calabria where he founded the ’Ndrangheta and Osso set off to Palermo, Sicily, where he founded the Mafia” (Messina 1990:7). In another version of this myth of origin, the figures of the three Spaniards are occupied by Jesus Christ, Saint Michael the Archangel, and Saint Peter (Gratteri and Nicaso 2007:80). Locating the origin of the mafia outside Italy (Fentress 2000), the former version is the most common myth about the origin of the Italian mafia and is circulated on internet pages, books and journals, music, and even mobile phone ring-tones. These myths place religious kinship at the heart of the ’Ndrangheta and stress the continuity of the divine ’Ndrangheta, seen in the form of a direct genealogical line back to its founding saints/ancestors. Kinship links endowed with religious authority become forms of governance traced not only retrospectively but also—and perhaps most important— futuristically through the connection between Saint Michael the Archangel and new generations of ’ndranghetisti. A change in the quality of relations forged through various time contexts entails an important transformation to the nature of these relations as immortal. As a social phenomenon, mafia has occupied the Italian political, historical, and economic scene for over a century.4 Many researchers have placed the genesis of the mafia in the period of the Italian Risorgimento, where newly introduced competing political and economic forces clashed with grassroots political and cultural structures—mainly administrative corruption, the mistrust of political reforms, vendetta, and violence—that predated

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the Risorgimento5 (Arlacchi 1983:5; Paoli 2003:180). Arlacchi attributes the genesis of the mafia on the Plain of Gioia Tauro, Calabria, to the extreme social and economic instability of the area after unification. This instability perpetuated what Arlacchi calls “a society in permanent transition” where both social and economic mobility were extremely fluid (1983:6). Moreover, lack of government interest in creating a sufficient infrastructure to unite the North with the South, coupled with high illiteracy, the proletarianization of large sectors of the peasantry, urbanization, and migration, accompanied by a hostile attitude toward the northern administrators, fomented traditions of territorial union and historical patriotism at the grassroots (Blok 1974; Schneider and Schneider 1976; Hess 1998; Paoli 2003:179–82). The mafia was born out of this type of society as a hybrid social force positioned equally among the other sources of power: “a social force that does not negate the existing society and its social laws—for example the communal delinquency—or tries to replace it” (Tullio-Altan 2000:64). After the massacre in Duisburg on 15 August 2007 between different clans originating from San Luca, Aspromonte, it has become strikingly obvious that ’Ndrangheta can no longer be viewed as a Calabrian problem par excellence (Dickie 2011:9–10). Over the past few decades ’Ndrangheta has flourished around Europe, North America, and Australia (Lumia and Notaristefano 2010; Varese 2011; Nuzzi and Antonelli 2012:12–13). Let’s not forget, Teti argues, that the main location for ’Ndrangheta music production— and the promotion of violence and honor—is based in Germany (Il Quotidiano, 25 August 2007). The anthropological studies of Jane and Peter Schneider (1976) as well as Anton Blok (1974) are points of reference for they both manage to disavow the mafia as a localized phenomenon and place it in a broader sociopolitical context. Through a rich historical account, Jane and Peter Schneider provide a “center-periphery dependency” approach in order to explain the emergence of the figure of the mafioso broker capitalist. They argue that when “compared with the merchants, industrialist, and financiers of the metropolis, broker capitalists control only marginal assets, their most significant resource being their networks of personal contacts” (1976:11). The mafia as “a creature of florescent broker capitalism” (173) flourishes due to political tolerance and dense collaborative networks that scale from local to national politicians, juridical servants and the police. Onore and amicizia (honor and friendship) form the organizational and ideological platform for mafia consortia. The cosca (clan) is the core of mafia organization (186) that “gave rise to instrumental coalitions but was not, as a rule, itself such an

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instrumental group.” The Schneiders explained the cosca as a clique-type congregation with one—or more than one—leader and its members linked with a variety of bonds, predominantly kinship ties and godparenthood. As an ambivalent term of relatedness, amicizia collectivized cosca members and forged strong feelings of solidarity (Schneider and Schneider 1976). Blok (1974) highlights the mediatory role of mafia between smaller and larger socio-political contexts. Identifying mafia hybridity, he argues that mafiosi were not only part of a larger society in the same sense that certain organs form a part of a larger organism. They also reflect the larger society, as a microcosm reflects a macrocosm. Their characteristics— their language, their attitudes toward manual labour, their relationship with kinsmen and women, and their relatively low level of revulsion against using and witnessing physical violence—can be understood as a representative of the larger society they formed with other individuals. At the same time they remained distinct and different from these individuals and the larger whole. (1974:xxxi) Blok investigates the genealogy of violence to explain how mafiosi exercise social control and sovereignty. He identifies violence as a mafioso strategy to become a power broker and consolidate dominance over various scales of political interdependence (6–7). When I was discussing ’Ndrangheta violence with one of my key research participants he, in a semi-patronizing way, prompted me “to try to understand where these people come from.” Emphasis on the agropastoral origin of mafiosi was put forward as a deterministic factor for the “nature of violence.” Violence was naturalized and prescribed, not only in a biological and genealogical framework as Lombroso had it, but also occupationally, directly connecting violence with specific professions. Replying to Blok, Paul Sant Cassia tackled the issue of the “psychology and sociology of terror” (1993:773) in Mediterranean societies by examining banditry (see also Hobsbawm 2001). It is not enough, he maintains, to view the sentiments generated by bandits simply as a yearning for a pre-political justice and the terror they instill as a means to keep the peasants docile (as argued by Blok 1974). Apart from regional and national economic and developmental factors, complicity on the part of non-bandits, active or passive, suggests a serious explanatory reason for the sociology of terror. Insofar as a bandit’s morals collude with wider

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social morals they become “indistinguishable for kinship-based ideas of justice and retribution. Hence a reaction against banditry is often impossible because it conflicts with the moral codes that regulate traditional society” (Sant Cassia 1993:786). But how does the mafia sustain its moral profile in the modern nationstate and in Reggio Calabria? What are their techniques of governance? Furthermore, how is violence explained and legitimized? As we have seen, emotional and material reciprocity characterize transactions in a society such as Reggio Calabria; non-reciprocity, albeit scarce, reinforces a particular profile that the ’Ndrangheta cultivates and draws on Christianity. Rare stories about unreciprocated gifts are reproduced in multiple forms, thus creating the illusion of plenty, and are circulated in a similar pedagogical manner to ancestral stories. Employing unreciprocated free gifts, that “ideologically are close to sacrifice” (Laidlaw 2000:625) ’ndranghetisti in Reggio Calabria aspire to elevate themselves to a semidivine status.

’Ndrangheta Organization and Structure The basic unit of ’Ndrangheta organization is the ’ndrina. Usually a ’ndrina is a biological family with more ’ndrine linked through economic and political ties to form the locale. The locale is a circumscribed territory on which the ’ndrine have absolute political, juridical, and economic power. The fact that the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta has not achieved the organizational structure of the Cosa Nostra with one administrative head (see Paoli 2003; Dickie 2004) does not mean that the ’ndrine do not collaborate for further economic and political benefit. Table 1 illustrates the organizational hierarchy of the ’Ndrangheta.6 Every rank is called dote, meaning “natural gift, quality, and virtue,” as well as dowry (Dickie 2011:26). In the initiation rite—the baptism—the oath of loyalty of the prospective ’ndranghetista is literally sealed with blood. The initiation rite involves puncturing the hand or arm with a knife in order to let the blood of the candidate drop onto a sacred image of Saint Michael the Archangel. Allusions to a religious origin go beyond the politics of consolidating and legitimizing power.7 An argument of the kind should be interpreted as a habitual self-essentializing of superiority that is cultivated among ’Ndrangheta affiliates and a further negation of the individual’s pre-’Ndrangheta status. This status is symbolically and ideologically canceled by the initiation

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rite—the baptism. Baptism here is as much about a second birth as about struggle, defiance, and ordeal. The ’Ndrangheta initiation allows for an appropriation of a different semiological web of relatedness that conveys idiosyncratic forms of knowledge and produces various forms of subjectification—it is a techne of governance where volitional coercion results in new forms of empowerment. Entrance into the ’Ndrangheta family legitimizes the authority and power of its members. The term “family” galvanizes the relatedness between humans and the divine to dialectically shape claims to domination and power. Table 1: ’Ndrangheta Hierarchy Società Maggiore (Major Society) Associazione (Association) Quintino (Five Quarters) Quartino or Trequartino (Three Quarters or Four Quarters) Vangelo (Gospel) Santista (Most Holy) The saints associated with these ranks are the Holy Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul Società Minore (Minor Society) Sgarrista Camorrista Picciotto (giovane d’onore) (honored youth, emissary) The saints associated with these ranks are Saint Nunzia and Saint Elisabetta

Time of Blood In the baptism the blood-stained image of Saint Michael the Archangel is later burned while the capo-bastone (head of the ’ndrina) recites: “as the fire burns this image, similarly you will be burned if you stain our honor. If I recognized you before as an honorable opponent, from now on I recognize you as an honorable picciotto.” Entrance to the ’Ndrangheta family empowers the

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new affiliates and makes them respectable, “bulletproof,” and God-like (Nuzzi and Antonelli 2012:30–31; Pipyrou 2014b:415). Rispetto (respect) and power are coextensive when entering mafia as the following case of Mico highlights.8 “Mico echome na se camome” GO (picciottuCD). (“Mico we have to make you a picciottu”) Eci pao bariegonda. Ena viaggio, due viaggie, tu ta ipa . . . GO (“Mico was thinking of it. After one or two times, they tell him . . .”) “A se canome, pianise plen putiri.” GO (“if we make you [picciottu], you will acquire power”) Ton efera sto . . . [locality]. Itandi casimeni ce ton ecamo picciottu. GO (“they took him to the locality of . . . They sat down and they made him picciottu”) “Arte iso ena asemase.” GO (“now you are one of us”) Mico responded, “Mi ecamate ti m’ecamate ego viata tin idio putiri edo.” GO (“you did what you did to me, but I have the same power”). “You see,” the narrator explains, “this power is not any sort of physical power as Mico was thinking. It has to do with the empowerment that comes from the respect of the family (the ’Ndrangheta). After his baptism he was un uomo di rispetuCD (a man of respect).” The ’Ndrangheta rite of initiation is a ritual enactment of an event that is believed to have taken place centuries ago between a human—Carcagnosso— and a divine entity—Saint Michael the Archangel—meaning that every new baptism secures “the eternal return to the truth” (Eliade 1954). It is also a context that conveys particular regimes of truth as it engages with heterodox ideas of time and power. Cyclical time is associated with the repetition of the rites of initiation and other rites associated with higher ’Ndrangheta ranks. The link between humanity and the sacred is continually reestablished to safeguard the rotation of power between the human and the nonhuman, and above all it promises genealogical power to future generations of ’ndranghetisti. The picciottu that enters the ’Ndrangheta at the level of società minore aspires to arrive at the società maggiore with the eventual aim to acquire the dote of Santista, or perhaps even more prestigiously, the dote of Vangelo. This collapsing of cyclical and linear time in the ’Ndrangheta organization is important in managing the exercise of power within larger political contexts as in the case of the Santa discussed below.

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The Religious ’Ndrangheta Mafia draws heavily on religious imagery (Schneider and Schneider 1984; Paoli 2003; Gratteri and Nicaso 2007, 2013). An elaborate religiosity is evident in the rite of initiation; the ethos of ’Ndrangheta that oscillates between sacred and profane; and the very structure that establishes the ranks of Santista and Vangelo as two of the highest positions. These positions are characterized by an overt ambivalence to their criminal office and the morality entailed. Santista and Vangelo were specifically introduced into the ’Ndrangheta hierarchy with the implementation of the Santa (the Holy One) at the end of the 1960s (Paoli 2003; Oliva and Fierro 2007). The main aim in creating these positions was to administer and initiate prolific collaborations beyond Italy. Most researchers trace a change in the profile of the ’Ndrangheta in the period after the creation of the Santa and the elimination of the last old bosses after the first ’Ndrangheta war (1974–76). With leading and charismatic figures like Antonio Macrì and Domenico Tripodo out of the picture, the De Stefano brothers rose to power in Reggio Calabria (Paoli 2003:115). Since the 1980s ’Ndrangheta has reached global levels of business, interacting with Italian politics in a more systematic and imposing manner (Nuzzi and Antonelli 2012:14–15). In northern Italy, Giulio Viale, councilor in the town of Bordighera in Liguria, resigned in 2010 over corruption allegations and accusations of mafia collusion. In 1993 in Domodossola and 1995 in Bardonecchia, the town councils were dissolved for criminal association and mafia collusion (64). In 2012, the town council of Reggio Calabria was infamously dissolved for similar reasons (Baldessarro and Ursini 2012). The Santa was an innovation not only because it radically changed the ’Ndrangheta’s agropastoral ideology but also because it boosted the ’ndrine onto another level of doing politics and economic expansion. The classic method of extortion—kidnapping—was abandoned to be replaced with modern methods of doing business. Since then, the construction of major roads from Salerno to Reggio Calabria and Jonio to Tirreno, the railway line from Naples to Reggio Calabria, and the city airport and industrial area of Lamezia Terme, have presented major opportunities for numerous ’ndrine of Reggio Calabria to enter the subcontracting game (Nicaso 2007:64). This economic proliferation that assumed global dimensions during the 1980s was “based on the expansion of consolidated models of criminality” (Badolati 2007). “They are fathers, sons, brothers, brothers-in-law, cousins: people who have common ancestors and descendants” (Nicaso 2007:82). The

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adaptation of ’Ndrangheta to the new reality without losing its original character is most evident in the case of the Santa. While the new sect was open to the logic of the Masonic lodges and collaborated with them—initially forbidden9—’Ndrangheta did not lose its religious points of reference. New historical figures regarded as exclusively Masonic, such as Mazzini and Cavour (both members of Masonic lodges), were added as points of reference to the rank of Vangelo, alongside the Apostles and Saints Peter and Paul. The term Santa itself derives from mamma santissima (Madonna, most holy mother) and is reserved for mafia bosses (Paoli 2003:238). As Rebecca Bryant has noted in Cyprus, in different historical contexts there is a lack of gendered consistency in representations of land and leadership (2002:518). ’Ndranghetisti bosses have readily adopted the female image of the Madonna for their representation of power.10 But who is the Madonna of the ’Ndrangheta? While the church holds a formal line concerning interchangeability for all representations of the Madonna, ethnographic accounts have shown that excessive localism has effected different idiosyncratic representations (see, for instance, Lisón-Tolosana 1966; Christian 1972; Woolf 1979). In the legends of Aspromonte, the Madonna is the mother who offers protection and support. She is said to rescue from malevolent mythical entities the books that transmit “the art, the science, and the doctrines” of human power and knowledge (Lombardi Satriani 1971:285). Like Christ and the Apostles, the Madonna is implicated in feuds, vendettas and other human activities (Carroll 1992). A literal interpretation of these narratives clearly enforces De Martino’s (1959) argument concerning the syncretic nature of the pagan-catholic culture that highlights the “intimate relationship between the local refractions of divine grace and the political status of the communities concerned” (Herzfeld 1990:113). In such narratives the Madonna is the bearer of knowledge, power and governance.11 In Reggio Calabria the Madonna, while clearly a gendered figure, is not solely associated with the virgin woman or mother. When Grecanici and Reggini refer to the Madonna they refer to virtues and a particular knowledge associated with the art of family governance. The sanctuary of the Madonna di Polsi in San Luca, Aspromonte, represents for the ’ndranghetisti an “energy transformation station” and a “sentiment locus” as well as a space of knowledge production. In his work in Spain, William Christian notes that shrines are “the loci for the transformation of divine energy for human purposes and the transformation of human energy for divine purposes” (1972:101). The sanctuary further represents the

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ideological and administrative locus for different ’ndrine who act in the Province of Reggio Calabria. Every year during the fiesta of the Madonna di Polsi the ’ndrine gather in the territory of San Luca to honor the Madonna and collaborate on important financial and political decisions. The turning point in the history of the sanctuario of Madonna di Polsi took place in 1881 with the first coronation of the Madonna. For the fusion of the two precious crowns destined one for the head of the Mother and one for the head of the Baby, the magnanimous don Enrico Macrì, in the year 1880, passes from house to house in the village of San Luca and asks in the name of the Madonna di Polsi, for whatever precious jewels the people had. Men and women donated their bracelets, rings and earrings and thus so abundant was the accumulated gold that it was enough to cover the beloved Queen with a gold dress. Every year the Sanluchesi gather around the Madonna crowned for the first time in the memory of the Man [sic]. (Trimboli 1980:4 in Verzi’ Borgese 2006:54; also Alvaro 2005) Due to the conscious effort of the ecclesiastic and political order of San Luca, the parish of Madonna di Polsi started reliving the glories of the past when the villagers readily “gave back the power to their Madonna.” Until 1880, devotion to the Madonna di Polsi had declined. Alvaro attributes this decline to the feeling of popular aversion toward the administrators of the sanctuary (2005:59). Indeed, a feeling of popular aversion toward the Church was present in Calabria and Italy in general at the time, a long-lasting effect of the action of the Counter-Reformation (1545–63), whose aim was such that “the code of parochial observance should be made watertight and universally enforced” (Bossy 1970:53). Its effects lasted for centuries. The social implications in the field of parochial observance were triggered by the entrance of the Church into areas like kinship. By introducing a matrimonial code that “ran counter to the collectivist and contractual traditions of kinship morality” and attacking the institution of godparenthood by debasing the right of the parents to choose the godparents they pleased, the Church aimed to divert “all streams of popular religion into a single parochial channel” (47). With the exception of the catechism and confession, the Counter-Reformation Church has generally failed because of its reluctance to admit the kin-group as an essential part of the community (68). The Madonna di Polsi was first canonically crowned in 1881, with the

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coronation carried out by the pope’s bishop-delegate Francesco Saverio Mangeruna of Sinopoli. After the Second Council of Nicea in the year 787, the veneration of sacred images—initially banned around 725 by the emperor Leo III—was reinstated and legitimized. The Council drew a further distinction between the worship of God on the one hand and the Virgin Mary and saints on the other (Carroll 1996:50–51). From the end of the sixteenth century it became common practice to crown images of the Madonna after evidence was submitted to the Vatican that they were miraculous and venerated (Christian 1972:58). Michael Carroll argues that the Catholic Church had no choice but to adapt to image cults if they wanted to “maintain the nominal allegiance of the Italian Catholics” (1996:57). The Madonna di Polsi has been crowned three times in the past, on a once every fifty-year basis. Yet the fourth coronation took place only twenty five years after the last because, “this is the normal rhythm of every generation who want to renew their faith, during the course of their lives, within the drama and the hopes of today” (Giancarlo Maria Bregantini, vice-bishop of the sanctuario, 2006).

“La Famiglia Sacra”—The Sacred Family For Grecanici and Reggini alike, the Madonna is the metaphor for power and family; “The family that protects and needs to be protected,” as Grecanici often put it. The unjust death of Christ does not only violate the divine, it violates the family. Christ’s passion is the passion of the family that has been penetrated by his evil betrayal. The mother loses a son and the family is left powerless. The violation of the Madonna is then violation against the family. This first violation—the sinful act against the family—has to be punished with violence. As such, the first violation comes to justify the violence that is exercised toward the protection of the family. As Lombardi Satriani argues, “the men could not find solidarity out of the family, comprised by dead and living. In the exclusive cult of the family it is a matter of honor to take the blood of the people who have stained the name of the family” (1971:287). The mamma santissima then—a term reserved for the ’Ndrangheta bosses—is in ’Ndrangheta imaginary a sacred representative of the family and a living man-God who is legitimately fearless with his words and deeds. The relationship between people and divine entities has been framed as one of patronage (Christian 1972:chap. 2; Boissevain 1977; Lombardi Satriani 1979:96–97). However, the relationship that best captures the connection

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between Grecanici and their saints and Madonnas is one of kinship and affective love. There is a direct analogy between the worship of divine entities via ritual itineraries and the love and respect for the ancestors recounted in endless narratives. In Grecanici stories the divine entity has manifested its will to inhabit their villages; residents are honored to be chosen. According to Lombardi Satriani, “this sensation can generate the experience of defying time” (1971:284). For instance, in one story the effigy of the Madonna who inhabited the village of Pentedattilo repeatedly left the village and went to an abandoned chapel in the countryside near Melito Porto Salvo. Residents of Pentedattilo returned the effigy to the village on a daily basis, but it miraculously moved back to the chapel of Melito Porto Salvo during the night. Apparently the Madonna wanted her own church in Melito Porto Salvo.12 Every year, during June, the Pentedattilesi and the Melitesi renew this ancient tension. When the procession of the Madonna in Melito Porto Salvo draws to a close, the Pentedattilesi fight with the Madonna’s carriers until the Madonna passes into their possession. Having repossessed the Madonna they start their triumphal procession to Pentedattilo and return the Madonna to her church. Poet Antonio Nucera (2006) reflects in Grecanico on the affective relationship between the divine, territory and its inhabitants: Aio Leo tu Afrìcu tis Calabrìa ti ìvrese ton protino ìglio ston Vùa ce edùliese stin zoin-su ià tin Anglisìa

Saint Leo of Africo, Calabria you saw first light in Bova and worked all your life for the Church

tòsso ti t’onòma-su t’ atthìa-ma acùa, me ton achò ti ecanna i pelecìe-su stin oscìa.

so much your name our ears have heard and the echo of your axe in the mountain.

Esù ti échise ta stéa-su òssu dio anglisìe ti chorù réma ce oscìe ce catha iméra cùnnu dio lutrughìe iatì acomì to thélu i dio merìe.

You, who have your bones in two churches and they see the sea and the mountains and every day they hear two liturgies due to the will of the two parties.

Nucera reflects on the painful separation of the bones of San Leo, who lived in extreme poverty in Aspromonte. An indication of the life of the Saint can be found in religious documents dating back to 1172 (Acconcia Longo 1991:75), and the memory of San Leo is kept alive in popular songs and narratives. The relics of San Leo were initially kept in the cathedral of Bova

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before they were taken by the villagers of Africo. At present they can be found in Bova, while only one finger is kept in Africo (Stajano 1979:14). Affective entities such as the relics of the saints and religious icons (Stewart 2012) highlight the dialectic relationship between territories, people, and their Saints who honor and bless them. It further hints as to the life-oriented use of relics or artifacts that belong to the Saint, as the case below illustrates. Stolen in 1972, the base of the statue of San Giovanni, patron/protector saint of Galliciano, was found in 2007. Many Gallicianesi living in Reggio Calabria and elsewhere in Italy visited the village to be present for the return of the base. On such an occasion, the level of physicality and attachment between the people and San Giovanni was unprecedented. In pictures taken at the event, the inhabitants are gathered around the base in a manner similar to they gather around their elderly kin. In other pictures the men are seen carrying the base, which is placed on top of a long wooden board. They seem exceptionally happy. Young men hug the statue of the Saint and lean against him in a very friendly manner. “For us, it was as if a relative returned home.” Pictures of the event were circulated among the participants, many of whom have placed the photographs in prestigious positions in their homes in Reggio Calabria next to pictures of their relatives. In Spain, Christian (1972:101) hinted at the relationship of affinity when he noted the oscillation of agency between human and divine entities, when the divine can be manipulated for political ends or when humans are believed to embody the divine. After the celebration of Sant’Eufemia in Aspromonte, her image must be burnt as a reenactment of her tragic death at the hands of the emperor Diocletian. Similar to all processions in Calabria, the Saint is carried by the portatori—the carriers—who consider the duty a great honor and symbolic sacrifice. On many occasions during the burning of Sant’Eufemia, a portatore may catch fire. This is interpreted as a divine manifestation that sacralizes the portatore himself. The participants crouch before the portatore, who proposes his hand be kissed by the people similar to “a saint touched by the sky” (Lombardi Satriani 1971:291).13

How to Solve a Problem Like . . . Every quartiere in Reggio Calabria is controlled by specific ’ndrine who handle the response to petty criminality14 (Paoli 2003:156). Stories about positive mafia intervention in cases of petty criminality are circulated in the city.

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Although the actual cases may be rare, the stories are regularly adapted and reproduced, eventually providing a platform for people to think positively about ’Ndrangheta; endowing them with a tolerable profile and legitimizing their governance. ’Ndrangheta problem-solving in cases of stolen cars, financial aid, or “advice” are framed in story as free gifts (Pipyrou 2014b). The persistent circulation of these stories creates the allusion of plentiful positive gifting. ’Ndrangheta thus partially cultivate legitimacy through religiously inspired altruism and sacrifice, bringing them closer to divine status (415). The case of Antonia is illustrative of how, according to my Grecanici and Reggini informants, effective this exercised control may be. Antonia, fifty years old, is a widow. Her car, parked outside her house, had been stolen twice before. On both occasions Antonia approached the neighborhood butcher complaining about the stolen car. The butcher’s reply was reassuring, comforting, and promising. When Antonia thanked him he very humbly replied, “a vostra disposizione” (at your disposal). Three days later the car was outside Antonia’s house. The butcher apologized that it was the zingari (gypsies) who stole the car and that was why it took so long to return it.15. Unfortunately Antonia’s luck did not last much longer. Her car was stolen for a third time and could not be returned because “those who were controlling the neighborhood were arrested in one of those ridiculous governmental attempts to show us that they exist.”16 Antonia went to the carabinieri to report the larceny, but “their computer did not work.” After she spent most of her day waiting for the computer to work, the carabiniere informed her that his shift was over and she had to wait for his replacement. Antonia, very upset, replied, “Do not bother; I am going to the poliziotti.” At the polizia she was informed that on that particular day the department for thefts was closed and she would have to return two days later if she wanted to report the incident. Antonia, furious by this time, replied “I did well to go to the carabinieri first.” “And what did they tell you Signora?” “That the computer did not work.”17 Antonia is one of the intellectuals of Reggio Calabria. She is university educated and a frequent participant in political and civic groups in the city, but she is considered humble. Similar to her late husband, she is respected in her social circle. Her late husband still captures the imagination of everyone who knew him as someone of great charisma, an excellent philosophy of life, and humility. My close relationship with Antonia permitted me to be more inquisitive regarding her dealings with ’Ndrangheta affiliates of the quartiere. She says:

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My father was never implicated in ’Ndrangheta affairs and neither were my brothers. Because we all come from the same area we show a mutual respect for each other and maintain the minimum of social formalities with the famiglia (that governs the quartiere). Apart from a cordial salutation we did not have further relations. As a child I was schoolmates with the boss’s daughter. We were not close friends but she was a nice girl and a good student. I remember one time I needed a book which I knew that she had. This book was very important because I had to prepare an essay on the history of Italy but my family did not have enough money to buy me the book. I thought that the girl could lend it to me and thus I went to her house to ask for it. Her father (the boss) happened to be at home at that specific time. When he understood that I wanted to borrow the book he gave it to me saying that from now on the book is mine and I no longer needed to return it to his daughter. . . . His language was mild and kind; a very good person in general.

A Story About an Old House and an Old Neighbor Nunzio, seventy-eight, used to be a professor of mathematics in secondary education. He lives alone after having lost his wife at a young age. He has two sons, both of whom work in North Italy but visit him regularly. Nunzio has lived in his small house for forty years, and his neighbors adore him as he is wise and always ready to give advice. Two years ago his landlady decided to sell the house, forcing him to move out. He says: The house you see is a real dump but I like it. I lived here with my wife and brought up my sons here. I am settled. My sons told me not to worry about moving—they will arrange everything—but this is too much for me. I proposed to buy the house but the price she is asking is extortionate: 160,000 euros for this! Can you believe it? The local “family” have found out about her intentions. You know what they did? They told her that if she is to sell the house then she will sell it to me. Another time they stopped the agent outside the house and told him that what the woman is doing is blatantly wrong, she should propose a more realistic price . . . In the end I purchased the house for

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95,000 euros; it is the only thing that I have accepted from them (’Ndrangheta). Antonia and Nunzio’s gifts fall into local categories of “unreciprocated favors” (favori senza reciproco), “give without waiting for a return” (dare senza aspettarsi nulla in cambio), “give without receiving” (dare senza ricevere), and “donate without receiving anything in return” (donarsi senza aspettarsi nulla in cambio) (Pipyrou 2014b:412–13). Antonia’s first mafioso gift of her childhood remained unreciprocated because neither Antonia nor her late husband were ever approached by the mafiosi. More recent gifts of her adulthood are also unreciprocated; Antonia is convinced “that they will never ask me for anything.” Nunzio equally appears certain that he will never be approached by the local mafiosi to reciprocate the favor. For him, not having to move house at his age is vital, especially given his attachment to the place where he raised his family. Nunzio narrated his story in his house among the usual gatherings of friends. On another occasion two elderly couples who live nearby recited Nunzio’s story to me, emphasizing that “the ‘new’ ’ndranghetisti are corrupt, they are implicated in drug and gun trafficking and they are not as honorable as the old ones. Only very few people have the charisma to be humble, charitable and give without asking for return.”18 Unreciprocated gifts are given by the mafiosi to people who are well respected and humble. These people—and their immediate families—may not be affiliated with the ’Ndrangheta and are of variable socioeconomic status. Antonia was well known to the mafia boss because she was schoolmates with his daughter. She had contact with him when he donated his daughter’s book, an act of kindness and humility that remains imprinted in her mind. Antonia enjoys the respect of wider society in Reggio Calabria, ’ndranghetisti included. Similarly, Nunzio is saggio (wise) and considered a man of wisdom and charisma. He has exhibited an admirable ethos and, as one local put it, “after the death of his wife he has never been seen with another woman.” Respect that stems from friendship can be another motive for unreciprocated gifts, as in the case of Lino discussed by Pardo in his Neapolitan ethnography where “friendship may facilitate the management of underworld-connected crises because it allows the actors to avoid problematic reciprocation and obligation” (1996:88). The mafioso finds out about a case where he can offer a free gift directly from the recipient or indirectly from people who are related to both the recipient and the donor. In any case, the mafioso appears very careful when

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offering his disposizione. During the act of offering, an elaborate code of politeness ensures both parties that distance between them is maintained and the recipient is free to accept or decline the offer. Asymmetrical dependence in cases of free gifts is played down by the mafioso with the use of elaborate speech registers that can manipulate relative social statuses (Goffman 1956; Cohen and Camaroff 1976:87–89). In Central and South Italy the rules of address, dare del Lei (to use the Lei) and dare del voi (to use the voi) are markers of politeness and respect to the social distance between parties (Tosi 2001:76–77).19 The overuse of the third person or the plural, the Lei and voi, generates and maintains aspects of mafioso profile that are associated with order, hierarchy and social distance. Even in one-to-one conversations among ’ndranghetisti, the voi is employed as a designation of etiquette and respect for the hierarchy. Culturally important terms such as voi and Lei as well as disposizione are put forward in discourse to encourage and secure diverse social possibilities. Such contextual linguistic uses maintain the balance between distance from and acceptance of the mafioso free gift. The concept of disposizione is implicit in the dialogue between mafiosi gift givers and recipients. It further de-emphasizes the position of the donor so that the recipient does not feel powerless. As Foucault (2001b:15–20) noted, fearless speakers always appear as less powerful and confident enough in their knowledge to say what they feel and take the moral high ground. Being at the disposizione of someone means being elevated to the position of duty and sacrifice and orients the “ideal goals of social action towards a future existence” (Parry 1986:467). The idea of salvation “is inherent in the historical world religions” with the prevalence of sin or religious morality to determine “hell for sinners and heaven for saints” (Obeyesekere 1968 in Parry 1986:467, 1980). Umiltà (humility) is a virtue embedded in the religious morality rhetoric of ’Ndrangheta, coextensive with a low and humble profile. Affiliates of higher ranks are expected to exhibit a higher degree of umiltà which in some cases is materialized in the form of free gifts. The fearless person must exude umiltà in order to be in the position to offer free gifts. Gifts ranging from a single book to large amounts of money given to deprived families, or large church donations, are considered free gifts as long as they remain unreciprocated. Like saints, the ultimate goal of the mafiosi is to be altruistically at the service of their people (Pipyrou 2014b). These rare gifts, “altruistic, moral and loaded with emotion” (Parry 1986:466–67), are circulated in-story and thus create the illusion of plentiful gifting that helps legitimize mafia

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governance. In so doing, the stories contribute to the mafia profile as endowed with religious overtones and build the status of individual mafiosi as close to divine.

Technes of Governance In the Foucauldian schema, governance is associated with particular technes (Foucault 1991). Genealogical histories and stories of distant ancestors feed explicit understandings of what constitutes a lawful appropriation of persons and things, territories or Saints. The discussion of ’Ndrangheta brings another dimension of relatedness that draws on mediums of blood, genealogy, and divinity. The blood implemented in the ’Ndrangheta rites of initiation is believed to transcend time, hand down knowledge and prepare future generations of kin to govern. It is the medium through which people who are not biologically connected can become brothers of blood, as blood is the archetype of knowledge. ’Ndrangheta affiliates are thus tied with links of blood and genealogy since they trace their origin to a common ancestor. The ’Ndrangheta’s common ancestral source suggests an overlapping of affinal and religious relatedness. Saint Michael the Archangel is the religious ancestor via Carcagnosso while ’ndranghetisti bosses are referred to as mamma santissima, a metaphor reserved for the Madonna. Clearly a gendered image, the Madonna’s virtues rather than the Madonna as a female entity is linked with notions of power, hegemony and governance. Acquiring status for governance since the unification of Italy, ’Ndrangheta is considered as a stato nello stato (a state within the state) with a specific art of governance and morality that is a “discursive mediation which allows a whole range of technologies to be brought to bear on the social as behaviour” (Procacci 1991:158, original emphasis). While ’Ndrangheta’s affairs are explicitly selfinterested, its sovereignty is not grounded purely on violence. The free gifts offered by high-ranking mafiosi are crucial to the ’Ndrangheta’s religious rhetoric and reveal the vital need for the ’Ndrangheta to appear occasionally as putting themselves at the disposal of wider society. As the titles Santista and Vangelo ranks indicate, the mafioso aspiration is to arrive at the status of a living Saint. Engagement with society through acts of altruism and sacrifice, coupled with the wisdom acquired through the malavita (underworld), proves the mafioso’s fearlessness as he moves toward saintly status. Being in the position to offer free gifts reinforces the mafioso’s ultimate power and underlines his fearlessness.

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The previous chapters have gradually built up the notion of Grecanici relatedness. At the beginning of my research, one of my intellectual informants argued that Grecanici are fearless: “I am not in the position to tell you why, but these people are strong in themselves.” The actual pace at which I have presented Grecanici relatedness so far in this book was the pace of discovery. It was pointless to speak only about kinship in the world of the living without including Grecanici relatedness with the dead. The ’Ndrangheta, along with churches, saints, holy days, local communities, and individuals, reflect and assert an intimate relationship between the human and the divine worlds. Stories of ancestors, saints, and old and contemporary ’ndranghetisti are circulated in local society and act as pedagogical texts of persuasion as well as technes of governance. It is impossible to say where stories of ancestors, saints, and ’ndranghetisti start and finish, for they overlap and intertwine. Accordingly, it is difficult to draw a clear line between the roles of the protagonists; who is the saint, who is the ancestor, and who is the relative? Multiple forms of relatedness presented in the stories offer overlapping and intersecting channels of political representation and power.

Chapter 7

An Invitation to Dance

It was 1917, during the War. . . . It was Thursday: the homicide took place on Sunday and they arrested me immediately. It happened due to some dispute over dance and music, petty dispute with somebody, nothing really. That’s how the conflict started and one night he and his brotherin-law came and slaughtered three of my cows to punish me . . . Well, I investigated, I understood that it was him, the one of the dance and music, and when I was sure I went and cut his throat: I killed him. —Corrado Stajano, Africo (1979)

As we have seen, Grecanici governance is based on elaborate contexts of relatedness, a collapsing spatiotemporal arena encompassing the living and the dead, affective items such as religious relics and icons, divine entities, and associationism. This matrix may also be captured in the persona of ’Ndrangheta. The profile of ’Ndrangheta as oscillating between earthly joys and heavenly possessions allows for a theorization of power as continually reestablished and circulated between humans and nonhumans. Stories about rare mafiosi free gifts, discussed in the previous chapter, drastically influence local perceptions of ’Ndrangheta. Public religious celebrations are another context where ’Ndrangheta personhood can be disseminated through the tarantella dance, drawing attention to embodiments of governance. Here I consider fearless governance in its bodily manifestation as dance performances employed to communicate and legitimize political relations, territorial occupation, and cultural heritage take place in public spaces such as outside the city’s cathedral (cf. Palumbo 2009; Pizza 2004;

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Zografou and Pipyrou 2011). Bodily attributes of governance are actualized through powerful performance. Fearless governance is thus to be found not only through acts of speaking and bureaucratic management, but also through bodily performance, ranging from Grecanici dances for visiting Greek tourists, to ’Ndrangheta performances at religious celebrations. The chapter spans multiple dancing contexts and explores the importance of performance for discussing governance.

Religious Performances Throughout Italy religious celebrations are events where conflict, aggression, violence and politics coexist in a creative fashion (Palumbo 2009; Pizza 2004, 2009). In Reggio Calabria dancing performances incorporated in religious celebrations are embodiments of power, hegemony, history, and resistance (Pizza and Johannessen 2009) and index a variety of relations of tradition, space, rank, hierarchy, appropriation of power, and territorial ownership. Patronized by local ’ndrine, these occasions reinforce links to the divine and legitimize the fearless governance of mafia through the public display of hegemony and superiority. In public mafia dances, political relations are highly visible and traceable as mafiosi employ a series of symbolic gestures to exercise their dominance over fellow citizens, including senior political figures (Palumbo 2009; Pizza 2009). The main focus for this analysis will be the Festa della Madonna della Consolazione, or simply the Madonna della Consolazione as it is referred to in Reggio Calabria. The dance performances during the celebration take place in front of the cathedral in the city center, so that space, time, gestures, and personal histories are molded into embodiments of the sacred. Patronizing the ritual brings attention and legitimacy to the ’ndrine as tenders and pleasers of the divine, being elevated to a semi-divine status by their proximity to the Madonna. “Visibly invested with supreme power” (Abélès 1988:397), the ’ndrine appear approachable as they welcome people to participate in their celebrations. ’Ndrangheta distributes its personhood in the sense that people who attend or dance with the ’ndranghetisti become—momentarily at least—bearers of a specific notion of power; the power to command a territory or simply capturing an illusion of what it means to govern persons and things. Dance is an integral part of political representation and the degree to which it is successfully interpreted relates to how the audience exhibit

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interest and desire to become bearers of “an explicit social and communitywide message framework” (Feld 1984:393). My inquiries into the ritualistic dance were usually met with similar responses: “now you touch upon cose (things/affairs) of the ’Ndrangheta.” Before entering into further conversations regarding the form of the dance and its symbolism, it was perfectly clear that public dance performances were the domain of the ’Ndrangheta. The public dance is conceptualized as a living part of ’Ndrangheta and a context of evaluating participation rather than performance—dancers are not primarily assessed on their capacity to produce an aesthetically pleasing performance. As Giovanni, twenty-five, put it, “nobody will tell you whether you danced well or not because it does not matter. Some dancers move their arms as if they want to dust themselves off. There is competition in dance and dance is not for beauty. It is just important that you participate and dance.” Participants in mafia patronized religious celebrations are reflexively aware of the plethora of indexical relations in their performances, embodying history (cf. Wulff 2007), violence, dominance, hierarchy and love through their gestures. Drawing primarily on the fractal concept of personhood as developed in the works of Strathern and Alfred Gell, I argue that further to indexing power and hegemony, performances incorporated in religious celebrations bind participants with ’Ndrangheta and provide them a bodily vision of governance. Strathern has argued that the work put into the creation of things is a sphere of agency that lies in the “effective definition of the scope of relations that such work can create” (1988:156). In this sense, work cannot be measured separately from relationships and subsequently objects cannot be disposed of without reference to such relations. What matters here is not the relationship to the object per se but the relationships with others through the object (1988:162). She further maintains that work is a “purposive activity but is directed toward effectiveness in relationships” (164). It is work then which produces or makes visible a relationship, as happens in tarantella performances. When two people dance the tarantella they enter a performance of deliberation. The deliberation is not directed toward the self but addresses wider social questions of power hierarchies, territorial management, and legitimate governance. The focus on social relationships is also shared by Gell (1998) who argues that artworks and material artifacts mediate social agency. An agent, Gell claims, is any “thing” (for example, an artwork or a person) “who is seen as

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initiating causal sequences of a particular type, that is, events caused by acts of mind or will or intention. . . . Whenever an event is believed to happen because of an ‘intention’ lodged in the person or thing which initiates the causal sequence, that is an instance of ‘agency’ ” (16–19). While Gell sees persons as the primary agents he argues that artworks and other inanimate objects can be agents in a secondary or indirect sense, for although they are not intentional beings they frequently act as the mediums through which people manifest and realize their intentions (1998:21). Indexes that permit the “abduction of social agency” are seen as outcomes or instruments of social agency (15). As such they are extensions of the persons whose agency they express—part of their distributed personhood. Agent and patient are relational concepts: for every agent there must be a patient, and vice versa (22). Here I advocate the agency of dance, with particular interest placed on indexical relations between performers as agents/patients and performances/ interpretations.

The Madonna della Consolazione The Madonna della Consolazione is celebrated annually on the second Saturday of September when the devoted residents of Reggio Calabria form a glorious procession from the Santuario di Santa Maria della Consolazione,1 in the locality of Eremos, through the Via Cardinale Portanove, Via De Nava and Corso Garibaldi, to the cathedral in Piazza Duomo. The fiesta of the Madonna2 constitutes the major religious celebration in the province of Reggio Calabria that clearly manifests sentiments of “submission and obedience” to the Mother of Christ (Valente 1971:278). The night before the transportation of the Quadro, the icon depicting the Madonna and the Holy Child, hundreds of people of all ages spend the night at the Sanctuary in Eremos celebrating with music and dance. Sharing time with the Madonna, especially through dance and celebration, holds a specific significance because divine entities are considered part of the family. Before sunrise the following morning thousands of people start congregating at the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is built on a hill with a demanding road climbing up to Eremos, and people intending to participate in the procession wear their most comfortable shoes. The air is filled with prayers and hymns transmitted by the church megaphones. The Sanctuary is overflowing with people, priests, and the portatori della Vara3 (carriers of the Vara). The portatori are

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members of the fraternity of the portatori della Madonna (carriers of the Madonna)—one of the oldest fraternities in Reggio Calabria—and carry the Vara during the processions. By the time the Madonna exits the Santuario, the crowd has reached its peak. We are literally packed one on top of the other as we all strive for the best position to get closer to the Madonna. People try to place themselves as close as possible to the steps of the church to be able to touch the Vara. The Madonna exits amid an apotheosis of applause. The portatori push for space and I feel I am losing my balance as I strive to place myself close to them to take my pictures. How to describe the force of a human wave getting stronger and stronger? How to put into words the emotions of 100,0004 people crying “Viva Maria”? Fortunately, the portatori feel flattered that a woman exhibits interest in taking pictures of them and permit me to photograph the Madonna from close range. People are throwing flowers toward the Vara while others applaud and throw flowers from their balconies. Others are taking the opportunity to do some business by selling balloons to the children. Every politically important person is present, from the mayor and his council to local politicians and highly placed public administrators. A lot of women are without shoes, a fulfillment of a vow. In previous processions, I was told, many women were licking the road up to the Sanctuary. These powerful performances no longer exist, but many women still attend the whole procession from Eremos to the Duomo without shoes. Devotional performance is a powerful context of personhood in Reggio Calabria, closely related to the Madonna herself and her connection to the family. Through diverse and dramatic performances both men and women put themselves at the Madonna’s disposal. It has been argued that the disproportionate participation of the sexes at religious masses is attributed to the church’s emphasis on women being responsible for the spiritual health of the family (Davis 1984; Wolf 1984). To a point this may explain the poor participation of local men in everyday mass. Grecanici men appear reluctant to participate in quotidian masses both in Reggio Calabria and their villages. Until recently in many villages in the area Grecanica males who participated in the mass were deemed of ambivalent sexuality (the term ricchione [ricchiuniCD], meaning gay). As the church is perceived as an institution among all the other governmental institutions, it is approached with skepticism. Yet expressed feelings of anticlericalism should not be deemed “atheism,” as locals experience their relation to the divine through idiosyncratic performances that do not necessarily comply with

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love for the institution of the church. A number of Grecanici have frequently expressed their discomfort about Catholic priests, openly accusing them of pedophilia and corruption. They were also interested to know whether men in Greece adopt a similar stance toward Greek priests and if Greek priests are implicated in sex scandals. Jill Dubisch (1995) notes that the Orthodox Church in Greece is always approached with skepticism by male actors. She maintains it is difficult to decide whether female predominance in religious activities is a recent phenomenon, and draws on work from the late nineteenth century that reports the “magnificent assemblage of men” on religious days in Athens (Durban 1897:101). Grecanici adopt a particularistic stance in relation to divine entities. Precisely because saints are perceived as family members, they too are associated with a specific territory. For instance, Grecanici of San Giorgio extra (originating mainly from the villages of Galliciano, San Lorenzo, Roghudi, Bova, Bagaladi, Rocaforte, and Condofuri) do not perceive San Giorgio—the saint to whom the church in the neighborhood is devoted—to be their own. San Giorgio is respected, but he is not a figure of Grecanici devotion. During one of my first visits to the piazza of San Giorgio extra, I went inside the church to light a candle. This surprised the men present and prompted them to ask why I wanted to go inside. It was expected that my saints and Madonnas would be back in Greece in my place of origin and nowhere else. However, the same people were very pleased to see me attending the fiestas of “their” saints in their villages. Grecanici belong to their saints and Madonnas in the same manner saints and Madonnas belong to them.

I Cavalieri della Madonna: The Virgin and the Men The Madonna della Consolazione exits the Santuario amid the applause of thousands. In front of the Vara are a small group of priests, one holding a long pole with a cross on top. One portatore (carrier) follows the priests holding the banner of the Associazione Portatori della Vara (carriers of the Vara). The banner is very large, made of red velvet, with the image of the Quadro (picture) in the middle and the words “Associazione Portatori della Vara” and “Madonna della Consolazione Reggio Calabria.” The Vara, including the four bars on which it is placed, weighs 1000kg, and is 4.5 meters high and 2.18 meters long. The frame for the picture of the Madonna is splendidly handcrafted in silver leaf on a wooden kernel. The

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Quadro (120 x 120 cm) that depicts the Madonna and the Christ Child is an artwork by Nicolo Andrea Capriolo commissioned by the Reggino Camillo Diano, who donated the picture to the parish church in 1547. The Virgin appears sitting on a throne. She is holding the baby, and on her right side stands Saint Francis of Assisi with the sacred stigmata. With one hand, the saint holds open the book of the Franciscan rule and with the other a wooden cross. To the left of the Madonna is Saint Antonio of Padova with a white lily in one hand and a theology text in the other. Above the Madonna two angels hold a crown and the palm leaf symbolizes ordeal and glory (Lacava 1985:19–20). The Associazione Portatori della Vara “Madonna della Consolazione” was officially institutionalized in 2000.5 We read in the constitution of the association that “this is a private association of believers—irrespective of political party [affiliation]” (art. 2). According to the constitutional articles, the association is born from the culture, the concrete tradition and the spiritual bond among the portatori of the Quadro of the Maria Santissima Madre della Consolazione. Special emphasis is placed on the need to develop and defend traditional values and the faith that animates the portatore during the procession of the Sacred Effigy. The exclusive aim of the association is to provide charity, solidarity where needed and promote the culture and activities of the portatore (art. 4). In collaboration with the assistente ecclesiastico (ecclesiastic assistant who is a member of the church), the portatori offer their services to the archbishop for the transfer of the sacred Quadro to and from Eremo. The Capo Stanga (head of the bars) is the vanguard of the four bars of the Vara, nominated by the portatori as their representative. Each bar is sustained by approximately twenty-five men. The Capo Stanga receives the signals from the ecclesiastic assistant and transmits his commands to the portatori for any pause and restart. The portatori are divided into two groups of 100 men and rotate in succession under the bars. They are constrained to simultaneous collective movements following the tempo of the city council music band that precedes them. L’assistente ecclesiastico is the “spiritual guide of the association,” nominated every three years by the archbishop. He is the ecclesiastic guarantor of the association, responsible for the spiritual preparation of the portatori and organization of the Sacred Effigy procession to and from Eremo. He is an honorary but nonvoting member of the association. The procession concludes with the Madonna entering the Cathedral vol6 ata (flying), where the portatori run into the church with the Vara on their shoulders. Hymns, people shouting “Viva Maria,” singing, applauding, and

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crying, accompany the Madonna’s triumphal entrance into the Cathedral. This is the ultimate fatigue that the portatori endure and symbolizes their struggle for purification. “I cavalieri della Madonna” (the Madonna’s knights/ escorts) as they are affectionately called, claim they carry the Madonna on their backs as well as in their hearts.7 “The emotions were reaching the stars. Our embrace and the kiss of the Archbishop were concluding the procession” (Francesco Marino, portatore, in La Stanga 2007). Not all association members are entitled to the role of portatore of the Madonna. According to the rules of the association, the men must exhibit high spiritual and physical qualities. The devotion to the “course of the purification”—a reference to the physical suffering of transporting the Vara— does not apply only to the festive day but is an overarching schema that drives the life of the portatore. The portatore ought to be at the disposal of and in solidarity with the helpless: “Every man carries the Vara with much love and devotion. Under the Vara all the portatori are equal.”

Suffering Makes Might Dubisch argues that female religious performances are means toward politicization. It is in suffering, expressed through verbal complaint, the body and ritual actions, that women in Greece find a performative space for their social roles (1995:217). “This greater involvement of women in religious activities,8 both within and outside the church, has been noted throughout the Mediterranean Catholic and Orthodox world” (211). Dubisch justifies this claim by suggesting that the Virgin Mary offers a positive model for female identification (see also du Boulay 1986:141). The shared values between women and the Madonna that facilitate women to be “public.” Dubisch challenges the public-men/domestic-women dichotomy by highlighting the performative aspect of female suffering both within and outside the context of pilgrimage. Performance makes “all roles public in the sense that they are defined and evaluated by a larger community” (Dubisch 1995:207, original emphasis; see also Dubisch 1993). If indeed it is the intersubjective evaluation of the performance that makes the role public, then public roles should be examined to the degree that they are successfully performed and contextually evaluated. Religious performances in Reggio Calabria are powerful discourses that transcend gender dichotomies, for it appears that both sexes are concerned with

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successful devotional performances. Ritualistic context renders these performances more dramatic and therefore more powerful. Devotional suffering is employed by men and constitutes a successful performance of governance located in a particular bodily schooling (cf. Argenti 2002; Herzfeld 2004) for excellence, capacity and privilege to suffer for the Madonna. The portatori della Vara, are constrained yet willing to lead their lives according to Marian values (art. 3). We read in many Mediterranean ethnographies that “modesty, meekness, humility are values only admirable for women” (Campbell 1966:167). The portatori need not only to engage in a Marian life but also to exhibit virtues that, in other Mediterranean contexts, are ethnographically attributed to women. This again brings into question issues of performance and representation as they are ethnographically explored in the Mediterranean. The Madonna informs the performances of both men and women (Giovannini 1981:424). While qualities like virility, power, diffidence, and loyalty are elements of a successfully presented male, so modesty, meekness, and humility are equally powerful elements of manhood. Thus men may be stereotypically presented as “loud and boisterous or be treated as failures,” yet “it is often those men who do not shout curses and draw their knives at the slightest hint of ridicule who gain the greatest respect” (Herzfeld 1991c:143, original emphasis).

Il Sacro e il Profano In the province of Reggio Calabria, religious celebrations provoke the “effervescence” so eloquently described by Émile Durkheim. The celebrations of the Madonna di Polsi, Saint Roco in Gioia Ionica, the Madonna delle Grazie in Lazzaro, Saint Leo in Bova and Saint Giovanni Batista in Galliciano—to name but a few—are religious manifestations where the ballo (dance) and music are an integral part of the ritual (see also Polimeni 1983; Castagna 1988, 2006; Barresi 1997:98–100). In Reggina imagination “festa is the anniversary of a religious date; and the profane aspect of the manifestation expresses sentiments of devotion, joy, yearning and protection” (Valente 1971:278). Alvaro (2003) paints a vivid image of the fiesta of the Madonna di Polsi (in San Luca, Aspromonte) before the Second World War, New pilgrims are added every day and night, with the song on their lips. The first and the second day of September, Polsi receives in its

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valley more than 20,000 people. Imagine, 20,000 people full of faith, strength and brio; 20,000 men that never sleep. In the streets of the valley, in the piazza, all seem dead from the tarantolla9; they dance like crazy wherever they hear the sound of the zampogne and the tamburini.10 The crowd agitates with the most original and uncontrollable dances; hundreds of zampognie lament continuously in this nutritious firework of collective gun shots. (2003:210) Lyrical this picture may be, but it does not diverge from present reality. Madonna di Polsi in Reggina imagery, apart from being another beloved Madonna, is also the religious heart of the ’Ndrangheta. In recent years, the Madonna di Polsi receives 40,000 to 50,000 people on her celebration day. Many participants bring their own musicians. After eating goat meat they celebrate with the music of organetto and tamburello and dance the tarantella.11 During my time in Reggio Calabria the fiesta was overshadowed by the massacre in Duisburg on 15 August 2007, between different clans originating from San Luca, Aspromonte (see Dickie 2011). On every occasion of religious manifestation the profane interweaves with the sacred in the most celebratory manner. Demonstrations of love, protection, and devotion toward their saints and Madonnas pertain to the quotidian life of Grecanici. There is not a single Grecanici home—or many occasions a Reggini home—where icons depicting the “saint protector” of the place of origin, icons of the Madonna, small statutes of the Madonna or saints and Rosario Catholic crosses are not displayed. The saints assume a very specific role in both family and communal life, as during their celebrations people from all over the world return to their villages of origin in Calabria. The local saint is not only the protector of the locality, it is a member of the community in the sense that s/he belongs to local people and vice versa. This further implies the human qualities given to the divine. San Giovanni Batista (patron saint protector of Galliciano) is considered bello (beautiful). In this case the saint is beautiful, a quality not only of physical beauty but also of character. The terms bello/bella are also used in reference to people with etic values of respect and admiration (Castagna 2006:44). San Giovanni is bello because he is compassionate, helpful and devoted to the Gallicianesi. San Leo of Bova and Africo may be vendicativo (vindictive), while San Rocco of Roccaforte del Greco may be cattivo (bad). Stories pertaining to the deeds of the saints are frequent. “A woman had a son who was lost for many years. She had made a vow to

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San Rocco for her son’s return. During the saint’s procession the woman touched the statue of the saint. Immediately she dropped dead.” Narrators attribute the death of the woman to the saint’s quality of character of being cattivo (bad). Saints such as San Rocco who do not fulfill their duties to their communities are still obeyed and feared but are not beautiful. Apart from the saints, there is the appropriation of the images of the Madonna and Christ. The conflict between Christianity and paganism and the subsequent victory of Christ are expressed in many narratives in their multiple variants in Aspromonte (Lombardi Satriani 1971:284). In these narratives both Christ and the Madonna appear to interfere in every aspect of human life—battles, commerce, vendetta, joy, and pain. An integral part of quotidian life and religious celebrations, dance is a means of pleasing the divine and almost all religious processions end with the saint “dancing.” The procession of San Giovanni in Galliciano, for instance, culminates with the saint “dancing the tarantella.” The men who hold the Vara with the statue dance a frantic tarantella and argue that “anche il Santo vuole il suo divertimento” (the saint also wants his own amusement). During the procession of Saint Rocco in Gioia Ionica people prompt the saint to “Abballa, abballa, Roccu e futtitindi”CD (dance Rocco and don’t give a fuck) (Lombardi Satriani 1971:292; De Franco 1988).

The Efficacy of Ritual The ritual of Madonna della Consolazione is a succession of liturgyprocession/dance-liturgy/dance. These processes involve speech, singing, and dancing and clearly incorporate distinguishing elements of ritual (Bloch 1989:21). Patronizing a specific ritualistic time and space is desired by the ’ndrine of Reggio Calabria, since this is where they draw their political authority and symbolic power. The dance in front of the cathedral incorporates a variety of symbols12—salutation, confrontational positions, and challenges—that index power relations and the ’Ndrangheta hierarchy. The dance performance is endowed with a further political message explicitly intertwined with the ritualistic time and space. In other words, it is religious power adorned with political power. Marc Abélès (1988) has dealt with the metaphor of sacred power projected through political ritual.13 The question of political drama, according to Abélès, cannot be explained separately from the question of political

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representation and legitimization in modern society (1988:391–92). The ritual, according to Abélès, brings into play the relationship between political power and civil society (393). Abélès elaborates by examining two specific political rituals performed by the president of the French Republic, François Mitterrand: the inauguration of a railway station in the town of Nevers and the annual pilgrimage to Solutré. During the inauguration in Nevers the emphasis is on spatial directionality and movement and a further message of friendship, loyalty, and solidarity. Mitterrand’s movement from the center to periphery and back to the center is a symbolic engagement—“often translated into an accumulation of a successive electoral base” (394:n.4)—through which the president seeks public legitimization. Abélès notes, the consistency and polysemic range of the ritual undoubtedly derive in part from the multiplicity of registers employed in part from the insertion of the sacralised act into the field of communication shared by the global society. The president’s act consisted in adhering scrupulously to a model belonging to the Republican tradition while using its symbols, its actions, even its time to express something quite other than what should have come across in speech or a press interview. (1988:395) The ritual of the “pilgrimage to Solutré” revolves around the president’s personal history, his hiding from the Germans, and his marriage to one of his helpers’ daughters. The president’s ascendance to Solutré partly reflects his position in the political hierarchy. The ritual thus makes visible the divine/ man invested with supreme power, exposing simultaneously the earthly man/ president walking with his family and friends. It also symbolizes the president’s rendezvous with history and portrays his unchanging nature. By combining the registers of the mundane and the sacred, the ritual provides an arresting summation of the different facets of Mitterrand’s personality at the same time that it tends to establish him as a mythological hero in an arresting face-to-face encounter with the nation and history (Abélès 1988:397). The “interweaving of a religious motif with profane intentionality” (398), grants ritual a historic form of legitimacy and thus it is always open to interpretation (Pardo 2000). The ritual’s contextual dramatization, as Abélès proposes, is to be understood with reference to specific focal elements—formalism and artifice, drama and sentiment—from which political legitimacy is drawn. Gerd Baumann has further suggested that “competing constituencies”

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may draw on ritual or prescribe to it different symbolic messages according to their opposing claims.14 This brings attention to ritual as an often contested spatiotemporal context toward public attention, territorial patronage and recognition15 (Baumann 1992:100). Francesco Faeta (2005) discusses the ritual of flagellation during Holy Saturday at Nocera Terinese in Calabria to further explore the relationship of fiesta, locality, and blood as experienced in the Mezzogiorno. Apart from the emphasis on the celebration of local identity and political antagonism expressed during the fiesta, Faeta questions the use of the term fiesta “antica” (ancient) as a form of temporal manipulation. The image of the fiesta antica is powerful, Faeta maintains, because it evokes a distant temporal dimension. The one who possesses these temporal keys is the master of the fiesta16 (2005:161–66). Through patronizing the entire event of the fiesta of the Madonna, attention and legitimacy is accomplished through the performative nature of ritual. What is actively brought to the fore is the ritualistic enactment of ’Ndrangheta’s sacred image and its perpetual reconstitution as such. By closely adhering to notions of tradition, ’Ndrangheta is presented as the warrantor of cultural and historical continuity. Its persona is legitimized by its anchoring to past epochs of resistance, initially to the Bourbons and later to the Piemondese Italian state. Through different strategies (free gifts, dance), ’Ndrangheta tells a cumulative story in which an inchoate situation of togetherness increasingly takes shape. It reminds Reggini that when other sources of power have failed them the ’Ndrangheta has been the only system of governance able to accommodate their collective needs. In effect, the mundane origin rhetoric and the entanglement of the myth “we are the people and for the people” does not differ from the nationalistic rhetoric proposed in neighboring Mediterranean contexts (such as Greece and Spain) or in the Grecanico cultural associations. It is precisely this entanglement of the sacred and profane that endows the persona of ’Ndrangheta with a more authentic dimension that ideologically—and to a great degree rhetorically—works as a reminder to the audience of its mundane origin and mission. This clothing of ’Ndrangheta power in religiosity makes it appealing to a variety of people.

The Public Dance The dance (ballo) in the province of Reggio Calabria is distinguished, in terms of rules and organization, between public (in public or semi-public

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spaces) and domestic (ballo cardolo, in the home). Even though domestic and public dance share some basic conditions, the development of the event and the organization of power relations are conceptualized differently. For the present I will discuss dance on “traditional” occasions. By traditional occasions I refer to dance performances that are incorporated in fiestas and in the home, rites of passage, and various celebratory events (including inauguration of new public buildings). At the end of the chapter I turn to dance by folklorist groups, which according to the audience follow a different development. Clearly indexing ’Ndrangheta power and territory, performances incorporated in religious celebrations are frequented by people from all walks of life. The Madonna della Consolazione and other similar religious celebrations are visible and tangible contexts where the “Onorata Società celebrates its hierarchies and territorial power” (Castagna 2006:70). Maria Barresi notes that dance reflects social changes, since “at the end of the 1800s primal dancing forms have lent themselves to the stratification and symbolic choreographies of the ’Ndrangheta” (Barresi 1997:57). During Mussolini’s government, religious celebrations in Reggio Calabria ceased being loci for ’Ndrangheta power par excellence, yet after the collapse of the regime ’Ndrangheta reappeared as the main patron of public dances (Castagna 2006:69). Traits of personhood and desires for socioeconomic mobility can be pursued through dance as many claim that “mafia and tarantella provide the space for the manifestation of personal capacities, dignity and personality” (Barresi 1997:57). In public dances the space where the dance is performed is circular (rota) and is delineated by the participants and audience. The dance usually opens with the phrase facimu rotaCD (let’s make a circle). This space where the dancers and musicians are placed is associated with connotations of territoriality, control, and local ’Ndrangheta identity. In Stajano’s chronicle Africo, Rocco Palamara and his friends confront some members of the ’Ndrangheta over the patronizing of the ballo in a piazza: The friends have occupied the piazza rossa (red)—the nickname that we gave for piazza De Gasperi—to dance the tarantella. This dance requires one so-called “mastru i ballu,” who has the task to indicate who enters and exits the dancing space. In a few words he must regulate the dance. The “occupation” of the dance signifies the legitimate representative of the dancing space. In the dance in the piazza, in the

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past, it was always a Mafioso as mastru i ballu, because the dance is considered to be an occasion to demonstrate authority and respect of the tradition. The friends that New Year’s Eve wanted to dance thus abolishing the mastru i ballu—an authoritative figure—that we wanted to forget forever. And so we danced between us without the maestro. But to the Mafiosi that was a huge insult, a kind of occupying of the piazza: the one who dances in the piazza commands the village. So they came to confront us. (Stajano 1979:135) Two main issues emerge from the above narrative. First, dance is considered the symbolic agent of tradition that in turn empowers dancers—as they themselves are the bearers of tradition. Second, dance closely relates to issues of territoriality and control. In the above extract, Rocco and his friends choose not just any night of the year, but New Year’s Eve, to exhibit their disapproval of the ’Ndrangheta and the occupation of the dancing space. New Year’s Eve in Reggio Calabria is a very special occasion for celebration, fireworks, and gunfire. I often questioned such public displays of supremacy and fearless lawbreaking. “Whom do they need to be afraid of?” was the most frequent answer. Rocco and his friends appear unafraid of the ’Ndrangheta despite being conscious of the rules regarding dancing in the piazza. Through their dance they perform their condemnation and resistance of the ’Ndrangheta and are adamant that they want to forever forget the mastru i ballu and the authority he symbolizes. Contestation and provocation are thus indexed through public dance performances. During my fieldwork I attended numerous fiestas in the villages of area Grecanica that exhibited similar celebratory patterns. On one occasion things did not go according to plan. After the procession I expected the ballo to start, but this was not the case. At one point, men started running toward the kiàzzaGO (square), and unrest among the people signaled something untoward. When I asked what had happened my friends vaguely replied that some drunken men created problems with the dance. Being Greek myself I found the whole thing— drunken people creating problems while dancing17—very normal and I immediately made it clear that I wanted to participate in the spectacle. “No,” my friends declared with a very firm attitude, “this is not a nice spectacle.” I remained still, debating between my own anthropological curiosity to find out what had happened and my respect toward my friends and hosts. In the meantime I noticed women going back and forth extremely disturbed and

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men acting in a very agitated manner. After half an hour the whole thing had finished and men gathered in the central piazza to discuss in loud voices. I asked again what happened, only to get vague replies. Clearly people did not want to reveal the reason behind this disorder that resulted in annulling the fiesta they had been waiting for all year. As I had learned not to push in such situations, I decided to drop the issue for the present. Many days after I returned to Reggio Calabria, I encountered one of my informants, who asked me if I had really understood what happened on the night in question. I very diplomatically replied that I assumed that it had to do with the dance. “Precisely,” he replied. He then, in a very conspiratorial manner, informed me that one of the village’s ’ndrine was disputing the patronage of the ballo and that they had brought their own musicians to play in the fiesta. That was a sgarro18 (provocation) that the patron ’ndrina could not tolerate under any circumstances. In the end, the provocateurs left the village with no further repercussions. Corrado Alvaro argues that the piazza and the chiesa (church) are points of social orientation and direction and their appropriation has always puzzled and tortured the Calabrian imagination (2003:12–14). The most visible space in Reggio Calabria, the Piazza Duomo, represents the tangible sociopolitical and religious heart of the city. ’Ndrangheta dance in the Piazza Duomo has polysemic connotations of control and hierarchy. Being a zona franca, a neutral territory over which no local ’ndrina has any explicit control, space and performance in the Piazza Duomo become interwoven in understandings of power sharing. As I have noted, the local ’ndrine compete for and define themselves according to the occupation and control of territory, performance and participation in the dance. In recent years various ’ndrine celebrate in front of Duomo in different places, each one with their own musicians. The amount of public participation they register clearly indicates their capacity for governance encapsulated in political power, patronage and networking. Honorata Società (honored society)—a term by which ’Ndrangheta is also known—celebrates and imposes its rules on the dance. According to Ettore Castagna, “many are the cases where the evolution of the dance is conditioned, more or less, by the presence of the Mafiosi who without exercising a complete hegemony demand their own tarantella, interpreting the dance as a kind of auto-celebration of the ’Ndrangheta and its hierarchies” (1988:17 original emphasis). “Sangue, morte, e tarantella” (“Blood, death, and tarantella”) was the title

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in Gazzetta del sud on 17 September 1985 to describe the last dance of the mastru i ballu Giovanni Tomasello, 47. The article narrated how Tomasello was killed by a ’Ndrangheta sgarro during the fiesta of the Madonna della Consolazione. As a mark of respect for the dead man, but clearly an indication of spatial governance, the ’Ndrangheta did not permit any music or dancing during the remaining days of the fiesta (Castagna 1988:20–22). Barresi (1997) offers a reflexive account of ’Ndrangheta spatial governance. When she attempted to take pictures of the men dancing in the Piazza Duomo—for research purposes—a woman warned her that “they do not like being photographed” and “you may probably end up in a difficult situation.” Barresi did not take the warning into account; instead, she attempted to take her pictures without flash and from a relative distance. In her attempt she was spotted by one of the mastru’s assistants who, on the grounds that “we are not here to be photographed. We are not photogenic,” asked her not to take pictures. Barresi replied that she was interested in the issue of dance and appeared quite firm in her decision to photograph the dancers. According to Barresi, the assistant became aggressive and called immediately for the mastru. The dance stopped and so did the music. Everybody was looking at her and she felt very uncomfortable. Eventually the mastru requested that she forgive the aggressive manner of his assistant, without however allowing her to continue her photography (1997:50). Taking into consideration notions of territoriality and control, Castagna (1988, 2006) distinguishes between the tarantella riggitana (of Reggio Calabria) and the tarantella mafiusaCD (of the mafiosi). It is true that we cannot homogenize the tarantella in terms of either melodic arrangements or dancing style. As style is interrelated with identity (Royce 1982:28), every village and locality in Reggio Calabria approaches tarantella in a slightly different way. Especially the rules that pertain to physical touch in the man/woman tarantella are remarkably different, and lack of knowledge of these rules may lead to serious confrontations. Tarantella riggitana, mafiusa, viddanedha (of the veddani, peasants), to name but a few, refer primarily to ideological differentiations and secondarily to additional fluctuations in melodic arrangements or stylistic variations. It is clear that Castagna is careful not to homogenize the tarantella, wishing to avoid an implication of collectivity that would thus render all the Reggini mafiosi. While by no means all the participants in the dance in the Piazza Duomo are ’ndranghetisti, the ritual per se is controlled by the ’Ndrangheta (Castagna 1988, 2006; Barresi 1997). Nevertheless, the impressive attendance that these dances receive should alert us to

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the degree that desire for power, devotion or vote hunting may be indistinguishable motives for participation.

Mastru i Ballu: Chi Acceta le Regole, Balla (The One Who Accepts the Rules, Dances) The mastru i ballu (maestro of the dance) invites the politician to enter the dance. The politician accepts the invitation and—with a smile—enters the dance without however saluting the maestro and the musicians. His dancing partner avoids making direct eye contact with him and immediately starts “claiming” his space in relation to the politician. He does not seek to embrace him, he guards his space. Immediately he initiates the lotta (fight) by challenging the politician. He uses his imaginary coltello (knife) to “cut the air” of his co-dancer. His dance is offensive, aggressive, fearless. For almost two minutes the man uses all the symbolism of an imaginary fight to exercise his superiority over the politician. He has inflicted colpi (strokes) and controcolpi (counter-strokes). The politician still maintains his smile. The above passage describes one of the thousands of dancing scenes in the Piazza Duomo during the fiesta of the Madonna in Reggio Calabria. The invitation to dance in the Duomo is open to everybody, “everyone who has their feet in the rota, and accepts the rules, can dance.” Central components of the dance are the dancing couple and the mastro del ballo (master of the dance) or mastru i balluCD. The dance is constantly occupied by one couple that succeeds others according to a process directed by the mastru. The mastru is a figure of authority and direction and has responsibility for the smooth running of the event.19 The person elected to be mastru is usually a respected ’ndranghetista of a high position in the gerarchia maggiore (major hierarchy). The mastru’s task is crucial in the sense that he must immediately spot the “important” people who approach the rota. The ’ndranghetisti who participate in the dance must be identified immediately and invited to dance. The role of the mastru is twofold. First is to invite the person from the gerarchia maggiore and couple him or her with another person of similar rank. An important person from another social sector or profession is also welcome. The scene with the politician described above is a perfect example of how an

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important person is treated with a cordial invitation on behalf of the mastru. The politician, who originates from Aspromonte, wants to be seen at an event where his people and electorate are the protagonists. This is a tactical move that can potentially attract new voters, initiate collaborations and affiliations, or consolidate existing ones. Additionally, by not conforming exactly to the protocol of the dance—for instance, he does not salute the mastru and musicians when entering the dance—the politician plays his identity through a strategic manipulation of inclusions and exclusions (Jenkins 1997, 2002:124). He reserves his right to dance and be “part of the people,” but simultaneously he maintains his distance from any possible ’Ndrangheta affiliation because his performance is devoid of ’Ndrangheta choreographic symbolisms. The ’ndranghetista on the other hand—the politician’s partner in the dance—at first glance appears to accept the politician’s deviation from the protocol because he too acknowledges that the former is an important and potentially “useful” person. Yet, in his dancing, he exercises the ’Ndrangheta’s hegemony over his partner by making clear who is the real master of the game in the piazza. It is his dancing performance, invested with contextual visibility that is successfully interpreted by the audience and clarifies power relations and the capacity for governance. In his tasks, the mastru must also be careful to avoid pairing people who are not on good terms. For this purpose he is assisted by people who indicate to him the order that potential dancers can enter the dance. Any person who wishes to dance must be invitato (invited). The invito (invitation) is a strategic act and a “socially necessary activity to cultivate friendship” (Driessen 1983:128). A boss entering the dance space is treated with exceptional respect, fear and love. Julio, 55, is a guitar player and remembers a particular scene from his youth when he and his band were hired to play music at a marriage celebration in Gambaria (in Aspromonte). The whole event was progressing well without problems and the people were very pleased with our music. It was a marriage occasion and all were happy and cheerful. Suddenly everybody stopped laughing and speaking loudly. What happened was that a boss—kin on the bride’s side—entered the room. Immediately we stopped playing music while the bride’s father, first cousin of the boss, was hurrying to welcome the boss to the fiesta. After the preliminary disorder that the entrance of such an important guest brought, the father, and mastru i ballu, immediately invited the cousin to dance. The boss’s dance was

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modest—like a woman. He avoided any vibrant movements and with his palms on his hips was just shaking to the rhythm. Suddenly a gun dropped from his jacket. The next part happened so quickly: a man from his company literally “dived” in the direction of the gun and in a second the gun had disappeared. I was pretending that I did not see anything but my heart was pounding in my chest.

Unfolding the Dance The mastru “opens” the dance by inviting a person from the rota to dance with him. After dancing for a couple of minutes the mastru leaves and invites another person from the rota to dance in his place. The new couple dance for a couple minutes more, before the mastru reenters the dance. Usually with the phrase fora u primuCD (the first out) or with a movement of his arms— which much resembles the action of chasing away animals—he indicates that the first dancer must exit. The mastru now dances with the person who remains. After a while the mastru exits the dance once again and by inviting another person in from the rota, renews the dancing couple. The dancing couple is the center of attention for as long as the dance lasts. The dancers may be elderly or very young, with the aesthetic evaluation of the dance not of primary concern. Being at the center of public attention means that a person is notato (noticed) and this in the context of Reggio Calabria is the ultimate moment of social visibility. As one of my informants very eloquently put it, “uno balla per voto o voto” (one dances for vote or vow), epitomizing the politicoreligious entanglement of dancing in the Piazza Duomo. Being noticed can equally serve instrumental purposes. The person who dances will be noticed by the ’ndranghetisti, who may not have previously known him/her. As Mimo says, “un bell domani quando si incontreranno si saluteranno cosi ‘mio compare a disposizione vostra’ baciandosi” (one beautiful day when they encounter each other they salute with ‘my compare (I am) at your disposal’ and they kiss each other). The invito—the offer and the acceptance of the invitation—is thus a very strategic manipulation of probable and future dispositions and amicizie (friendships). The audience invited to participate in the dance with the ’Ndrangheta lend a sense of occasion and enhance its recognition and status. Superiority, victory, honor, respect, distrust and reserve, possession and conquest, are all interpreted in the man/man tarantella. Old forms of dancing

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with knives and sticks have been replaced with a variety of symbols that denote a symbolic fight. Coltelli (knives) and capinte (shepherds’ sticks), I was told, are still used in dance performances in some remote villages of Aspromonte. The sfida (challenge) is the dominant element of the man/man tarantella (Palumbo 2009; Pizza 2009). The sfida pertains to symbolism related to older dancing and fighting forms when the use of knives and swords was commonplace. The use of knives and swords may no longer be present, but the sfida, more than just a symbolic fight, is real and highlights the power relations between the two dancers. The dancer who initiates the sfida uses his palm or index and middle fingers to cut through the air, as if in an imaginary knife attack. While dancing he attempts to attack his partner—toward his ribs, heart, or face. With almost acrobatic embellishments he blocks the dancing path of his partner. An arm fully extended above the head, with the fist held tight, is another sign of dominance. These challenges can only be performed by a man in an elevated position in the ’Ndrangheta hierarchy. This does not make a person of inferior position submissive in his dance, as his social status is enhanced just by publicly dancing with a superior. Ingenuity and capacity for improvization in avoiding the attacks of his partner enhances the performer’s status. In the sfida the dancers maintain a confrontational position for spatial navigation and awareness encapsulated in the need not to farsi stringere (be restrained). Avoiding being restrained can possibly determine the outcome of the dance. The confrontational position is the embodiment of respect, love, and diffidence. Physical contact is a sign of friendship, respect, and love. Dancing back to back or with arms on each other’s shoulders is considered another sign of love, friendship, and respect that derives from the use of the same space by two performers who act as one and thus belong to each other.

The Notte Bianca (the White Night) During the celebrations for the Madonna, “one breathes fiesta in the atmosphere”—to borrow from Lisón-Tolosana’s descriptions for the fiestas of Belmonte de los Caballeros’ religious patrons (1966:12). The Basilica in Eremo and the Cathedral are adorned with thousands of lights shining from afar during the dark night. But it is not only the churches that are elaborately decorated. The main streets of the city are equally drenched in light, ready to accommodate the thousands of Reggini who attend the celebrations. The Notte Bianca20 (White Night) is a recent innovation that allows for further civic (as

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the communal council’s program declares) celebrations during the fiesta of the Madonna. The 2006 Notte Bianca was a lavish display in terms of the money spent on decorations and famous street artists. As my informants have repeatedly pointed out, a large sum of public money (over 600,000 euros) was spent by the communal administration for the organization of the event.21 Not only local and nationally famous music artists and theatrical groups were invited to participate on those sleepless Madonna’s nights, but so were a number of VIP guests who were very well paid just to stroll along Via Marina and sign autographs. Yet, as the mayor concluded while being interviewed about the money spent for the organization of the Notte Bianca, “it was a successful event that will potentially benefit tourism in Reggio Calabria.” Occasions like the Notte Bianca cannot be analyzed separately from other invented or reinvented rituals in Europe (Boissevain 1992) whose dates coincide with religious fiestas. Religious symbols are implemented to advance tourism in Reggio Calabria and are effective because their content is subjectively interpreted (Cohen 1985:21). The town council strategically manipulates “cultural stuff ” (Barth 1969:15) to successfully accommodate apparently contradictory elements, including the coexistence of music groups performing next to ’ndranghetisti. Apart from the Festa della Madonna during September, a variety of other Notti Bianche have been introduced to Reggio Calabria during the year’s festivities—for example the Notte Bianca during the celebration of the Madonna Immacolata (immaculate) on 8 December. The last one was celebrated in my quartiere of residence, Gebbione, when the Vialle Aldo Moro (one of the central streets) was closed to accommodate celebrants, along with traders selling cooked local sausages and other local culinary specialties. The air was filled with a variety of music—a mixture of tarantella, Anglo-American, and modern Italian pop. Every local bar on the Vialle Aldo Moro offered a spectacle to attract more clients. In front of a bar a group of people were dressed in their traditional costumes to mock the old ways of dancing with sticks and knives. The role of the mastru i ballu was exaggerated as it was performed by a man literally dragging people into the dance and chasing out other dancers. In this context, participants “are performing a violent act which is rhetorically represented as a heritage safeguarding action” (Pizza 2009:255) thus blending seemingly in the innocent backdrop of the occasion. In the near distance a group of young people dressed in colorful satin costumes and with their faces painted walked on stilts and entertained the crowd. It is yet another occasion for celebration before the ostentatious New Year’s festivities.

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Dancing with the Br(other) Another context where dance is employed for political representation is on Greek tourist visits to Grecanici villages. In this case, dance can bridge incommensurabilities between Grecanici and Greek tourists that are apparent despite the rhetoric of brotherhood and common understanding produced by the Grecanico associations (Pipyrou 2012). Since the 1960s, Grecanici have become emblematic of Greek cultural capital extended beyond the borders of the Greek nation-state. The existence of an autochthonous population still speaking “the language of Homer” excites the imagination of Greeks. Organized tourist excursions to Grecanici villages promise Greeks a “vacation combined with culture” as they visit their “Greek brothers in South Italy.” Conversely, Grecanico associations organize annual visits to Greece, and on both occasions dance and music are employed to reinforce common heritage. Yet these meetings can become dangerous instances that reveal a clash of expectations (Pipyrou 2012). The area Grecanica has become well known in Greece since the 1960s, especially following the visits of philologist Angela Merianou. The late Merianou has become a legend, especially in the village of Galliciano, where an ethnographic museum is named in her honor. Touristic expeditions to the Ellinofona (the Greek speaking areas), as the villages in area Grecanica are collectively recognized in Greece, are organized by civic associations in Greece. Combining vacations with culture forms a substantive part of the modern aesthetics of leisure (Skinner and Theodossopoulos 2011). What Greek tourists have been promised is a peculiar time travel where the heroes of their school years, Homer, Odysseus, and Achilles, might actually converse with them in flesh and blood. Anticipation becomes aggressive desire and, when locals do not meet the high expectations, the Grecanico language and culture seem disappointing and inauthentic. On more than one occasion I have been asked by Greek tourists, “Why do these people not speak Greek?” The language believed to be the stronghold of a shared brotherhood between Grecanici and modern Greeks is an inadequate tool of communication. It further seems to threaten the meticulously cultivated affective relations between the two populations. Tourist visits may become dangerous slippages in otherwise carefully orchestrated and approved contexts of commonality. Tourist visits to area Grecanica follow more or less the same pattern. Greek civic associations collaborate with Grecanico associations who act as hosts, touristic guides and living heritage ready to be “inspected” by curious

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tourists (cf. Herzfeld 2004:31). Grecanici representatives, who have mastered the Modern Greek language, usually introduce the tourists to their villages, providing historical information in Modern Greek and Grecanico. Greeks usually approach Grecanici villagers hoping to exchange some words with them, only to find out that people either do not or are not willing to understand them. Discomfort becomes evident when Greeks, because of my own Greek nationality, expect me to answer for this incommensurability. “Why do these people not speak Greek? We were told that we were going to find Greeks here. So how come they do not understand us? Do we need to speak in Italian in order to be understood? How do you communicate with them? Are they really Greeks?” Commensurability between cultures is a timeconsuming anthropological endeavor and I was asked to relay immediately what requires the length of a book to explain. Nevertheless, during the fiesta organized by the Grecanico associations the initial discomfort seems to succumb. The splendid location of the accommodation, the delicious local cuisine and wine, and tarantella performed with a local music group become bridges of communication where language seems fragile. A Grecanici representative gives the welcoming speech in Grecanico; the vocabulary used is carefully selected to be easily understood by the Greeks. The talk is passionate and frames the relationship between Greeks and Grecanici as one of brotherhood and common descent. The language connects the two populations, as there was a time where their common ancestors were speaking the language of a “common grandfather.” The speech is moving and provokes an emotional response from the Greeks who seem captivated; some have tears in their eyes. Such an emotionally loaded scene requires a more cheerful climax. The music group comes to the stage and starts performing a string of exciting tarantelle. They start with what is known as the “Grecanico anthem,” a song entitled “Ela, elamu conda”GO (“Come, come close to me”).22 Through simple and clever lyrics Greeks and Grecanici find a performative space where they can finally communicate, and the Greek tourists are happy they understand the lyrics of the song. During the 1980s many Grecanico songs and poems were produced, to the extent that illiterate people were approached by the associations for purposes of publishing their poems. The flow of information in the form of Grecanico poetry, music, and dance between the Grecanico associations and Greece produced a powerful discourse of meta-communication between the two parties and strengthened their relationship still further. Tarantella in its vivacity never fails to excite the tourists. In such contexts

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the dance is performed in a completely different manner from the religious celebrations appropriated by ’Ndrangheta. Rules are dissolved; there is no mastru i ballu to direct the dance in a strict fashion and many couples simultaneously occupy the dancing space. Greeks may even dance tarantella on a chair or table following habits of Greek night clubs. The same Grecanici who rigidly follow tarantella rules in other contexts recognize the need to bend the rules in favor of the promotional nature of the event. Diversification for touristic purposes is recognized as a necessity that does not tarnish tradition. Peculiarly, its dynamics is indeed recognized as a tradition in its own right as it is born from the need to diversify for touristic development. Grecanici constructivists have been transformed into “true ‘artists’ of regional vernacular cultures, which have been reconfigured to support the idea of a transcendent national culture for the tourist trade” (Herzfeld 2004:30). As Herzfeld has argued, “The rhetoric of tradition and modernity is not only the epiphenomenal expression but one of the most critical instruments of hierarchy . . . with ‘tradition’ as the repository of those nostalgic idylls in which only the privileged can afford to indulge; tradition, too, is associated with a nobly picturesque ‘backwardness’ ” (2004:30–31). After UNESCO’s 2003 introduction of the category of intangible heritage, the relationship between communities and their heritage sites has changed drastically (Herzfeld 1996, 2009a; Palumbo 2003). As national and local actors compete to secure resources. they often find themselves inserted into global systems that hierarchize value and provoke an aggressive becoming driven by their desire to develop their projects and secure resources fundamental for their survival (Pipyrou 2012). During 2013 the Calabrian candidacy Le Minoranze linguistiche patrimonio mondiale dell’ umanità (The linguistic minorities global patrimony of humanity) seeking UNESCO recognition has been heralded by local civic associations, politicians, and regional government as the ultimate acknowledgment of the Calabrian linguistic minorities and their contribution to humanity. Into the UNESCO category of intangible heritage is inserted local gastronomy, local craft, and dance.

Embodied Governance Dance converges fundamental notions of locality and transnationality where power, craftsmanship, and diversification can be embodied as an art of

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governance. As Foucault notes, the art of governance is to propose continuities in both upward and downward directions (1991:91). These continuities may be traceable in the dance performances during religious celebrations patronized by the local ’ndrine or in the touristic tarantella whose precise disorganization introduces commensurabilities otherwise lost in linguistic communication between Grecanici and Greek nationals. Dance is a context for power legitimization, territorial claims, and commensurability. When ’ndranghetisti dance in front of the cathedral they fearlessly lay claim to governance of the city and the citizens that participate in the celebrations, as well as putting power hierarchies on public display. The religious setting further endows the ’Ndrangheta with divine authenticity and reminds people of who are the true protectors of the city in the face of a failing state. The dance event is an opportunity to reinforce existing and create new political alliances, display love, devotion and respect, and engage in a positive public relations campaign. The touristic event where dance facilitates commensurability between Greeks and Grecanici proves the centrality of dance to Grecanico heritage. Dance is a key aspect of heritage as acknowledged on international levels of governance—both the Greek state and UNESCO perceive dance as part of the Grecanico intangible heritage to be revered, protected, and preserved. Dance performances at the fiesta and during tourist visits are thus the bodily manifestation of fearless governance.

Chapter 8

Minority on the Fringes of Europe

When I left Reggio Calabria, I felt I had left a part of myself back in the field. “Making relatedness” between the ethnographer and the research participants reveals the deep humanistic nature of the ethnographic adventure (Gay y Blasco 2012b). The final story narrates the relationship between Venere and the ethnographer. While Venere is an actual person, she also stands as a metonymy for the complex networks of relatedness present in Reggio Calabria on which fearless governance is built. Venere is a middle-aged woman renowned for her beauty and kindness. I met Venere through her daughter: “My mother adores Greek people . . . their vivacity and their dance.” I happily arranged to meet the mother soon after. I already had an idea about the family, how educated both Venere and her husband were, how they were renowned for being sociable and hospitable. I was not disappointed, for Venere was all the above and more. The first day I went to her house, she and her daughter were listening to Greek music, a specific genre called rebetikoMG (see Damianakos 1974/2001; Andriakaina 1996; Zaimakis 2009). They asked me whether I liked rebetiko, and I replied that it was among my favorite genres. They then requested I dance. During my fieldwork I had many requests to dance, be it Greek traditional dances or the tarantella. As we have seen, dance in Reggio Calabria is a powerful context that indexes power relations, territorial control, and commensurability, and people are usually keen to perform. After requesting a specific rebetiko song, I complied with the wish of my hosts and danced for a couple of minutes. At the end of the dance both Venere and her daughter applauded. The visit continued with less physically demanding activities: drinking homemade liquors and grappa. When seeing me to the door, Venere said “I like you because your dance is beautiful.”

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Venere has proven to be one of my best informants, introducing me to her social circle and providing the opportunity to socialize with very important local political figures. Gradually she became my best friend and the only person in the field whom I trusted completely and in whom I could confide my fears and anxieties. At first I was invited to eat with her a couple of times a week. I could drop by her house around ten o’clock in the evening when I finished my work. She cooked the local cuisine superbly. The custom of dining together soon became so regular that I no longer required an invitation. When fieldwork was demanding, I would give her a phone call to warn her that I would be late and therefore she should not wait to eat together. But she always waited. Venere’s children regularly invited me to their homes, where I met their extended families. They, in turn, introduced me to other families with whom they were related, were friends, or conducted business. During my subsequent short visits to Reggio Calabria I resided with Venere. She provided me with a separate room and my own front door key. As she explained, “we are both busy people therefore you need your own key. This is your family, this is your home, and you are entitled to come and go whenever you please, and invite here whoever you want.” I tried not to abuse such generosity and kept to my schedule as closely as possible. Our custom of eating together around ten o’clock did not change. One evening, after having already informed her I would be late, I entered the house prepared that this time I would dine alone. I was wrong. The house was lit and the table set. She was there with the usual smile, opening a bottle of beer for me. “You did not need to wait. I told you that I would be late,” I complained. She smiled and gestured with a nod for me to sit down, “You cannot eat alone.” Venere was my protector, informant, storyteller, friend, family, and patron in political circles. The connecting thread running throughout this book, relatedness, is at the heart of Grecanici minority governance. The overlapping of kinship, friendship, associationism, and ’Ndrangheta as channels of political representation make any analysis of relatedness in Reggio Calabria a messy task. Forming relatedness takes a great deal of effort, time, sacrifice, and ultimately desire to become part of a wider nexus that links the local community to national and international politics. It should not be a surprise, then, that the economic, religious, and political language in Reggio Calabria is that of relatedness and family, highly ambivalent and multifaceted terms that allow people to simultaneously occupy diverse, seemingly contradictory roles. Two people biologically related may recast their relation through

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godparenthood, ’Ndrangheta initiation rituals, clientelism, or rhetorics of brotherhood with Ancient Greeks, demonstrating an ultimately aggressive and fearless desire for unbounded and unconditional relatedness. These microscale relations are the building blocks for Grecanici to harness national and global-scale governance and endow Grecanici with the fearlessness required for an “endangered” population to pursue representation. It is imperative to pay close attention to the detail of multilayered relatedness to fully understand the ebbs and flows of power relations in Grecanici minority politics.

On the Fringes of Europe(?) The research for this project was primarily conducted within the urban environment of Reggio Calabria. Nevertheless, Grecanici who live in the city are constantly on the move to and from their villages of origin, pointing to a critical rethinking of their historical and political subjectivities. The “metaphor of movement” (Ballinger 2003:268) between core and periphery, or the fringes of Europe, problematizes the notions of boundary, core, and periphery. The metaphor can be stretched to include how Grecanici move from dealing with small scale, quite colloquial political issues to mainstream bodies of global governance, constantly reconstituting their social and political subjectivities according to the scale of engagement. As many Mediterranean ethnographers have identified, the notions of core and periphery may perpetuate stereotypical assumptions of domination and dependence without taking into consideration that domination may be equally found “at the top” and “at the bottom” (Schneider and Schneider 1976; Wolf 1982). As this study reflects, relations of authority are not the exclusive privilege of bodies deemed as “at the top” of global political hierarchies, for governance is realized on many levels. Large numbers of people who articulate their opposition to governmental and institutional policies find political representation by engaging in techne that makes present and gives form to particular rationalities of governance (Rapport 1999:189). The techne is located in the politics of relatedness and a specific ethos of caring for the Self while caring for the Other. A study of Grecanici political representation has thus relativized notions of core and periphery as disenfranchised people on the fringes of Europe assemble political resources to articulate their claims on an international stage. The Grecanici minority has hence become the focus of much attention due to

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the successful transcendence of scales of governance instigated in the mountains of Aspromonte, transferred to the city of Reggio Calabria, and transported across national borders. Grecanici are represented “in idea,” to paraphrase Placanica (1985), by Grecanici scholars and representative bodies such as Grecanico associations, Comunità Montana, and the sportelli linguistici. Civil society has successfully formed an argument based on linguistic biodiversity and historical constructivism that effectively packages Grecanici subjectivities in a way that appeals to internationally accepted forms of difference. Civil society in South Italy derives its strength from different sources of dense relations between kin and friends. Grecanici civil society is fluid and flexible, neither subordinate to the state nor exclusively chipping away at it from below, moving between the state and kinship and sometimes assuming the position of both to reveal the “multilayered complexity of political reality” (Abélès 1992:17 in Gledhill 2000:20). I have argued that civil society in Reggio Calabria is reticular, mapped by how actors navigate through dense crisscrossed networks of relations. As Grecanici politicization is achieved through a productive kinesis across various networks (kinship, political parties, associations, and ’Ndrangheta), Grecanici civil society escapes a classic definition that accords solely with positive democratic ideals. Civil society cuts across hierarchies sustained by social status, economic affluence, and family name and simultaneously scales levels of representation from local to transnational arenas. The mission of civil society has been successful as Grecanici have received a degree of self-government and self-determination once unimaginable; however, in such messy and exploitative processes their autonomy from the state has actually been curtailed in recent years. Like the Grecanico language, Grecanici civil society frames the minority as “indigenous,” allowing for specific political claims based on the oscillation between historical grandeur and victimhood as part of the “surreptitious narratives of the periphery” (Kirtsoglou 2004:155). These interpretations proposed in a top-down manner are contested by other “truths” that equally relate to constructivist notions of identity. Stories associated with ’Ndrangheta, brigantaggio, and vendetta in Grecanici histories articulate links to alternative ancestors unpalatable for a global audience. However, these narrative representations constitute the “educational curriculum” for many local people, as illustrated in the case of Chalònero. As we have also seen, the ’Ndrangheta is another representational system with precise roles and rules

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appealing to a significant number of people. Interpretations of ’Ndrangheta are regularly constructed in quotidian life but do not form part of the grand narrative of the minority projected by sanctioned voices, pointing to the idea that the Grecanici minority is a category constructed as much out of “literature and myth as it is of power” (Goddard 1994:26). Since the rural-urban migration of the 1950s, Grecanici have exhibited particular qualities of spatial and emotive proximity and a remarkable capacity to adapt to changing forms of spatial governance. Poverty and natural disasters forced Grecanici to seek economic sanctuary away from the villages of Aspromonte by migrating to northern Europe, northern Italy, and nearby urban areas. By the end of the 1950s, some quarters of Reggio Calabria (San Giorgio extra is the most illustrative case) had received a considerably large number of people from the area Grecanica. Newcomers successfully utilized kinship links to secure accommodation and employment and later to foster political alliances based on pledges of family protection. Neighborhood identification is still a prominent element of Grecanici life in the city, deriving from deep-rooted stereotypes of particular quartieri and representing dense networks of relations and localized forms of spatial governance. Since moving to Reggio Calabria Grecanici have continued to govern space based on relatedness, managing to maintain cultural difference while “playing the power games” of the city. Once again, this is based on the ability to form and reform relatedness through multiple channels of governance in domestic and political domains.

Governance, Fearlessness, Relatedness In telling the story of the Grecanici I was particularly concerned with the way a recognized linguistic minority manage their political representation on local and transnational scales. After the inception of minority associationism, promoting the protection of an endangered people, Grecanici civil society has shifted from self-determination to universalistic reconciliation. Grecanici no longer find themselves exploring identification merely through localized historical constructivism, but are now chasing the rainbow to be recognized as a UNESCO immaterial heritage of humanity. It is an endeavor to understand how Grecanici learned to become a minority while maintaining their identity as people embracing a certain type of difference not necessarily strictly in line with national and global frameworks

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of representation. National and global minority policy recognizes certain types of difference groups must adhere to in order to secure funding and international political recognition. Nevertheless, it is crucial to look closely at difference, not only as the outcome of global imaginaries, but in the degree to which this difference is commensurable or incommensurable with personal and public moral disposition. Grecanici claims to difference are materialized on multiple plains of ideology and governance, a creative topology of interconnected everyday affective relations and provocative discursive plateaus of local, national and transnational life. The Grecanici story is a lesson in the successes and failures of western democracies within which dreams of difference may be forged or die inexorably. Enticing as they may be, global propositions of difference have to be shrewdly yet fearlessly negotiated and balanced with other, some may say, not so palatable forms of representation. Every chapter in this book is a neat illustration of governance in different domains and levels—from local and global civil society to family networks. It is the galvanizing effect of dense relatedness that consolidates the authority of Grecanici minority governance. Grecanici find themselves in a paradoxical position; on the one hand they are presented as a vulnerable endangered minority, but on the other they exercise fearless governance over their language and culture. Relatedness forms the basis of minority governance, realized not only through state programs but also through the policies that Grecanici civil society implement to articulate their claim to difference. To fulfill their desire for distinctiveness and recognition and ultimately claim a share of global power and financial resources, Grecanici as a minority are constantly adapting their lexica of representation according to global hierarchies of value. As difference has become a homogenizing term, a study of the Grecanici highlights the nuances of difference within shifting historical and political frameworks and particularistic local struggles (Herzfeld 2004). Difference may take diverse forms and be unfolded in various ways, following tangled political paths. Over the past sixty years Grecanici have managed to creatively cultivate their difference according to the target audience, including fluctuating Italian and Greek state sympathies, EU policies, and Greek tourists who passionately dance tarantella with their long-lost brothers. Shedding light on the phenomenology of difference, I have closely examined various nexuses of relatedness that have provided Grecanici with effective and affective representation since their migration to Reggio Calabria in the 1950s. Premised on an aggressive desire for relatedness, family, civil

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society, “official” politics, and illegality often overlap and are not seen as problematic when managing Grecanico as a linguistic and cultural asset. The manner in which Grecanici find political representation through a number of avenues points to a type of governance realized through a matrix of wellmanaged scaled relations. Often this multiplicity generates questions of violence, corruption, and mismanagement, yet they are not incommensurable. On the fringes of Europe and in the margins of Western mainstream politics, Grecanici offer lessons on governance captured in the multiplicity of policies, relations, and bodily performance. If we approach governance not as the exclusive practice of state democracies, we will have a clearer picture of particular ways of “thinking and doing” as these are implemented by unconventional sovereign networks. This brings us as to why ’Ndrangheta has been incorporated in this study. Governance relates to particular rules that “regulate conduct and the associated judgements” (Firth 1961:183). The “conduct of other’s conduct” (Foucault 1994:xxix) is fully captured in an idea of governance where heterogeneous elements of justice and self-perpetuation are fully articulated. By taking the Grecanici as my starting point, my primary concern was to account for identification with modes of thinking about governance. Far from a deliberate attempt to unravel the continued presence of mafia in southern Italy, my ethnographic take was a result of ’Ndrangheta being a primary public manifestation of authority and power, encountered, if not wholly embraced, in quotidian life. Ignoring this catholic presence would be a disservice to anthropological representation and to local value invested in this form of governance. On occasions such as religious celebrations, people are invited to share a specific vision of governing their city. Embracing the seductive idioms of holiness and the family, ’Ndrangheta appeals as another string to the bow of governance (Pipyrou 2014b). The family in Italy, it has been argued, is both a metaphor and a reality. I have ventured a step farther. The Grecanici family provides ontological exegesis about being, walking and working in the world. Family is an all-inclusive spatiotemporal context with multiple chronotopic entries. Nexuses of relations that condition governance are built on symbols of blood, name, the “archaic” family, ancestors, and saints that lend authority and legitimacy to political claims. Tracing their roots to Magna Graecia, Grecanici readily employ memory and imagination in order to create a familiar sense of allochronic time and space by evoking kin, saints, and ancestors. Grecanici desire family relations and reflexively engage in their creation, often in an aggressive fashion. Nevertheless, in the same way that they recognize the

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binding qualities of relations, they readily exploit, subvert, or ultimately destroy them. Narrating the manner that relations turn into contexts of power, authority and governance has an ethnographic as well as theoretical value in contemporary anthropology. I have shown that governance is not the exclusive privilege of state institutions but can be found in everyday relations and bodily manifestations. By focusing on the relationships rather than the poles of political power, I have avoided making assumptions about top-down permeations of governance that form subjectivity and resistance. Instead, we find sometimes contradictory realizations of governance, formed in uncoordinated ways in public and private spheres. Grecanici seem fearless in the way they propose regimes of truth in which, they claim, they believe unequivocally. They appear sure of who they are and where they are going. Fearlessness is not solely restricted to speech, as Foucault suggested, but is realized through astute bureaucratic management and authoritative bodily performances that generate power. Grecanici fearless governance is based on qualified knowledge gained through multilayered relatedness, and they are not afraid to take risks, to incur wrath, lose friends, or risk death in challenging the political status quo.

Notes

Chapter 1. The Governance of Endangered People 1. Jillian Cavanaugh (2009:171) argues that although Lega Nord fiercely promoted local interests and particularities, this also entailed “ridding this house of unwanted outsiders from elsewhere,” thus echoing historic discontent with Southerners. Prior to the 2014 European elections, members of the Lega Nord reportedly attempted to cross from Italy to Tunisia in a rubber dinghy to demonstrate the ease with which immigrants cross between Africa and Europe. Maltese media reported that the Lega Nord activists almost drowned and were forced to call for assistance. In a provocative video published by the party in May 2014, immigrants speak on camera warning prospective immigrants not to come to Italy for they will face hunger and desperation; http://www.bbc .co.uk/news/blogs-eu-27352480, accessed 21 August 2014. 2. Giuliana Prato (2009) has discussed the problematic minority laws with reference to the Arbëresh in Puglia. 3. My thinking here is particularly informed by Herzfeld (2004) and Palumbo (2003) on heritage governance. 4. http://www.strill.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=66520&Ite mid=86 accessed 2 May 2015. Strill.it, ‘Reggio, Minniti (Prc-Fds): “Governo taglia fondi per minoranza greco-calabra mettendo a rischio attività sportelli linguistici provinciali’.” 5. Voci dalla Calabria Greca, accessed 30 April 2013, “Le minoranze linguistiche a partimonio dell’Umanità.” 6. In her study of the Bergamasco language in northern Italy, Jillian Cavanaugh (2009:11) argues that a “social aesthetics of language is the interweaving of culturally shaped and emotionally felt dimensions of language use and the extra-linguistic factors that rank people and their groups into hierarchies.” 7. This was the law for which all Italian minorities had been waiting. A similar bill (no. 612) had been rejected in 1991 and dissolved under political crisis in 1992 (Coluzzi 2007:57–58). The minority languages covered by the 1999 law are French, Provençal, Franco-Provençal, German, Ladin, Friulian, Slovene, Sardinian, Catalan, Albanian, Greek, and Croatian.

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8. David Moss (1995:65) argues that in the ethnographies of southern Italy conducted between 1960 and 1975, “authors have adopted, often faute de mieux, the perspective of the client, usually a peasant.” The identification of clientelism as masking relations of domination and coercion may also be related to studies examining the poles of the clientelistic relations and not the relations per se. This specific analysis stresses the dyadic nature of patronage while failing to take into consideration wider and more contemporary networks of clients and patrons where people may be bound up in multiple levels of governance. 9. Zinn (2001) is right when she argues that the English translation, “recommendation” does not capture the spectrum of meanings raccomandazione entails. On the issue of translating between cultures, see also Herzfeld (1980) and Just (2001). 10. In the case of a public quota, there is great suspicion from the public that the jobs are already taken by family members and the results are fixed. 11. Foucault identifies three dimensions of governance: techne, episteme, and ethos. Techne refers to the manner in which governance is concerned with the fabrication of certain kinds of subjectivity and identity as well as discourses and rhetorics of value (Dean 1999:31, 67). It is the “art of making-present, of giving clear form to and hence realizing, what was previously absent or remote” (Rapport 1999:189). Episteme is the rationale of governance, “the forms of knowledge that arise from and inform the activity of governing” (Dean 1999: 31). Finally, ethos refers to “an incitement to study the form and consequences of universals in particular historical situations and practices grounded in problems raised in the course of particular social and political struggles” (42).

Chapter 2. Meet the Grecanici 1. For a discussion of the Greek linguistic minority in Puglia, see Gruppo di Lecce (1979) and more recently, Manuela Pellegrino (2013). 2. Metaphors are strong devices in anthropology and anthropologists are delighted to engage with them (Fishman 2002:272). But there is always the danger that metaphors can preempt our analysis if not used cautiously and heuristically. Donna Haraway (1988) has brought attention to the precariousness of anthropological positioning by arguing that anthropologists are often susceptible to reproducing the knowledge and language of the disenfranchised. The standpoints of the subjugated are not “innocent” positions, Haraway maintains, and should not escape critical evaluation and deconstruction (see also Ballinger 2003). 3. Following the Council of Trent (1545–1563) Orthodox ritual was officially replaced by Catholic. 4. The first liturgy in Latin was performed by a Bovesiano priest of the Siviglia family. So heavy was the criticism he received from his co-villagers that they nicknamed him “Judas.” This denigrating nickname has been transmitted to the descendants of this family, presently living in Rome (Petropoulou 1995:150). 5. The floods of December 1972–January 1973 affected the regions of Abruzzo,

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Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Marche, Molise, and Sicily, causing 20 causalities and 464.81 million euros of damage (Lastoria et al. 2006). 6. Prelorenzos (1978), Merianou (1980, 1989), Vranopoulos (1999), Platanos (2003), to name but a few. 7. In 2001 the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople visited area Grecanica as part of his visit to southern Italy. As stated in the Italian press, the reasons behind the visit did not relate to religious conversion. 8. As Daniel Knight notes in Trikala (central Greece), trips to area Grecanica are advertised by the various tourist agencies as “vacation combined with culture.” Various packages are on offer to sample cultural activities with “our Greek brothers in south Italy” (personal communication, 2009). 9. Until 752 the name “Calabria” indicated the geographic location of contemporary northern Puglia (Treccani 1935:291; Spano-Bolani 1979:156). 10. The mountainous areas are Pollino, Sila, and Aspromonte. The highest peak is the Montalto, in Aspromonte, at 1,956 m. 11. According to Annuario Statistico, 2005. 12. Corrado Alvaro describes “the fabulous spectacle”: “The sea on the side of Sicily, appears black and swollen like a mountain. On the side of Calabria, it appears (the sea) clear and transparent like a mirror. Onto this mirror there appear thousands of pillars, identical in the width, height, distance and colour. Suddenly, the pillars crumble and in their place splendid arches appear. But this spectacle lasts only for a moment. The arches and the pillars disappear from the sensational mirror. In their place, castles and towers emerge, only to shatter in silence; they give place to an entire city suspended in the mirror with her superb edifices and colonnades. Then the pillars and the houses collapse. The magic mirror reflects a ruined city until she transforms into an immense forest with herds, strange animals and bizarre figures. The symmetry, the harmonious colours and the naturalness of this fantastic mirage are sensational. The enchantment lasts only for a moment. Then the mirror miraculously evaporates and the waves of the strait return to their perpetual agitation” (2003:184). 13. Gabriele D’Annunzio described the Via Marina as “Il più bel chilometro d’Italia,” the most beautiful kilometer in Italy. This perception is collectively shared by the citizens of Reggio Calabria, who always mentioned it to me on our first passeggiate (leisurely walks in public areas). 14. In this quartiere a street was named lu stittu di paddhechiCD (the street of the peasants) until the 1970s (Martino 1979; Petropoulou 1997:234). 15. The term paddhecho derives from the Grecanico paddikàri (youth of pride, dash, full of life). Over the course of time the term has come to denote the uncouth, the vulgar and the stupid (Martino 1979; Petropoulou 1997:234). It is therefore ironic that a term of Grecanico origin was employed by the Reggini, in their ignorance, to denote Grecanici inferiority. 16. From the Grecanico verb porpatò (walk). When the Grecanici moved to the city

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the way they were walking seemed peculiar to the Reggini. The Grecanico man would walk in front of the woman and turn to shout at her “walk.” 17. TamarroGO means “rustic,” “peasant,” or “raffish.” 18. Much later, the introverted works of Grecanici authors such as Francesco Nucera (1974) and Salvino Nucera (1993) perpetuated a specific pessimism and bleakness regarding the literary portrayal of the modern Grecanici and have significantly influenced later Grecanici works of poetry and folklore. More recent ethnographic studies by scholars such as Vito Teti (2004) are excellent examples of where ethnography meets reflexive melancholia. In Teti’s study the sense of ruin and reconstruction in another place (5) is invested with a particular psychological determinism that eventually reflects and is reflected in Grecanici literature. 19. In the 1951 floods there were 110 casualties in Calabria, Sardinia, and Sicily. The estimated total damage was 15.49 million euros (Lastoria et al. 2006). 20. Problemi idraulici ed agronomici della Calabria, Roma (1958:64) (Relazione della commissione costituita con decreto interministeriale 14 Novembre 1953 per lo studio dei problemi derivanti dal dissesto idro-geologico dei corsi d’aqua della Calabria). 21. See especially Alicata (1953), where specific measures in relation to the local geology are proposed. 22. From 1 July 1947 to 31 December 1950 the Italian state allocated 33,682,991,253 liras to the stricken zones; the final amount awarded was 35,000,000 liras. 23. On issues of national solidarity after natural disasters see especially Dickie (2008). 24. Statistics taken from ISTAT, the National Institute of Statistics (censimenti della popolazione), 1961–2001. 25. Umberto Zanotti Bianco (1889–1963) is considered one of the most important Meridionalists whose love for Calabria was renowned. Amongst other occupations he was a senator, president of the National Association for the interests of Mezzogiorno as well as director of the journal Archivio Storico per la Calabria e la Lucania. 26. In the same manner there are officially expressed fears regarding the infiltration of the building works in L’Aquila—the 2009 earthquake-stricken area in Italy (see in particular La Repubblica, 15, 29 April, 9 June, 31 August 2009). 27. The years 1880–1920 saw a transoceanic migration (Vanzetti and Meissner 1953; Rossi-Daria 1958), and in 1880–1970 Calabria is estimated to have “exported” 1.4 million people, the majority to America and industrial Western Europe (De Nardo 1971; King et al. 1984:113). Between 1876 and 1978, 400,000 Calabrians migrated to Argentina (Minicuci 1989; Petropoulou 1997:127). 28. According to the ISTAT census of 1960, the internal migration rate in Calabria was -16.3 and the external migration rate 0.2. In 1970 the equivalent figures were -8.6 and 1.2 respectively. As King, Mortimer, and Strachan note, movement to other European destinations became important in Calabria after the 1950s (1984:115). While the preferred initial European destination was France, many ended up going to Switzerland or West Germany (116). At the same time internal migration toward the North was

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particularly intense (Rella and Vadalà 1984:143). It is interesting to note that between 1991 and 2001 the quarters of San Giorgio extra and Ravagnese in Reggio Calabria were growing in population at a disproportionate rate (although there are no official studies to suggest that these people came from the area Grecanica, apart from one account from Cambareri and Smorto 1980). For example, Ravagnese had grown in population by over 15 percent and San Giorgio extra (with Modena and San Sperato) by 12 percent. The biggest rise appeared in Gallina (29 percent) while Centro Storico decreased by 16.2 percent, Santa Caterina-S.Brunello-Vito decreased by 12.3 percent, and Pineta ZerbiTremulini-Eremo decreased by 12.1 percent (Il Comune di Reggio Calabria ai Censimenti della Popolazione 2003). 29. The public polity in Reggio Calabria changed dramatically during the mideighteenth century with the rise in the sindacato of the nobili ex privilegio constituting thus the new nobles based on wealth and not heritage. The power of these new groups (the professionals-nobles) derived mainly from their professional occupation as well as their networks of kinship and friends (Spano-Bolani 1979:506). 30. Here the informant refers to the Grecanici. When they first arrived in Reggio Calabria they were speaking their language, Grecanico, which was incomprehensible for the Reggini who spoke the local dialect. 31. “The 15,000 vote” is the name attributed to a local politician renowned for having changed his political disposition five times. 32. Similarly, during 1954, Gebbione (my quartiere of residence), was sparsely inhabited by nuclear families of coloni living and working in colonia parziaria (Mallano 2005:35). 33. Colonia parziaria was an agrarian contract according to which the products and the expenditure of the property were divided in fixed parts between the contadino and the proprietor. The agrarian contracts, such as colonia parziaria, mezzadria, and compartezipazione, were particularly complex and characterized by inter- as well as intraregional complexity (Biagini 1952; Ginsborg 1984:86). 34. An assesore is a member of the executive (giunta) of local governmental bodies. 35. Similar to what Walston (1985:96) notes about Cosenza, the socialists were important in coalition building; for this reason their presence in the IACP (Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari) executive was significant despite that Reggio Calabria was always a rightist province.

Chapter 3. The Vicissitudes of Civil Society 1. The “legal concerns” focused on the auditing of membership of the associations— usually suspected of being comprised of Mafiosi, Camorristi, Malandrini, Brigandi, and other “suspicious” political subjects. For an extensive account on legislation regarding the Italian associations see John Davis (1988:255). 2. For a critical analysis of ethnicity see Tonkin, McDonald, and Chapman (1989), Eriksen (1993), Wicker (1997). 3. In 1995 the distribution of cultural associations in “the South’ ” was as follows:

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Sicily 30.8%, Campania 16.4%, Sardinia 16.2%, Puglia 11%, Calabria 10.6%, Abruzzo 10.1%, Basilicata 3.8%, Molise 1.2% (survey in Trigilia 1995). 4. “The Jonica of the Calabrian Greeks” no longer exists. 5. For a detailed review on the problem of the origin of the Greek vernaculars in South Italy see Karanastasis (1984) and Petropoulou (1992). 6. A summary of what is perceived as public good is offered by Boran (2003:194). According to Boran a “public good” should be characterized by features of jointness, non-excludability, indivisibility and compulsoriness coexisting. 7. For a detailed review of the action of the Grecanico associations until 1985 see Nucera (1984/5). For action of the main Grecanico associations in Bova Marina until 2002 see Campolo (2002). 8. On a similar case regarding Sardinian mobilization based on ethnicity see Schweizer (1988). 9. The Bourbon past—albeit relatively recent—is one of the periods least discussed among my Grecanici and Reggini informants. A deep-rooted corruption alleged to have acquired cultural status as well as the genesis of other “pathological” realities is attributed to the Bourbon era. 10. Focusing on Greek nationalism and building on Michael Herzfeld’s in-depth analysis, James Faubion (1993) has argued that Greek nationalism was facilitated by historical constructivism—a highly synthetic praxis—whose interplay between the “mental” and “material” human creations constitutes history as cultural behavior and subsequently informs identification. In the case of Grecanico culture, the same line is followed by the associations, albeit on a smaller scale. 11. On the ideological exploitation of folklore during the process of Greek nation building, see Herzfeld (1986a). Folklore and its reproduction, as Herzfeld has argued, are effectively proposed as the discursive idiom between different ideologies and spatiotemporal contexts. 12. For a discussion of compensation claims, see Karakasidou (1997), Kirtsoglou and Theodossopoulos (2001:398), and Ballinger (2003:ch.5). 13. My initial introduction to different circles during my fieldwork and my successful acceptance was heavily related to the strength of the source of raccomandazione. The recommendation usually supersedes the local political level; it manages to implicate wider spheres, as many ethnographers have indicated (Campbell 1964; Davis 1973; Boissevain 1977; Zinn 2001). For example, in Pantelleria Galt mentions the effectiveness of the letters of raccomandazione (Galt 1974:187–88), in Sicily Boissevain discusses the “visiting tickets” (1966:25), and in Spain Pitt-Rivers (1966:108–9) mentions the empeño (raccomandazione). Furthermore, in Spain and Mexico, ethnographers have mentioned the enchufe, which has a meaning more-or-less similar to the raccomandazione (Eisenstadt and Roniger 1984:73). Viewed as means of intersection and sponsorship, the enchufe transcends moral implications since “it is not a question here of considering that one may be entitled to these things by right, for between what is one’s right and what is possible lie a thousand indifferent shrugs of the shoulder” (Kenny 1976 in

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Eisenstadt and Roniger 1984:73). In Italy, the phrase “mi raccomando . . .”—much used in quotidian discourse—is as much an indicator of political guidance as it is of affection, protection and love (Zinn 2001). 14. According to Bollettino Ufficiale della Regione Calabria (16 January 2006) the total amount allocated for the Grecanico associations for the financial year 2005 was €80,000. 15. This linguistic implementation is much akin to the development of katharevousaMG in Greece, the neoclassical form of the Modern Greek that was “a cultural appeal to the West for recognition, an attempt to demonstrate that the ordinary Greeks of today could speak a tongue which is undeniably their own yet no less clearly Hellenic” (Herzfeld 1986a:17). 16. For a discussion of the collaboration between politicians and masons see Clark (1996:80, 89, 424); for women in Italian Freemasonry see Mahmud (2014). 17. In the gulfs of P2 were to be found heads of the secret services, officers of the various armed corps of the Republic, leading magistrates, heads of the police, prefects, bankers, and businessmen, civil servants, journalists and broadcasters, members of parliament, and ministers. The list of the lodge was found in the province of Arezzo and numbered 962 members (Ginsborg 2001:144; see also Mahmud 2014:162–65). 18. Figurati is an idiomatic expression used to denote either astonishment and skepticism or acknowledgment. In this case Toto uses the term to imply what is rendered in English as “for Heaven’s sake.”

Chapter 4. Hegemonic Networks, Kinship Governance 1. An interesting example is offered by Couroucli (1994). Kinship in Episkepsi, Greece, is organized in terms of lineage, and the locals organize membership in razze (plural of razza, patriclan). Couroucli defines the lineage as “all patrilineal descendants of a recognized ancestor” (1994:78) (regarding the problem of defining the term “lineage,” see Goody 1983:227–32). 2. In Zaccanopoli, Calabria, the woman is the bearer of the nickname and passes it down to her children (Minicuci 1983). In Alcalà (Andalusia, Spain) men and women have different nicknames. The nickname of the father is inherited by the male children and the mother’s by the female (Pitt-Rivers 1976). 3. Seremetakis (1991:28–29) notes a fluidity concerning the surname of Maniat clans in Greece according to residential, political, or moral variants. In cases of feuding or relocation, the clans can absorb each other, resulting in a subsequent invention of a fictive apical ancestor that can sustain the “blood” ideology that reinforces assimilation between members. 4. Razze carry further ideological implications as they are distinguished as razze buone (good) and razze tinte (poor) (Petropoulou 1999). 5. In Burano, Sciama argues that legal and economic factors such as inheritance and patrimonial succession are detrimental so that patrilineal kinship appears as more binding than matrilineal (2003:85).

200 Notes to Pages 80–84 6. Discussing European houses, Lévi-Strauss argues that “on all levels of social life, from the family to the state, the house is therefore an institutional creation that permits compounding forces which, everywhere else, seem only destined to mutual exclusion because of their contradictory bends. Patrilineal descent and matrilineal descent, filiation and residence, hypergamy and hypogamy, close marriage and distant marriage, heredity and election: all these notions, which usually allow anthropologists to distinguish the various type of society, are reunited in the house, as if the last analysis, the spirit (in the eighteenth-century sense) of this institution expressed an effort to transcend, in all spheres of collective life, theoretically incompatible principles” (1982:184). For further discussion of “house” see Bestard-Camps (1991) and Pine (2007). 7. In the South, family has been associated with “survival” and the moral values of honor and respect, while in North and Central Italy, the notion has been associated with “successful entrepreneurial activity, often achieved through close collaboration with local and regional economic and political structures” (Goddard 1996:164; also Yanagisako 2002). 8. Inmarriage, Goody observes, “is a pattern so patently different from the exchangist, exogamic structures of which Lévi-Strauss and others have written” (1983:43). Apart from reinforcing family ties (Minicuci 1994:246–47), “these particular forms also prevent female heiresses from removing property for the “family,” and thus combat the problem of the absence of sons” (Goody 1983:43). A cross-cousin is the child of the mother’s brother or the father’s sister. A parallel-cousin is the child of the mother’s sister or the father’s brother. 9. Davis defines dowry (dote) as “the property the wife brings to her marriage.” In legal terms, Davis notes, dowry is a term meaning “property subject to special meanings on its use.” In the nonlegal sense it is “property donated from a particular source,” and in the legal sense the source is irrelevant; “what is designated are the particular rights and duties attached to the property while the marriage lasts” (Davis 1973:34). 10. However, in the village of Roghudi it was males who were sponsored with a house. 11. The reformation of Civil Code in 1975 assessed issues regarding the relationships between spouses, parents and children, as well as inheritance problems. For a historical analysis of the Civil Code see Davis (1973: app. III), also Pocar and Ronfani (1978). 12. The term corna in Mediterranean societies is related to a man who is cornuto, the deceived man in the case of adultery—the cuckold (Blok 1981). In the context of Reggio Calabria it is also used in discourse as pejorative to indicate a stupid and worthless person. It is most probable that two drivers in Reggio Calabria implicated in an unpleasant traffic incident would verbally abuse each other using the term cornuto. 13. A pentito is a former member of an illegal organization who decides to collaborate with the judicial system (Arlacchi 2010). 14. This is a perception also collectively shared by both Grecanici and Reggini. In the past the term vedove bianche (white widows) was attributed to wives of southern

Notes to Pages 85–95

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Italian immigrants who, albeit not real widows, would reside back in their villages for long periods of time without their husbands. 15. Apart from marriage arrangements that clearly favor the females of the family, female agency is predominantly evident when it comes to feuds. As Teti argues, Calabrian women, precisely because they are considered culture “transmitters,” are vendetta feeders. It is from this specific culture that the women draw their power not only not to ‘forget and forgive’ assaults against their families but perhaps most important to cultivate the ‘ferocity’ of the men (Teti 2007 in Nicaso 2007:30; Di Bella 1980:610; Ingrasci 2007:31–32). 16. During my fieldwork in Reggio Calabria, both my grandparents in Greece were bedridden and under the absolute care of my mother. On many occasions I insisted my mother should hire a carer to occasionally help her. When the issue was raised in conversation, my informants were critical of my interference. I was advised to leave my mother to do what “she is supposed to do, for she is the only appropriate person to take care of her parents.” 17. An exception to the rule is Bova, with a great number of three-story dwellings in the center of the village. 18. The term “privacy” is used by younger actors in English and not translated in Italian. 19. “La famiglia  .  .  . is a flexible process that facilitates joint living arrangements whenever these appear useful. In the scattered outlying houses of Rogliano as late as 1951 and in the village of Albareto especially when emigration rates fluctuated greatly, more than one married couple and their children often shared the same house. It was functional to do so” (Bell 1979:109, 112). The functional aspect of living in close proximity to kin is also documented by Italo Pardo in Naples. He noticed that, “as local people prefer to stay in the quarter, joint households are sometimes a necessary arrangement; particularly in the form of co-residence of nuclear families linked by kinship ties” (1996:96). Sciama also documented that while living in extended families was a common pattern in Burano during 1920, at present it is preferable for “related nuclear families to live in close proximity” (2003:77). William Douglass points out that in Agnone “the joint-family household was perceived by the actors themselves to be the basic social unit of Agnone society” (1991:286), irrespective of social class (1980:343–48). 20. For the oscillation between the ideal and feasible housing organization in the villages of Luco and Trasacco in the region of Abruzzo, see White (1980:156–57). 21. For a symbolic analysis of the household, see Bourdieu’s seminal work on the Kabyle house (Douglas 1972; Bourdieu 1973; Ardener 1993; Moore 1996; Donnan 1997). 22. In Mediterranean ethnography the kitchen has been theorized in terms of gender as a primarily female space of action and part of a symbolic order that pertains to daily activities in the private domain (Lisón-Tolosana 1966; Hirschon 1993; Sciama 1993). 23. During the 1945 upheavals in central Italy concerning landlord-peasant

202

Notes to Pages 95–115

relations, most important unionist meetings took place in farmhouse kitchens (De Simonis 1986 in Ginsborg 1990:108). 24. Goddard (1996) notes that migrant women in the quartieri of Naples try to partly re-create their past lives by leaving their house doors open, thus opting for people to enter the house uninvited. 25. In the context of central Greece, Knight (2015:124–27) details the inventive ways small private spaces can be created in a public area. 26. The case of Palio is a striking example of the issue of social organization and neighborhood identification (Dundes and Falassi 1975).

Chapter 5. Messy Realities of Relatedness 1. The sacramental relationship of Sangiovanni indicates a sacred respect sanctioned by John the Baptist. This respect could be extended to relatives of the third degree and beyond (Condemi 2006:363). 2. The analytical honor/shame construct is far too rigid (Herzfeld 1980; Pina Cabral 1989; Goddard 1994). Nevertheless, when it is emically raised it glosses over ethnographic particularity and thus requires careful deconstruction. 3. In cases of adoption the line between biological and social relatedness is thin. When adopting, couples exhibit their desire for a child without worrying about its race and ethnicity. A very powerful Grecanico woman in her early forties in the adoption process told me that she does not care whether the child is black, yellow, or white. She emphatically pointed out, “we (Grecanici) believe that the mother is the one who raises the child and not she who gives birth.” 4. In the Mediterranean ethnographic context there has clearly been more emphasis on the study of male friendship. It is my understanding that this is the methodological outcome of the fact that male friendships are easier to observe; it is the ethnographic appreciation that men are publicly visible, and spend more time on socialization outside the home (see Papataxiarchis 1991). 5. For instance, in France the kinship idiom of cousin is often chosen to express friendship (Bourdieu 1972, 1999:152; Kettering 1992; Reed-Danahay 1999); in Greece the term adherfiaMG (brothers) is often employed (Just 2000:181). “Kinship terms such as theiosMG or barbaMG, ‘uncle’; theiaMG, ‘aunt’; papousMG, ‘grandfather’ are systematically extended to particular unrelated individuals with whom the speaker comes into frequent contact” (Kenna 1976:360). 6. Studies like that of Kennedy (1986) and Uhl (1991) have highlighted the veiled and secretive character of female friendships. Women as presented by these ethnographers value and cultivate their relationships as “hidden” from society based on physiological, social, and economic motives. While this could be true for first-generation Grecanici women in Reggio Calabria, younger generations are very public in their friendships. 7. Amicizia is not necessarily a word with only positive overtones; Herzfeld (2009a:172–74) reports, for example, that in Rome intimations of friendship can sound very menacing (for instance, from a loan shark moving in on his prey).

Notes to Pages 119–143

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8. Gilmore (1987:46) notes that “brothers and sisters are competitors . . . they fight for the family patrimony and the equally limited good of parental affection . . . kinship certainly softens competition and conflict, but it does not eliminate them. A common genealogy can in fact exacerbate tensions and lead to outright conflict.” 9. Terms such soldier and commandant could be deemed representative of mafia vocabulary. 10. Regarding compadrazgo, Pitt-Rivers (1976) argues that “the godparent is not a surrogate for the parent, but only a substitute for him in the roles from which the parent is excluded on account of his physical and social paternity and where he must be replaced by his contrary” (320). 11. His mourning performatively resembled that of Maniat women (Seremetakis 1991) and death ceremonies in Thessaly (Danforth 1982), both in Greece.

Chapter 6. Ancestors, Saints, and Governance 1. Non si muove foglia (no leaf is moving) is an expression predominantly used in Reggio Calabria to indicate the mafioso whose presence is so encompassing even nature stands still. 2. In Crete, the related term andhrios, meaning “brave” and “manly,” comes from andhria, a virtue of defiance that local villagers deny both the lowlanders and the Island’s rulers, past and present (Herzfeld 1985:281). 3. Picciotto (emissary, Catanzaro 1988:25) refers to the first grade of the ’Ndrangheta hierarchy. 4. There are many definitions and explanations concerning the operations and character of the mafia. Either as a “custom and mentality of a particular social class,” “criminal organisation, with specific mode of government and laws,” “parasitic pseudo-structure of the economic and political life” (Frosini 1970:26–31), or “a method for the consolidation of ruling positions” (Hess 1998:6; also Dickie 2011; Mangliameli 2000; Lupo 2009; Palumbo 2009). 5. Paoli has suggested that part of the organizational logic of the ’Ndrangheta is to be found in secret societies and freemasonry (2003:116). Woolf (1979), for different reasons, also places special emphasis on the secret societies that acted during the French occupation. These societies played a pivotal role against Napoleon. According to Woolf, the secret societies of filadelfia-adelfia were patriotic sects that acted in the north of Italy, while the carboneria dominated the south with significant infiltrations among local landowners, intellectuals, petty nobles, and officers. This phenomenon was born in many other countries united under the French occupation and was established on a “desire for independence” (1979:221). Despite their earnest attempts for egalitarianism, the secret societies were unable to offer sufficient alternatives to government after the Napoleonic defeat (222). 6. Paoli attributes the position of sgarrista to società maggiore (2003:47). The same position is attributed by Gratteri and Nicaso to società minore (2007:78). My information regarding this position is in line with Gratteri and Nicaso.

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7. For a comparative see Mitchell (2002). In his ethnography on Malta he argues that national and European identity claims are structured around a direct genealogical link to Saint Paul (29). 8. This is one of the rare cases narrated entirely in Grecanico. 9. The exclusive character of the ’Ndrangheta becomes apparent from a document of 1902 found in Catanzaro after a police raid. It ensured the exclusion of pedophiles, betrayed husbands, tax collectors, various grades of policemen, and in general all the people who were not able to avenge offenses against their honor (Gratteri and Nicaso 2007:80). 10. In Crete, Herzfeld reports how feminized terms such as “papadhella” (great BIG priest) for males can indicate strength and robustness (1985:158; also Herzfeld 1986b). 11. William Christian, when discussing religious identity in Spain, argued that the image of the Madonna has become “the pivot, the fulcrum, the hub of the emotional and cultural relations of the whole collectivities” (1972:100). 12. For icons, historical consciousness, and affective relations in Greece, see Stewart (2012). 13. Lombardi Satriani (1971), with his focus on familial boundaries oscillating between the worlds of the living and dead, has pushed the limits of conceptualizing the family in South Italy. Theorizing life and death as not rigid and oppositional but intertwined is advanced by Philippe Ariès (1981) and sufficiently reworked by Nadia Seremetakis (1991) in her work on death in Mani, Greece. 14. Between 1990 and 1994 the average number of thefts reported in Reggio Calabria was 1,398 per 100,000 inhabitants. The national average was 2,603; in the provinces of Palermo and Catania it was 3,257 and 3,709 respectively (Paoli 2003:157). 15. Throughout Italy, the zingari as perpetrators of petty crime is a common theme; see Herzfeld (2009a:338) and Mahmud (2014:26). 16. Here Antonia’s critique goes beyond the “absent state” argument. She explicitly criticizes the DIA (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia-Antimafia Investigative Directorate), a new organization with increased personnel to coordinate the police forces specializing in organized crime. The DIA came to reinforce the Parliamentary Antimafia Commission, which was activated in 1963 with the scope to deal with the mafias in Italy. In this case, Antonia refers to the events between August and September 2007 when the police arrested a number of the ’ndranghetisti in Reggio Calabria. 17. The rivalry between carabinieri and poliziotti—two different police forces in Italy—is renowned in Reggio. Many of my informants (Reggini and Grecanici alike) expressed deep dissatisfaction concerning the effectiveness of both institutions. When encountering less or more serious problems, people in Reggio Calabria use their connections with friends, relatives, and wider political and economic networks rather than the police forces themselves. When I was in a difficult situation regarding aggression toward me from one of my male neighbors, I was advised not to go to the police but rather to speak to friends of a particular social circle. 18. As Parry notes, “the unreciprocated gift debases the recipient, and the charity of

Notes to Pages 155–168

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the ‘rich almoner’ is condemned—presumably because it denies obligation and replaces the reciprocal interdependence on which society is founded with an asymmetrical dependence” (1986:458). James Laidlaw, following Jacques Derrida, argues that giving can be linguistically played down (2000:622). As a result, what is given is viewed not as charity but as an “anonymous and undifferentiated substance . . . which disappears once it has been given” (623). 19. On pronouns of address, Herzfeld (2009a:34) also notes that excessive politeness is often a sign of mafia-style menace; he also reports that it sometimes serves to exclude.

Chapter 7. An Invitation to Dance 1. The Santuario (sanctuary) is the parish church in Eremos where the Madonna stays except from the time she is transported to the cathedral in Piazza Duomo. 2. The first celebration dates back to 1693 (Lombardi Satriani 1971:289). 3. Vara refers to the structure on which the picture of the Madonna is placed. 4. This is the official estimate of 2007 participation provided by a church representative in Reggio Calabria. 5. The portatori were once exclusively fishermen from Reggio Calabria. Presently, and especially after the official institutionalization of the association of the portatori, men of diverse professions can enter the association. 6. This custom dates back to the Spanish era (1503–1734). 7. Noelle Molé (2012:1) notes that “cross-bearing” carries a specific set of meanings, “invoking the cross . . . implies a burden or immeasurable weight: part duty and hardship, part affliction and suffering.” 8. The idea of the mediator—from a political point of view—is also shared by Campbell (1964), Boissevain (1965, 1974), Gellner (1977) and Herzfeld (2005). 9. Here Alvaro refers to the myth that connects the bite of the tarantolla (veleine spider) with the dance of tarantella. On this issue see Lombardi Satriani (1951:90–96), Lüdtke (2009), and De Martino (2002). Especially De Martino employs a psychoanalytic approach to explain tarantella dance performances in Puglia as stress relief practices, a theme which is magnificently reworked in the ethnographic film La Taranta (1962) by Gian Franco Mingozzi. The same approach is further developed by Danforth (1989) in his analysis on Anastenaria (firewalking) in Greek Macedonia and North America. 10. On traditional musical instruments in Calabria, see Ricci and Tucci (1988). 11. Tarantella is a coupled dance in 12/8. The structure of the melody is not homogenous (Gatto 1988:86). For a labanotation analysis of the dance see Carbone (1988). The typical musical instruments to perform the dance are the organetto (accordion), tamborello (tambourine) and zampogna (bagpipes). 12. These dancing maneuvers are referred to as simboli (symbols) in the local repertoire. 13. See also John Gledhill’s analytical discussion of Abélès’ argument (2000:145–47).

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14. Baumann (1992) develops his argument on a rereading of the Durkheimian thesis that ritual expresses the society’s autocelebration and solidarity. 15. Mitchell (2002), in the Maltese context, has approached ritual as a “modern act” through which ambivalent local perceptions and ideological positions related to wider contexts, such as Europe, can be successfully accommodated. 16. Silverman has also questioned the symbolic expression of society through ritual by exploring “the relationship between social inequality and ritual statements about inequality” (1981:164 original emphasis). Through the analysis of notions such as sex, age, patronage, and territoriality she argued that “in a number of instances ritual may be seen as reordering, distorting and disguising objective orders of inequality” (180). 17. The Greek film Parangelia (The Order), directed by Pavlos Tasios and released in 1980, epitomizes the connection between dance and politics. The scenario is inspired by a real event that took place during the dictatorship in 1973 in a night club in Athens where the convict Nikos Koemtzis ordered a dance. During his dance, Koemtzis was provoked by three policemen who attempted to occupy the dance floor while he was performing. He was so disturbed by this provocation that he stabbed to death three men and injured six more. Koemtzis became a hero and his deeds were mythologized. A parallel with the literature that covers the action of the Brigandi in South Italy could be made to draw attention as to how criminal figures are elevated in the local consciousness and become legitimate symbols of collective identity and resistance (Sant Cassia 1993:774–75). 18. In ’Ndrangheta vocabulary, sgarro refers to an act of public provocation that is a reaction to a violation of current ’Ndrangheta codes. Provocation could range from public verbal offences to murder. A sgarro is also the prerequisite according to which a picciotto may prove his worth to move up ’Ndrangheta ranks. 19. In the case of the ballo cardolo (home dance) it is the patruni i cassaCD (the house patron) who assumes the role of mastru. 20. After the first celebration in Rome in 2003, Reggio Calabria held the first Notte Bianca on 10 September 2005. Cities in France, Germany, Austria, Spain also celebrate “White Nights.” 21. La republica.it, http://www.repubblica.it/2006/a/rubriche/piccolaitalia/reggiocalabria-notte/reggio-calabria-notte.html, accessed February 18, 2008. 22. The song was written in the mid-1980s by Angelo Maesano, known as Mastr ’Angelo.

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Index

Abélès, Marc, 168–69, 205n13 address: pronouns of, 205n19; rules of, 155 Africo (Calabria), miseria of, 43 agency: causal sequences of, 160–61; of dance, 161 Agnone (Italy), households of, 201n19 agrarian reform, Italian, 45 Albanian language, teaching in Calabria, 55 Albanians, of Calabria, 35, 55 Albareto (Italy), houses of, 201n19 Alleanza Nationale (Italy), 2 Alvaro, Corrado, 139, 173, 195n12; on Madonna di Polsi, 148, 166–67; on tarantolla, 205n9 Amendolea (Calabria), relocation from, 39 amicizie (friendships): connotations of, 202n7; di cuore, 114; Grecanici concepts of, 114; in Italian mafia, 141, 142; kin-like relations of, 105; in public dancing, 177; relatedness of, 126. See also friendship ancestors: apical, 79; in Grecanici culture, 130, 131, 132, 190; historical continuation through, 129; stories of, 130, 132, 157; worship of, 129 Anderson, Benedict, 61 andhria, Cretan concept of, 203n2 andragathía (courage), 139 anthropology: criminal, 35; metaphors in, 194n2 Antonio of Padova, Saint, 164 Apodiafazzi (cultural association), 57 L’Aquila (Abruzzo): infiltration of building works, 196n26; relocations to, 39–40, 42 Arbëresh, minority laws of, 193n2 area Grecanica (Calabria), 12, 26, 28; as diasporic, 64–65; economic development of, 70–71; Greek visits to, 29, 48, 180–82; houses in, 91, 94; hydrogeological problems

of, 37; inclusion in, 31; landslides in, 28, 36–39; linguistic definition of, 31; local history of, 133; municipalities of, 31; negative depictions of, 35–36; Orthodox Christianity in, 30, 195n7; public dance in, 172–73, 180–83; residence patterns of, 91; tourism to, 55, 73, 180–83, 195n8. See also Calabria Ariès, Philippe, 204n13 Arlacchi, Pino, 45, 141 artworks, mediation of social agency, 160–61 Aspromonte (Calabria): celebration of Sant’Eufemia, 151; dance in, 178; depopulation of, 37, 39; emigration from, 28, 33, 44; endogamy in, 81; flooding in, 28, 194n5; governance in, 187; landslides in, 28; Madonna di Polsi of, 130, 137, 147–48, 166–67, 168; migrants to Reggio Calabria, 91, 188; myths of, 26; villages of, 27–28 Association Internationale pour la Défense des Langues et Cultures Menacées (AIDLCM), 14, 55, 63 Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno in Italia, 43 Associazione Portatori della Vara (Reggio Calabria), 163; assistente ecclesiastico of, 164; Capo Stanga of, 164; constitution of, 164, 165. See also Madonna della Consolazione associazionismo, Grecanico, 10, 62; and governance, 59; in Reggio Calabria, 20 authority, social arenas of, 4 Bakhtin, Mikhail, on language, 53 Ballinger, Pamela, 8 banditi: morals of, 142–43; pedagogical deeds of, 131–35; use of terror, 142 Banfield, Edward, 20

230 Index baptism: godparents in, 123–24; into ’Ndrangheta, 144 Barresi, Maria, 171 Baumann, Gerd, 169, 206n14 behavior, public evaluation of, 116 Bell, Rudolph, 43 Belmonte, Thomas, 98 belonging, desire for, 127. See also relatedness Bergamasco language, 193n6 Berlusconi government, linguistic minorities under, 2, 10–11 Bianco, Umberto Zanotti, 41, 196n25 biodiversity, and linguistic survival, 14, 62 Bloch, M., 121, 122 Blok, Anton, 141 blood (kinship): Grecanici concept of, 77–78; ’Ndrangheta brotherhood of, 156 Boissevain, J., 198n13 Boran, Idil, 62, 198n6 Bourbon era: secret societies of, 203n5; in South Italy, 132, 198n9 Bourdieu, Pierre, 74; on households, 201n21 Bova (Calabria): Grecanici associations of, 59; Grecanico speakers of, 28; houses of, 201n17; sportelli linguistici of, 65; Zoi ce Glossa at, 56, 57 Bova Marina (Calabria): Grecanici associations of, 57, 198n7; Modern Greek instruction in, 72 Bryant, Rebecca, 147 buono di lavoro (shares), exchange of, 121, 122 Burano (Italy), patrilineality in, 199n5 bureaucracy, moral alternatives to, 58 Byzantine Empire, Greek settlers from, 27, 55, 61, 65 Calabria: Albanians of, 35, 55; aversion toward Church in, 148; in Bourbon era, 132; Byzantine Greeks of, 55; Christian Orthodoxy in, 55; coast of, 33, 39, 195n12; conquests of, 27; earthquakes in, 32, 37; exoticism of, 29; freemasonry in, 72; geology of, 91, 196n21; Greek culture of, 14; Greek linguistic minority of, 26; “Greekness” of, 29, 73; hydrogeological conditions of, 37; internal migration in, 39, 196n28; “internal zones” of, 38–39; Latin liturgy in, 194n4; legislation concerning, 37–38; medieval, 27, 195n9; migration to Europe from, 196n28; mountainous areas of, 32,

38–39, 195n10; musical instruments of, 205n10; peasant/patron dichotomies in, 94; reconstruction efforts for, 37–38; transoceanic migration from, 196n27; transportation infrastructure of, 146. See also area Grecanica; Italy, South Calabrians: non-Grecanico, 29; as peripheral, 34; self-determination for, 38. See also Grecanici Calimera (Grecanico project), 72 Cambareri, Serafino, 44 campalinismo, of Italian associations, 51 capitalists, mafioso, 141 Capriolo, Nicolo Andrea, 164 carabinieri, Reggini, 152, 204n17 carismatico, advice from, 118 Carroll, Michael, 149 Carsten, Janet, 106 Castagna, Ettore, 173 Catholic Church: aversion toward, 148; Grecanici relatedness to, 108; image cults of, 149; Italian skepticism toward, 162–63. See also Madonnas Cavanaugh, Jillian, 193nn1,6 Centro Studi G. Rohlfs Zoi ce Glossa, 56–57 chiesa, social orientation at, 173 children, Grecanici: sistemazione of, 68, 69; surnames of, 78 Chorio di Roghudi (Calabria), Zoi ce Glossa at, 56–57 Christ: passion of, 149; victory over paganism, 168 Christian, William, 147, 204n11 Christian Democrats: Calabrian relocation policy, 38, 39; corruption of, 37–38 Christianity, Orthodox: in area Grecanica, 195n7; following Council of Trent, 194n3; Grecanici converts to, 30; Jonica initiative on, 55 Circolo Culturale Greco, 57 citizenship, ethical, 58 civic associations, Grecanico, 24; linguistic proficiency certificates, 3, 67, 68. See also Grecanici associations civil society: civic society and, 58; clientelism in, 20; corruption in, 58; interactions in, 57; local/global scales of, 12, 15; mission of, 187; and neoliberal state, 58; political power and, 169; state/civic governance of, 58; and uncivil society, 57; the universal in, 58 civil society, Grecanici: factions in, 105;

Index fluidity of, 187; periphery in, 187; tools of governance for, 13; universalistic reconciliation in, 188; upheaval in, 9; victimhood in, 13, 50, 187 civil society, Italian, 57–59; Grecanici associations and, 58–59, 74–75; Grecanici in, 8; older definitions of, 59; in South Italy, 187 civiltà, political dimension of, 57–58 classes, hegemonic relations between, 78 clientelism: affective relations of, 20; among Grecanici associations, 51, 67–68, 73; of Christian Democrats, 38; in civil society, 20; corruption in, 20; domination in, 194n8; economic aspects of, 21; Grecanici family and, 19–22; in Grecanici friendship, 116; of Grecanici politics, 19; kinship and, 69; poetics of, 68–69; power in, 21; in Reggio Calabria, 20; relatedness and, 19; socialization into, 69 coloni (peasant workers): of Reggio Calabria, 45; social status of, 45–46 colonia parziaria (agrarian contract), 197n33 comare (friends): kinship ties among, 126; obligations among, 125; relatedness of, 127. See also amicizie; friendship Comitato Nazionale Federativo Minoranze Linguistiche d’Italia (CoNFeMiLI), 26 Communist Party, Italian, 134 communities, Grecanici: as diasporic, 64; gossip in, 88, 137; politicians’ visits to, 65; twinning with Greek towns, 59, 66. See also villages, Grecanici compadrazgo, 203n10; in Sri Lanka, 123 comparatico (godparenthood): di battesimo, 124; di anello, 124; intensity of attachment in, 126; kin-like relations of, 105 compare (godparents), 125, 126, 127 Comunità Montana (autonomous institution), 187; as autonomous structure, 39, 187; development of, 38–39; municipalities of, 27 Condemi, Filippo, 56 constitution, Italian, “internal zones” in, 39 constructivism, historical: discursive idioms of, 61; Grecanici associations’, 61–63, 64– 65; in Greek nationalism, 198n10; ’Ndrangheta’s, 140 core and periphery: in Grecanici politics, 186–87; in mafia dependency, 141 corna (horn): ethics of, 82–85; in Mediterranean societies, 200n12

231

Cosmo Cinurgjio (cultural association), 57 Council of Europe, on linguistic rights, 25 Council of Nicea, Second (787), on sacred images, 149 Council of Trent, Orthodox Christianity following, 194n3 Counter-Reformation (1545–63), 148 Couroucli, M., 199n1 crime: consolidated models of, 146; ’Ndrangheta intervention in, 151–52; in Reggio Calabria, 151–52, 204n14 cultural associations, Grecanico, 29–30; on area Grecanica, 31. See also Grecanici associations cultural associations, Italian, Greek-speaking people in, 9 culture, Grecanico: advice in, 118; aggressive becoming in, 182; ancestors in, 130, 131, 132, 190; appropriation of, 10; authenticity of, 64, 67; continuation of, 127; diasporic Greeks and, 50; endangerment of, 14; as front, 70; genealogical histories in, 133–34; Greek capital in, 180; management of, 5, 30, 54, 67, 70; marketing of, 74; need in, 88; public discussion of, 55; in public spaces, 158; UNESCO and, 4–7, 10 dance: agency of, 161; governance embodied in, 182–83; Greek traditional, 184; nexus of relations in, 23; and politics, 206n17; religious manifestations of, 166, 183; social change in, 171 dance, Grecanici, for Greek tourists, 159, 180, 181–83 dance, public: amicizie in, 177; in area Grecanica, 172–73; circular, 171; contestation in, 172; couples in, 176, 177; in fiesta of Madonna della Consolazione, 158, 159, 161– 62, 168, 173–75; fight in, 175, 178; improvisation in, 178; invitation to, 175– 76; ’Ndrangheta participation in, 158, 159– 60, 175–77, 183; in Notti Bianche, 179; older forms of, 177–78; opening of, 177– 78; outside Reggio Calabria cathedral, 158, 159, 173–75, 177, 183; political aspects of, 176, 183; power relations in, 159, 171–75, 184; in Reggio Calabria, 170–75; rules of, 175–76; sfida (challenge) in, 178; symbols of, 171, 176, 205n12; territoriality in, 171– 73. See also tarantelle

232

Index

D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 195n13 Das, Veena, 13 Davis, J., 90, 200n9 Depretis, Agostino, 44 Derrida, Jacques, 205n18 diaspora. See Greeks, diasporic Di Bella, Maria Pia, 78, 88 difference: global recognition of, 15, 189; Grecanici claims to, 5, 189; phenomenology of, 189–90 Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), 204n16 displacement, trauma of, 111 disposizione, duty in, 155 the divine: Grecanici attitude toward, 163; human relationships with, 149–51, 157, 158; ’Ndrangheta relations with, 129–30, 158, 183; territoriality of, 150–51 Douglass, William, 201n19 dowries, 200n9; Italian abolition of, 81 dowries, Grecanici, 81, 83, 200n10 Dubisch, Jill, 163, 165 Duisburg massacre (2007), 141, 167 Durkheim, Émile, 166, 206n14 Ta Ellinofona. See area Grecanica (Calabria); communities, Grecanici; villages, Grecanici endogamy, 200n8 endogamy, Grecanici, 34; among first cousins, 76, 105, 106; in Aspromonte, 81; choices in, 81; corna in, 82–85; economic resources of, 77; inheritance in, 81–82; male belief in, 78; naming and, 79; narratives of, 82–83, 84–85; ’Ndrangheta’s practice of, 83–84; in Reggio Calabria, 102. See also kinship English language, audiences of, 2 Enzo (’ndranghetista), 132 Episkepsi (Greece), kinship in, 199n1 Eremos, Sanctuary of, 33, 161, 162, 205n1 ethnicity: Italian, 197n2; Sardinian, 198n8 ethnocentrism, in southern Italian question, 23 Eufemia, Saint, burning of image, 151 Europe: financial crisis (2008), 109; forced relocations in, 40; interest in linguistic minorities, 52; multiculturalism in, 25; nationalism in, 54, 198n10 European Union: and Grecanici culture, 4–7;

Leader II project, 71; linguistic rights in, 25; minority guidelines of, 26; recognition of Grecanici, 15 Fabian, J., 76 Faeta, Francesco, 170 famiglia, Grecanici understanding of, 92, 104, 201n19 families, Grecanici: adoption in, 202n3; apical ancestors of, 79; caregiving in, 86–88, 124, 201n16; clientelism and, 19–22; competition among, 99; conflict in, 119–21; constitutive membership in, 124, 125, 127; criticism within, 87; economic administration of, 89–90, 92; economic resources of, 77; emotional, 119–21; governance and, 16–19, 60; guest-host relationships of, 95–96; inchoateness of, 18; inclusion/ exclusion in, 101; material reciprocity in, 119; multigenerational, 86–88, 91–92, 102, 104; naming practices of, 78–80; narratives of, 86–88, 89–90; ’Ndrangheta and, 17, 18, 128; neolocal, 93; non-Grecanici spouses in, 101; nuclear, 91–92; ontology of, 190; patriarchal, 89, 90; political influence in, 76, 108; pollution of, 101; primogeniture in, 93; relatedness in, 17, 19, 79–80, 185– 86; reputations of, 88; residence patterns of, 77, 86–88, 91–104; spiritual health of, 162; traditional, 101–2; tropes of identification, 17; violence in protection of, 149 families, Italian: blood ties in, 78; civic/state relationships of, 17; concepts of, 200n7; in politics, 20 familism: amoral, 20; in job market, 194n10 family: biological, 18–19, 185–86; life-death boundaries of, 204n13; moral imagining of, 18; in Reggio Calabria, 19, 109–10; sacred, 149–51; spatiotemporal context of, 190 Fata Morgana, myth of, 33, 195n12 Faubion, James, 198n10 fearlessness: Foucault on, 7–8, 155, 191; in governance, 4–8; of Grecanici, 7–8, 26, 36, 42, 47, 54, 156–57 fiestas: antica, 170; for cultural tourism, 73– 74; dance performances in, 171; Grecanici associations’ organization of, 73–74, 181; of Madonna della Consolazione, 158, 159, 161–68; of Madonna di Polsi, 148, 166–67, 168; Notti Bianche in, 178–79; temporal

Index dimension of, 170. See also dance, public; performances, religious flagellation, ritual, 78, 170 flooding, Calabrian, 36, 196n19; in Aspromonte, 28, 194n5; government relief for, 196n22; homelessness following, 37, 38 folklore, Grecanici, 26, 27; ideological exploitation of, 62 folklore, Greek, ideological exploitation of, 198n11 Foucault, Michel: on fearlessness, 155, 191; Fearless Speech, 7–8; on governance, 5, 6, 156, 183, 194n11; on productivity of power, 23 France, cousin kinship in, 202n5 Francis of Assisi, Saint, 164 Franklin, Sarah, 18–19 freemasonry, 118; in Calabria, 72; ’Ndrangheta and, 147, 203n5; and politics, 199nn16–17; women in, 199n16 friendship: contractual, 114; emotional, 114; gender roles in, 113–14; instrumental, 114; non-kin, 114; one-dimensional, 113; Roman, 202n7 friendship, female, 110–14; among Grecanici migrants, 110, 111, 113; among older women, 125; among southern Europeans, 112–13; household-based, 113; kin-based, 111, 112; secretive, 202n6 friendship, Grecanici: among later migrant generations, 110, 111; among migrants, 110, 202n6; among older women, 125; asymmetrical, 115–16; breaches of, 116– 19; emotional, 116, 121, 122, 128; envy in, 118; exchange of services in, 122–23; female, 110–14; governance in, 110–16; hierarchical, 115, 119; instrumental, 114–15, 116, 121, 122–23; male, 114–18; morality in, 116, 121; narratives of, 111, 112, 116– 21; patron/client relationships in, 116; raccomandazione in, 118; with Reggini, 120–21; social elements of, 111; varying depths of, 114. See also amicizie; comare friendship, male: within kin groups, 115; in Mediterranean society, 202n4; between non-kin, 115 furbizia (canniness), 90 Gaeta (Lazio), relocation to, 40, 42 Gaetano, 100

233

Galliciano (Calabria): Centro Studi G. Rohlfs at, 56; evacuation of, 39–40; Grecanico speakers of, 29; procession of San Giovanni, 168 Galt, Antony, 57 Gebbione (Reggio Calabria), 103; coloni of, 45; Grecanici of, 33, 91, 100; Notte Bianca of, 179; nuclear families of, 197n32; Vialle Aldo Moro, 179 Gell, Alfred, 160 Gellner, Ernest, 61 genocide, and linguistic survival, 14 gifts, unreciprocated, 204n18; from ’Ndrangheta, 152, 153–56, 158 Gilmore, D., 203n8 Ginsborg, Paul, 20; on civil/uncivil society, 57 Giorgio, Saint (patron of Reggio Calabria), 33; Grecanici attitudes toward, 163 Giovanni, Saint: procession in Galliciano, 168; veneration of statue, 151 Gledhill, John, 205n13 Goddard, V., 89, 202n24 godparenthood, in Catholic cultures, 123. See also comparatico; Sangiovanni Goody, J., 200n8 gossip, 88, 110, 137 governance: civility in, 58; conventional modes of, 4; decision making in, 5; at a distance, 108; diverse actors in, 5; domination in, 7; embodied in dance, 182–83; episteme of, 24, 194n11; ethics of, 6; ethos of, 24, 194n11; forms of knowledge in, 6, 194n11; Foucauldian, 5, 6, 156, 183, 194n11; freedom in, 7; global/local actors in, 6; and government, 5, 6; heritage, 193n3; heuristic validity of, 5–6; large scale/local, 5; of linguistic minorities, 11; material/nonmaterial needs of, 23; power relations of, 23; scales of, 4; of sportelli linguistici, 65–66; subjectivity in, 6; technes of, 24, 156–57, 186, 194n101; top-down, 191; universals in, 194n11; validation of relations in, 23 governance, Grecanici, 3, 4–7; abstraction in, 109; in Aspromonte, 187; bodily manifestation of, 158–59; building blocks of, 103– 4; centralization in, 10; channels of representation, 24; competing orders of, 47; diverse channels of, 47; domains of, 24; elements comprising, 158; emic discourses of, 16; family in, 16–19, 60; fearless, 7–8,

234

Index

governance, Grecanici (cont.) 26, 158–59, 183, 184, 186, 191; friendship, 110–16; global aspects of, 15–16, 186; Grecanici associations’, 74, 75; Grecanico language and, 8–14; kinesis in, 23, 187; kinship in, 16, 76, 104, 106; local actors in, 9, 15–16; mafia and, 16; management of power in, 109; mentalità of, 59–60; microscale relations of, 186; multiscaled relations of, 8, 189; ’Ndrangheta and, 7, 47, 158; of the past, 61–63; pedagogical, 133; political parameters of, 6; in Reggio Calabria, 187; relatedness in, 4, 23–24, 105, 130, 158, 185, 191; simple complexities of, 126–28; spatial, 104; through genealogical memory, 130; through story telling, 131; tools of, 8; victimhood in, 8–14 governance, minority, 189; coexisting layers of, 9, 26; relationships in, 6. See also linguistic minorities. governance, ’Ndrangheta, 156–57, 190; ancestors in, 129; bodily, 160; dance in, 176, 183; kinship based, 129; saints in, 129, 156; spatial, 174 governance, state, challenges to, 12 Gramsci, Antonio, 23, 62 grandezza, Grecanici, inheritance from Greece, 100 Grecanici: appropriation of governance channels, 6; autonomy for, 75; “awakening” of, 55; bourgeois prejudice against, 3–4; Calabrian dialect of, 27; Catholicism of, 26; challenges to status quo, 8; claims to difference, 5, 189; classificatory schemata for, 35–36; clientelistic relationships of, 19–22; collective consciousness of, 61; compensation claims of, 63, 198n12; concept of mentalità, 60; concepts of space, 94–97; conflict with barons, 132; conversion to Orthodox Christianity, 30; cultural capital of, 26–27, 74; derogatory terms for, 13; and diasporic Greeks, 63–65; discourse of isolation, 34; as economic migrants, 46; effect of floods on, 37, 38; employment of memory, 190; as endangered minority, 14, 189; ethnographic fieldwork among, 2; EU recognition for, 15; fearlessness of, 7–8, 26, 36, 42, 47, 54, 156–57, 191; fictional character of, 2; fieldwork concerning, 36; forms of exchange among, 21–22; global recognition

for, 15; Greek associations and, 49–50; Greek portrayal of, 30; Hellenic past of, 55; as immaterial heritage, 11–12, 182, 188; individuals representing, 11–12; inversion of hegemonic culture, 4, 5; in Italian civil society, 8; language-switching among, 3; literary portrayal of, 196n18; minority status of, 26, 188–89; and modern Greeks, 29, 48, 180–83; mortality levels among, 12; multilingual, 27; mythical past of, 64; national consciousness of, 61; networks of relations, 23–24; non-Grecanici spouses of, 101; outreach initiatives to, 30; as paddhechi, 34, 67, 75, 100–101, 120, 121, 195n15; perception as troublemakers, 42; peripheral resources concerning, 36; place of origins, 26; political representation for, 4, 47, 67, 188; politicized relations of, 22–24, 105, 187; poverty among, 12; pro-tradition representation of, 97; relationships with Reggini, 3–34, 99, 101, 103, 120–21; Reggio Calabria gardens of, 45–46, 99; in Reggio Calabria public administration, 46; Reggio Calabria social status of, 101; relatedness among, 3, 4, 23–24, 47; relocation of, 8, 37, 38, 39–43; representation by Grecanici associations, 74; as second-class citizens, 3; self-government of, 75, 187; tamarri, 196n17; “trained,” 13; as tribe, 76–77; villages of origin, 186. See also endogamy, Grecanici; families, Grecanici; governance, Grecanici; kinship, Grecanici; migrants, Grecanici; women, Grecanici Grecanici, young, knowledge of Grecanico language, 1–3 Grecanici associations: advancement of Modern Greek, 70, 71–72, 73; boards of, 68, 75; and civil society, 58–59, 74–75; clientelism among, 51, 67–68, 73; collaboration among, 73; collaboration with local authorities, 51; collective perception of, 75; conflict with Greek associations, 49–50; connections among, 50–51; constitutions of, 74; contextualization of, 51–57; corruption in, 59, 70, 72–73; as culturally narrow, 73; as culture keepers, 54, 74; as diasporic, 64; exchange of favors among, 67; exclusivist, 74; fearlessness of, 54; folklorist music in, 73; funding of, 52, 68; government funds for, 68, 199n14; Grecanici

Index participation in, 74; in Greece, 64–65; and Greek state, 63; heteroglossia of, 54; historical constructivism of, 61–63, 64–65; inclusivist, 74; knowledge production by, 74; of late twentieth century, 52; legal concerns over, 197n1; management of Grecanici identity, 62; membership in, 70; mentalità of, 59–60; meta-communication with Greece, 181; nationalistic rhetoric of, 170; ’Ndrangheta retaliations against, 72; organization of fiestas, 73–74, 181; as patrons, 68; political power of, 75; politics of victimhood, 67, 75; poly-antagonism of, 59– 61; promotion of cultural tourism, 31, 54, 180; reformist, 70; of Reggio Calabria, 9, 50, 66; representation of Grecanici, 74; rivalries among, 67–68; techniques of governance, 74, 75; visits to Greece, 180 Grecanici literature, psychological determinism of, 196n18 “Grecanico” (term), origin of, 53 Grecanico language: and Ancient Greek, 63; as cultural asset, 190; endangerment of, 14, 26, 62; in Grecanici governance, 8–14; Greek encounters with, 180; hypocrisy concerning, 60; as immaterial patrimony, 11, 12; insertion of Modern Greek into, 71; in Italian heritage, 5, 9, 14; as Italian public good, 63; legislation supporting, 52; linguistic elements comprising, 27; linguistic gaps in, 71; linguistic interest in, 54, 62–63; management of, 5, 30, 54, 67; under Mussolini, 12; origins of, 54–55; promotion of, 10; “salvaging” of, 53; teaching of, 66–67; UNESCO classification of, 14; villages spoken in, 27–29; youthful speakers of, 1–3 Grecanico language instruction, 66–67; certificates of proficiency in, 3, 67, 68; educational quotas for, 9; European seminars, 60; EU sponsored, 117; “official,” 13; of sportelli linguistici, 66–67 Greci di Calabria (pseudonymous association), 70–71, 73 Greece: Calabrian associations in, 30; endogamous connection to, 77; Grecanici associations and, 63; Grecanici associations in, 64–65; icons of, 204n12; kinship terms in, 202n5; kinship with Italy, 15; as Madre Patria, 63; Maniat clans in, 199n3; relocations from, 27

235

Greek associations: conflict with Grecanici associations, 49; of Reggio Calabria, 48 Greek language, Ancient: decline in Magna Graecia, 27, 28; Grecanico language and, 63 Greek language, Modern: Grecanici associations’ sponsorship of, 70, 71–72, 73; Grecanici knowledge of, 181; insertion into Grecanico, 71; neoclassical form of, 199n15; teaching in Calabria, 55 Greeks, diasporic, 30; Grecanici and, 63–65; and Grecanici associations, 50; in Reggio Calabria, 48, 49–50 Greeks, Modern, and Grecanici, 29, 48, 180–83 Grico language. See Grecanico language Haraway, Donna, 194n2 Hawlbachs, Maurice, 133 Hellenism, relatedness in, 10 Hellenophone associations, Italian, 9–10 Herzfeld, Michael, 58, 198n10, 204n10; on folklore, 198n11; on friendship, 202n7; on kinship, 76, 80; on pronouns of address, 205n19 honor, 202n2; among Grecanici migrants, 89; in friendship, 107; in Italian mafia, 141 Honorata Società. See ’Ndrangheta households: Bourdieu on, 201n21; ideal and feasible, 201n20 households, Grecanici: administration of, 89–90; fluidity of, 93–94; ideological/ actual organization of, 93; moral parts of, 93–94; multifamily, 86–88, 91–92, 102, 104; potential, 93; of San Giorgio extra, 91–92; visitors to, 95–96 houses: in dowries, 81; in kinship, 200n6 houses, Calabrian: architecture of, 91; as indicators of success, 94; stories of, 91; symbolism of, 92 houses, Grecanici: of birth, 92, 94; detached, 92; dream, 92; parlors of, 97. See also kitchens; palazzi identity: constructivist notions of, 187; politics of, 52 identity, Grecanici: distancing from, 102; effect of migration on, 103; management of, 62; place of origin in, 103 images, sacred: Council of Nicea on, 149; Greek, 204n12. See also Madonnas

236 Index Ingrascì, Ombretta, 84 inheritance: in Grecanici kinship, 81–82, 93; in Italian law, 81, 200n11; patrimonial, 81–82 intellectuals, Grecanici: on “Grecanico” etymology, 53; in Jonica, 61; leftist, 42 intellectuals, Reggini, on Grecanici folklore, 62 International Monetary Fund, on national competence, 34 Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari (Reggio Calabria), 46–47; socialists in, 197n35 Italy: alienation of citizens in, 109; aversion toward Church in, 148; Civil Code, 200n11; ethnographic research in, 57; governmental institutions of, 108; inheritance law in, 81, 200n11; kinship with Greece, 15; landlord-peasant relations in, 201n23; languages recognized by, 25; linguistic heritage of, 5, 9, 14; north-south differences in, 22–23, 34; transoceanic migration from, 43, 45, 196n27; voting legislation in, 51; walled cities of, 100. See also civil society, Italian Italy, South: in Bourbon era, 198n9; Byzantine Greeks in, 27, 55, 61, 65; civil society in, 187; concept of family in, 200n7; cultural associations of, 197n3; delinquent zone of, 35; ethnographies of, 194n8; exoticism of, 22; Greek colonization of, 27, 29; Greek linguistic minority of, 26; illiteracy in, 141; mafia in, 190; neighborhood identification in, 103; origin of Greek vernaculars, 198n5; patriarchy in, 90; proletarianization in, 141; rules of address in, 155; social cartographies of, 34–35; vertical hierarchies of, 22. See also area Grecanica; Calabria Jenkins, Richard, 98 La Jonica dei Greci di Calabria (association), 52, 54, 116; antagonisms in, 59; Christian Orthodox initiative of, 55; dissolution of, 56, 198n4; founders of, 55; historical constructivism of, 61; inclusionist nature of, 55; journal of, 71; on Questione Grecanica, 56 Karanastasis, Anastasios, 53, 71 Kertzer, David, 103

kinesis, in Grecanici governance, 23, 187 King, R., 196n28 kinship: ambivalence concerning, 19; Catholic Church and, 148; clientelism and, 69; competition within, 203n8; Euro-American, 127; genealogical knowledge through, 63; global/local, 15; Greek, 199nn1,3; houses in, 200n6; Italian terms for, 80; morality of, 148; non-western, 106; as organizing trope, 16; as Other, 76; in representation of Grecanici, 67 kinship, Grecanici, 76, 190; aggression in, 120; among migrants, 86; anthropological view of, 127; bilateral classification in, 77; biological, 105, 115, 127; caregiving in, 86–88, 124, 201n16; compari extensions of, 125; contextual matrixes of, 133; female friendship in, 111; governance in, 16, 76, 104, 106; human-divine relationships in, 149–51, 157; inheritance in, 81–82; living arrangements of, 94; with Madonnas, 150; management of, 87; morality of, 88, 93, 114–15, 116, 119, 122; in ’Ndrangheta, 140; networks of, 16, 46, 47; networks with non-kin, 122; nonbiological, 105–6, 127; nonconventional, 105; patrilineal, 76, 77, 104; in Reggio Calabria, 103–4; reinforcement through relatedness, 126; religious authority in, 140; reputation in, 88; social, 105, 127; terms for, 79–80; vertical representation of, 99; violence within, 119. See also endogamy; family kitchens, Grecanici, 91; public/private space of, 95–96; social space of, 94–97; spatial transformation of, 96–97 kitchens, in Mediterranean ethnography, 201n22 Kleinman, Arthur, 13 Knight, Daniel, 195n8, 202n25 knowledge: co-produced, 21; Grecanici associations’ production of, 74; organization of, 16 Koemtzis, Nikos, 206n17 Kymlicka, Will, 62 Ladins (northern Italy), 54 Laidlaw, James, 205n18 land ownership, political power through, 45 landslides: in area Grecanica, 36–39; of Aspromonte, 28; compensation following, 43;

Index economic effect of, 36, 37; narratives of, 133 language: Bakhtinian notions of, 53; of collective identification, 25 languages: endangered, 25, 62; expressive systems of, 53; social aesthetics of, 193n6; social belief systems in, 53 laureati (university graduates): sistemazione of, 67; sportelli linguistici employment for, 66–67 Leader II (EU project), 71 Lear, Edward, on Calabria, 35–36 Lega Nord (Italy), 2; and immigration, 193n1 Lega per le Lingue della Nazionalità Minoritarie (LeLiNaMi), 26 leisure, aesthetics of, 180 Leo III, Emperor, 149 Leo, Saint, relics of, 150–51 Levi, Carlo, 108 Lévi-Strauss, C., on kinship, 200nn6, 8 linguistic heritage, Italian, Grecanico language in, 5, 9, 14 linguistic minorities: EU interest in, 52; Greek, 26; legalization of claims, 54; rights of, 25, 26, 62 linguistic minorities, Italian: belonging among, 100; under Berlusconi government, 2, 10–11; global representation for, 11–12; governance issues, 11; government budget for, 10–11; legal protection of, 14, 24, 65, 75, 193n7; ownership issues, 11; political representation of, 74; regional interests of, 26; self-government for, 2, 65; state regulation of, 2; UNESCO on, 11, 25; victimhood issues, 11. See also minorities Lisón-Tolosana, Carmelo, Belmonte de los Caballeros, 178–79 localismo, of Italian associations, 51 Lock, Margaret, 13 Locorotondo (Puglia), civiltà of, 57 Lombardi Satriani, Luigi, 62, 78, 150, 204n13; on cult of family, 149; on tarantella, 205n9 Lombardy, civil society in, 58 Lombroso, Cesare, 35, 142 Macrì, Antonio, 146 Macrì, Enrico, 148 Madonna della Consolazione (Reggio Calabria): artwork of, 164; connection to the

237

family, 162; Quadro (icon) of, 161, 163, 164; Sanctuary of, 33, 161, 162, 205n1; Vara of, 163–64, 165, 205n3; vows fulfilled before, 162 Madonna della Consolazione (Reggio Calabria), fiesta, 159, 161–63; dance during, 158, 159, 161–62, 168, 173–75; first, 205n2; murder at, 174; ’Ndrangheta power at, 171; portatori della Vara in, 161–62, 163–65, 166, 168, 205n5; procession of, 161–62, 164; ritual of, 168; of 2007, 205n4. See also Associazione Portatori della Vara Madonna di Polsi, 137; coronations of, 148– 49; fiesta of, 148, 166–67, 168; ’Ndrangheta and, 147–48, 167; in Reggina imagery, 167; and Saint Michael the archangel, 130; sanctuary (San Luca, Aspromonte), 147–48 Madonna di Porto Salvo, 150 Madonna Immacolata, Notte Bianca of, 179 Madonna of Pentedatillo, miracles of, 150 Madonnas, female values of, 165 Madonnas, Grecanici, 163; metaphorical meanings of, 149; narratives of, 129; ’Ndrangheta association with, 147–48, 156, 159; of Reggio Calabria, 147–48 Madre Grecia (pseudonymous association), 70, 71, 73 Maesano, Angelo (Mastr ’Angelo), “Ela, elamu conda,” 181, 206n22 mafia: capitalism in, 141; center-periphery dependency in, 141; character of, 203n4; hybridity of, 142; instrumental coalitions of, 141–42; mediatory role of, 142; outside Italy, 140; personhood in, 171; religious imagery of, 146; service to their people, 155 mafia, Italian, 129; agropastoral aspects of, 142, 146; amicizia in, 141, 142; commissions combating, 204n16; cosce (clans) in, 141–42; onore in, 141; origins of, 140–41; in Risorgimento, 140–41; in South Italy, 190. See also ’Ndrangheta Magna Graecia: ancient language of, 27; cities of, 27; Classic period of, 61, 62; in Greek politics, 65; historic sites of, 49 males: feminized terms for, 204n10; participation in mass, 162 Mangeruna, Francesco Saverio, bishop, 148–49

238 Index marriage: arranged, 85, 87; to non-Grecanici spouses, 101; sponsorship of, 124. See also endogamy; kinship Martino, Ernesto de, 23 Martino, Paolo, 139–40 Marxism, in southern Italian question, 23 mass, male participation in, 162 mastru i ballu: in Notti Bianche, 179; role in dance, 174, 175–77 Mazower, Mark, 25 McKinnon, Susan, 18–19 media, Greek, on Grecanici, 64 mediators, political, 205n8 Meligrana, F. S., 94 memory, genealogical, 130–31; governance through, 130; mutual determination in, 133; pedagogical use of, 130 mentalità, Grecanici: concerning governance, 59–60; fixation in, 60 Merianou, Angela, 180 Michael, Saint (Archangel): Madonna di Polsi and, 130; in ’Ndrangheta origin myths, 140; in ’Ndrangheta ritual, 143–45 migrants, Grecanici, 188; abroad, 43, 196n27; adaptation to city life, 97, 188; economic, 46; friendship among, 110, 202n6; honor among, 89; kinship among, 86; later generations of, 77, 92, 101; in northern Europe, 91; Reggini and, 99, 103; to Reggio Calabria, 4, 8, 12, 33, 43, 77, 102, 120, 188, 189, 195n16, 197n30; social uneasiness among, 111; to Switzerland, 92; as tribe, 102 migrant women, Grecanici, 78; friendship among, 110, 111, 113 Minicuci, Maria, 92, 94 Minniti, Omar, 10–11, 14 Le Minoranze linguistiche patrionio mondiale dell’ umanità, 182 minorities: alloglot populations in, 25; anthropological research on, 26; ethnicization of, 51–52; ethnographic engagement with, 15–16; political genealogies of, 25; provisional identities of, 31; recognition in treaties, 25; scholarship on, 25; UN framework for, 25. See also linguistic minorities Mitchell, J., 204n7 Mitterand, François, political ritual of, 169 Moe, Nelson, 22, 34 Molé, Noelle, 205n7

Montecastello (Italy), houses of, 93 Monti government, linguistic minorities under, 2 Morabito, Saverio, 84 Mori, Giovan Battista, 32 Mortimer, J., 196n28 Mosino, Franco, 26, 53 Moss, David, 194n8 Muehlebach, Andrea, 58 Musolino, Giuseppe, 131–32 Mussolini regime: monolingualism under, 12; Reggio Calabria under, 171 naming practices, Grecanici, 78–80 Naples: Fontana del Re neighborhood, 98; migrant women in, 202n24; multifamily houses of, 201n19 national competence, classificatory schema of, 34 nationalism, Greek, 198n10 natural disasters, solidarity after, 196n23. See also landslides ’Ndrangheta (Calabrian Mafia), 117, 139–57; asymmetrical dependence on, 155; brotherhood of blood in, 156; cultural continuation through, 140; drug trafficking by, 154; economic expansion of, 146; etymology of, 139; exclusive character of, 204n9; and family, 17, 18, 128; in fiction, 135–39; first war (1974–76), 146; freemasonry and, 147, 203n5; global operations of, 141, 146–47; Grecanici governance and, 7, 47, 158; gun trafficking by, 154; hierarchies of, 143, 146, 173, 175; historical constructivism of, 140; historical continuation through, 129; human-sacred relations in, 145; initiation rites of, 143–45, 156; intervention in petty crime, 151–52; legitimization of, 129, 152; local perceptions of, 158; and Madonna di Polsi, 147–48, 167; marriage alliances of, 77; morality of, 142–43; myths of origin, 140; names for, 139; narratives of, 152–54; organization and structure of, 143–44, 145, 203n5; origins of, 143, 156, 170; participation in public dance, 158, 159–60, 175–77, 183; pedagogical deeds of, 131–35, 157; performances at religious celebrations, 159–60, 171, 182; personhood of, 159; picciotti of, 144, 145, 203n3; politeness of, 205n19; political networks of, 129; power

Index relations of, 168, 171–75, 190; practice of endogamy, 83–84; of Reggio Calabria, 18, 44, 129, 139, 143, 146, 168, 203n1; relatedness of, 24, 156; relations with the divine, 129–30, 158, 183; religiosity of, 143, 146– 49, 152, 156, 170; religious kinship of, 140; representational system of, 187–88; resistance to, 172; respect in, 145; retaliations against Grecanici associations, 72; rituals of, 129, 143–45, 156, 168, 170; sacred image of, 170; Saint Michael the Archangel and, 140, 143–45; in San Giorgio extra, 100, 102; Santa sect, 146, 147; Santista rank, 145, 146, 156; sgarro (provocation) of, 173, 174, 206n18; Società Maggiore of, 144, 145, 203n6; Società Minore of, 144, 145, 203n6; sovereignty of, 156; state language of, 18; symbolic choreography of, 171, 176; territoriality of, 171–73; umiltà of, 155; unreciprocated gifts from, 152, 153–56, 158; Vangelo rank of, 145, 147, 156; violence of, 142; women’s role in, 84. See also mafia neoliberalism, Italian, 109 New Democracy Party, Greek, 48 Niceforo, Alfredo, 35 nicknames, Grecanici, 79, 199n2 Nocera Terinese (Calabria), flagellation ritual of, 170 Notti Bianche: public dancing in, 179; of Reggio Calabria, 178–79, 206n20 Nucera, Antonio, 150–51 Nucera, Elisabetta, 56, 61, 74 Nucera, Francesco, 196n18 Nucera, Raffaele, 79, 196n18; in Grecanici history, 138 Nucera, Salvino, Chalònero, 187; friendship in, 136; gossip in, 88, 110, 137; governance in, 139; mafia in, 135–39; relatedness in, 136 oral history, Grecanici, 131–35; of ancestors, 130, 132; effect on political life, 134–35; influence on children, 134; past and present in, 133; truth in, 135 Other: caring for, 186; classificatory schemata about, 35 paesani, sportelli linguistici employment for, 66–67

239

palazzi, Grecanici: apartments in, 97; demarcation of status, 104; family image in, 97; female kin in, 110; kinship arrangements in, 94; multigenerational families in, 91, 102, 124; of San Giorgio extra, 91, 92, 94, 98. See also households palazzi, signorile, 94 Palio (Siena), social organization of, 202n26 Palumbo, Bernardino, 34, 58 Paoli, Letizia, 84, 85, 203nn5–6 Parangelia (The Order, film), 206n17 Pardo, Italo, 94, 201n19 Parry, J., 204n18 Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), 46 passion, crimes of, 133 the past, Grecanici, narratives of, 131–35 patriarchy, ethnographic representations of, 90 patriarchy, Grecanici: male rhetoric on, 89; romanticization of, 90 patrilineality, Grecanici, 76, 104; binding quality of, 199n5; “houses” in, 80; land in, 81; sub-razze of, 77 patrilines: cousins in, 79–80; transmission of blood, 77–78 Patten, Alan, 62 Paul, Saint: genealogical links to, 204n7 pentito (collaborator), 84, 200n13 Pentedatillo (Italy), Madonna of, 150 performances, religious: gendered, 166; intersubjective evaluation of, 165; links to divine in, 159; ’Ndrangheta at, 159–60, 171, 182; the profane in, 166–68; in Reggio Calabria, 161–68, 171. See also dance, public; fiestas Petropoulou, Christina, 29, 30; on historical constructivism, 64; on nicknames, 79; research on relocations, 42 piazze: Piazza Duomo (Reggio Calabria), 173–75, 177; of San Giorgio extra, 98, 130, 163; social orientation at, 173 piracy, era of (1700–1827), 132, 134 Pitkin, Donald, 88, 92–93 Pitt-Rivers, J., 198n13, 203n10 Placanica, Augusto, 187; “Calabria in Idea,” 35 politics: dance and, 206n17; navigation of channels of, 7 politics, Grecanici: clientelistic networks of, 19; core and periphery in, 186–87; in

240 Index politics, Grecanic (cont.) family influence in, 76, 108; minority, 16; power relations in, 186; representation in, 4, 47, 67, 188; victimhood in, 67, 75 politics, Italian: family in, 20; relatedness in, 17 poliziotti, Reggini, 152, 204n17 portatori della Madonna (fraternity, Reggio Calabria), 162. See also Madonna della Consolazione power: capillary circuits metaphor, 23; centralized, 108; in clientelism, 21; exclusivist tactics of, 24; in Grecanici governance, 109; productivity of, 23; religious and political, 168 power relations: in dance, 159, 171–75, 184; genealogical legitimization of, 133; of governancy, 23; in Grecanici politics, 186; ’Ndrangheta, 168, 171–75, 190; urban, 94 Prato, Giuliana, 193n2 privacy, Grecanici concepts of, 96 P2 (Propaganda 2, Masonic lodge), 72, 199n1 public good, 198n6; Grecanico language as, 63 Puglia, 9; Greek speakers of, 30, 66, 194n1 Questione Grecanica, 30; associations addressing, 54; La Jonica on, 56; politics of difference in, 54 Questione Meridionale (Southern Question), 22–23; social cartography of, 35 raccomandazione system, 66–68, 75, 194n9; effect on children, 69; in familial clientelism, 21; in friendship, 118; power of, 69; sources in, 198n13 Le Radici (pseudonymous association), 70, 71, 72 razze (patricians), 77, 199nn1,4 rebetiko (Greek music), 184 reconstruction, Calabrian, 37–38; mafia infiltration of, 42 Reggini (Reggio Calabria residents): Grecanici relationships with, 33–34, 99, 101, 103, 120–21; imagination of festa, 166; marriage to Grecanici, 101; parlors of, 97–98; political reasoning of, 44 Reggio Calabria: clientelism in, 20; communi of, 32; concept of mentalità, 60; diasporic Greeks in, 48, 49–50, 197nn27, 30; earthquake (1860), 32; family in, 19; Grecanici

associations of, 9, 29–30, 50, 66; Grecanici folklorist music in, 73; Greek linguistic minority of, 1; historic sites of, 49; language of relatedness in, 17; medieval relocations to, 27; nobility of, 197n29; provinces of, 32; relatedness in, 20, 185; sportelli linguistici of, 65–66; state archives of, 42; tarantella of, 174; tourism to, 31, 179; unemployment rate in, 68 Reggio Calabria (city): architecture of, 32; assessori of, 46, 48, 197n34; baracche of, 32–33; civic life of, 50; coastline of, 33; coloni of, 45; Corso Garibaldi, 33, 103; crime in, 151–52, 204n14; endogamy in, 85; festivals of, 33; fraternities of, 162; gardens of, 45–46, 99; governmentality in, 108; Grecanici associations of, 50; Grecanici governance in, 187; Grecanici neighborhoods of, 32, 33, 77, 188, 195n14; Grecanici palazzi of, 91, 92, 93; Greek associations of, 48; Greek migration to, 197nn27, 30; history of, 32–33; hostile social conditions of, 110; Modern Greek instruction in, 72; ’Ndrangheta in, 18, 44, 129, 139, 143, 146, 168, 203n1, 204n16; notabilato of, 44; Notti Bianche of, 178–79, 206n20; peripheral neighborhoods of, 45; personhood in, 162; Piazza Duomo, 173– 75, 177; politics of, 44, 109; population increases in, 39, 197n28; power sharing in, 173; private life in, 106; public dance in, 170–75; quartieri of, 103; reciprocity in, 142–43; relations with Athens, 48–49; religious performance in, 161–68, 171; tourism in, 179; Via Marina, 33, 102, 195n13; walls of, 99. See also migrants, Grecanici, to Reggio Calabria; San Giorgio extra Reggio Calabria (city) cathedral, 33; dance before, 158, 159, 173–75, 177, 183 relatedness: affective mode of, 123; ambivalence in, 106; biological, 111; clientelism and, 19; and concepts of personhood, 113; cultural codes of, 106; ethnography of, 184–85, 191; in Hellenism, 10; instrumentalist, 123; nonbiological modes of, 105–6, 114; and political representation, 17, 47, 105; in Reggio Calabria, 17, 20; in religion, 23; trust in, 114. See also kinship relatedness, Grecanici, 3, 104, 157; adoption in, 202n3; in amicizia, 126; based on

Index 241 compari networks, 125; as basis of minority governance, 189; biological, 202n3; boundaries of, 106; channels of, 127; to Church, 108; desire for, 85, 189–90; ethnographic paradoxes of, 126–27; extramarital sex in, 106–8; in families, 17, 19, 79–80, 185–86; forms of, 80; gendered accounts of, 110–16; in godparenthood, 123–24; in governance, 4, 23–24, 105, 130, 158, 185, 191; moral systems of, 119; multiple forms of, 22, 127, 157, 186; of ’Ndrangheta, 24, 156; in Sangiovanni, 126, 127; social, 202n3; spatiotemporal arena of, 158 religious celebrations. See performances, religious relocations: forced, 40; from Greece, 27; in Greek civil war, 42. See also migrants relocations, Grecanici, 8, 37, 38, 39–43; collective memories of, 43; corruption in, 41–43; exploitation following, 42; internal aid after, 42; mannaggia alla miseria in, 43–44; narratives of, 40–42, 43; official denial of, 42; return from, 41. See also migrants, Grecanici Renaissance, Italian, linguistic traditions of, 54 representation: discourses of, 16; in Grecanici governance, 24; languages of, 8 reputation, family, 88 Ricoeur, Paul, 130–31 Risorgimento: civic associations following, 51; mafia in, 140–41 rituals: competing constituencies of, 169–70; contested space/time of, 170; efficacy of, 168–70; flagellation, 78, 170; of genealogical memory, 130; of ’Ndrangheta, 129, 143–45, 156, 168, 170; performative nature of, 170; political, 168–69; reinvented, 179; sacred and mundane, 169; societal expression through, 206nn14–15 Roccaforte (Calabria), Zoi ce Glossa at, 57 Rocco, Saint, 168 Roger of Sicily, 27 Roghudi (Calabria): dowry customs in, 200n10; relocation from, 39; sportelli linguistici of, 65; Zoi ce Glossa at, 56–57 Roghudi Nuova (Calabria), immigration to, 28 Rogliano (Calabria), houses of, 201n19 Rohlfs, Gerhard, 27–28, 71; Lexicon Graecanicum Italiae inferioris, 53 Romanucci-Ross, Lola, 124

Romeo, Angelo, Naràde d’Aspromonte, 15, 26 Rossi-Doria, Manlio, 45 Sacco, Viviana, 31 saints: Grecanici evocation of, 163, 190; historical continuation through, 129; lawful appropriation of, 156; in ’Ndrangheta governance, 129, 156, 157; territoriality of, 151 San Giorgio, church of (Reggio Calabria), 98, 99 San Giorgio extra (Reggio Calabria): Aspromonte families in, 91; chauvinism in, 103; family competition in, 99; Grecanici identification with, 102; ’Ndrangheta in, 100, 102; nonconformity of, 99; neighborhood identification in, 98–102, 188; palazzi of, 91, 92, 94; piazza of, 98, 130, 163; political language of, 99; population growth in, 197n28; residential patterns of, 91, 98; streets of, 98 Sangiovanni (godparenthood), 123–26; affective obligations of, 125; kin-like relations of, 105; linguistic expression of, 126; linked to extended family, 125; narratives of, 123– 24, 125; reciprocal obligations in, 124–25; relatedness of, 126, 127; sacramental relationship of, 202n1 San Luca (Aspromonte): clans originating from, 167; sanctuary of Madonna di Polsi, 147–48 Sant Cassia, Paul, 142 Schneider, Jane and Peter, 90 Sciama, Lidia, 91, 199n5, 201n19 Scopelliti, Giuseppe, 48 Seremetakis, C. N., 199n3, 204n13 shame, 202n2; in friendship, 107 Shore, Cris, 6, 109 Sicily: blood relationships in, 88; purity of blood in, 78 Silverman, Sydel, 57, 93, 206n15 Simmel, Georg, 120 Smorto, Pietro, 44 socialists, Italian, coalition-building by, 197n35 space, Grecanici: ambasciata in, 96–97; conversations in, 96–97; governance of, 104; Grecanici concepts of, 94–97; kitchen, 94–97; organization of, 91–104; socialization in, 94. See also households, Grecanici; palazzi

242 Index space, rituals of, 168, 169 Spain, religious life of, 147, 151, 204n11 spiti (house), Grecanici concept of, 80. See also houses sportelli linguistici (linguistic helpdesks), 9, 26, 187; contested governance of, 65–66; employment at, 66–67, 75, 89; functions of, 65–66; Grecanico courses of, 66–67; quotas for instructors, 66; self-government through, 75 Squillaci, Tito, 11, 14 Sri Lanka, compadrazgo in, 123 Stajano, Corrado, 42; Africo, 171–72 state power, fragmentation of, 12 Stirrat, Roderick, 123 Strahan, A., 196n28 Strathern, Marilyn, 15–16, 127; on creation, 160 structuralism, Africanist, 76 subjectification, relationship nexuses of, 7 suffering, devotional, 165–66 tarantelle (dances), 158, 181, 205nn9,11; at festival of San Giovanni, 168; local variants of, 174; man/man, 177–78; ’Ndrangheta performance of, 173, 174, 182; performance of deliberation in, 160; personhood in, 171; riggitana, 174; touristic, 183. See also dance tarantolla (Grecanici dance), 167 tarantolla (veleine spider), 205n9 Tasios, Pavlos, 206n17 territoriality: divine, 150–51; ’Ndrangheta, 171–73 Teti, Vito, 37, 196n18, 201n15 Thessaly, death ceremonies in, 203n11 time: link to narrative, 130–31; and power, 145; ritualistic, 168 Tomasello, Giovanni, murder of, 174 tourism, cultural: to area Grecanica, 55, 73, 180–83, 195n8; fiestas organized for, 73– 74; Grecanici associations’ promotion of, 31, 54, 180; in Reggio Calabria, 31, 179 Tripodo, Domenico, 146 Uhl, Sarah, 112–13 Umbria, civiltà of, 57 UNESCO: classification of Grecanico language, 14; and Grecanici culture, 4–7, 10; on linguistic minorities, 11, 25; recognition of intangible heritage, 182, 183, 188

unification, Italian, 27, 32, 35; instability following, 141 United States, Grecanici migration to, 43 Val di Fassa, Ladin language in, 54 vendetta: following failed friendships, 118, 128; women’s role in, 201n15 Viale, Giulio, 146 Vico, Giambattista, 62 victimhood: lexicon of, 8–9; professional language of, 13; as tool of governance, 9 victimhood, Grecanici: in civil society, 13, 50, 187; difference through, 13; in governance issues, 8–14; politics of, 67, 75; rhetoric of, 13, 50, 100 villages, Grecanici: of Aspromonte, 27–28; depopulation of, 12, 28, 37, 38, 39; Ellenofoni/ Ellenofili, 31; re-creation in Reggio Calabria, 99, 103; relocation from, 8, 37, 38, 39–43; return to, 41; uprisings in, 43. See also communities, Grecanici violence: within Grecanici kinship, 119; in Grecanici oral history, 133; Grecanici women’s, 133; of ’Ndrangheta, 142; political, 13; in protection of family, 149; in resolution of conflicts, 139 Violi, Filippo, 53 Virgin Mary, female identification with, 165. See also Madonnas Walston, James, 46–47, 197n35 White, Caroline, 59 widows, Grecanici: sexually available, 84; white, 200n14 Wilk, Richard, 34 Wolf, E., 114 women, Calabrian: as culture transmitters, 201n15; practice of endogamy, 78 women, European, cultural roles of, 113 women, Grecanici: affective space of, 111; among guests, 89; barren, 107; canniness of, 90; commoditization of, 84, 85; dissolution of friendship, 112; divorce for, 108; dowries of, 81, 83; economic competition among, 99; in endogamy, 81, 82–83; envy among, 110; friendship among, 110–14; gossip among, 110, 137; as household administrators, 89–90; kin-based friendships of, 111, 112; older, 125; remaining in villages, 46; responsibility for spiritual health,

Index 162; revenge by, 133; unmarried, 112; widows, 84 women, Greek, performative space for, 165 women, Maniat, mourning by, 203n11 women, Neapolitan, among guests, 89 Woolf, S., 203nn5–6 World Bank, on national competence, 34 World War II, migration following, 111 Wright, S., 109

243

Zaccanopoli (Calabria): houses of, 92; nicknames in, 199n2 zingari (gypsies), petty crime among, 152, 204n15 Zinn, Dorothy, 21, 194n9 Zoi ce Glossa (Grecanici association), 56–57; journal of, 71 zzetreffádde (cousins), Grecanici, 79–80. See also endogamy; kinship

Acknowledgments

I have always thought of this book as an adventure. Raised with the literature of Jules Verne, I was fascinated with exploring strange places. I gradually came to love difference and embrace it. Throughout the adventure certain people become important figures and companions, to whom I would like to express my gratitude for being my points of orientation all these years. My deepest appreciation goes to Daniel Knight for his constant support, care, intellectual stimulation and shared passion for anthropology. My friend and mentor Elisabeth Kirtsoglou first introduced me to this wonderful world of anthropology and devoted much precious time to teach me how to think anthropologically. Special thanks go to my mentor Stephen Lyon who exhibited great enthusiasm for my work and has been a rock during the formative stages of this monograph. Without Elisabeth and Steve “the adventures of Reggio Calabria” would not have been a happy text. I am grateful to Paul Sant Cassia and Maria Couroucli for friendship and for sharing their wealth of knowledge. Thanks to Paul I benefited from a period at the University of Paris X Nanterre. Soaking up the seminars of Parisian institutions and making new acquaintances truly transformed my outlook. Maria Couroucli, whom I respect and admire deeply, has become a constant source of inspiration, emotional support, and guidance over the years. During my time in Paris I stayed with Colette Piault, whose wisdom on visual anthropology, coupled with Janet Hart’s friendship and sharp anthropological mind, helped me think in new directions. The manuscript greatly benefited from a final reading by Michael Herzfeld. I am massively indebted to Michael for his belief in this project, for endless advice and care, motivation and unparalleled scholarly inspiration. Σε ευχαριστώ! Charles Stewart has been wonderful in proposing ways the manuscript could be improved. His own thesis on the Greek linguistic minority of South Italy was the starting point for many discussions and mutual

246 Acknowledgments

passion. I am honored that Charles shared his archival material where I found fundamental details about the early years of Grecanico associationism that had remained undiscovered in my own fieldwork. I am grateful to Victoria Goddard and Michael Carrithers for their extensive reading of my work and critical insights. They are inspirational figures who passionately urged me to pursue bold theoretical arguments. I am immensely indebted to Jane Schneider whose support has been invaluable. My work has benefited greatly from Jane’s critical eye and superior knowledge on all things mafia. Sections of the book have profited from conversations, advice, and detailed feedback from Marilyn Strathern, John Dickie, Gianni Pizza, Domenico Perrotta, Dino Palumbo and Àngels Trias i Valls. Andrea Muehlebach provided an incredibly sharp eye, friendship and encouragement, for which I am extremely grateful. In the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews I found fertile ground to develop and expand my ideas for this book. The enthusiasm and encouragement from all my colleagues has been incomparable. I am particularly grateful to Christina Toren, Paloma Gay y Blasco, Huon Wardle, Mark Harris, and Trenholme Junghans. Nigel Rapport has been a role model, advisor, and constant source of warmth, care, and intellectual stimulation. I am forever indebted to him. Magda Zografou, beloved professor and friend, kept me sane during my fieldwork. Magda provided the impetus to chase my dreams and become an academic. Christina Petropoulou’s superb work on a Grecanici village has been a constant point of reference; she has offered friendship, discussion, and reassurance. Venere, my best friend in the field, provided me not only with ethnographic data but, most important, with a family. Without her presence beautiful memories would fade and laughter would be silenced. This work would not have been possible without the trust and accommodation of my informants in Reggio Calabria with whom I spent the most exciting time of my life. I am honored to have shared their lives. Peter Agree at the University of Pennsylvania Press cannot be outshone in terms of support and care. His enthusiasm for the project from the outset spurred me on and made the experience of publishing this monograph unforgettable. Finally I would like to thank my mother, Eleni, and stepfather, Giorgo, for putting up with me all these years and for facilitating this adventure. My mother, similar to my beloved late grandparents, Eugenia and Thoma, is an adventurer and she is never afraid of new challenges and unknown lands.