From Clans to Co-Ops - Confiscated Mafia Land in Sicily

From Clans to Co-ops explores the social, political, and economic relations that enable the constitution of cooperatives operating on land confiscated from mafiosi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafia in Italian history. Rakopoulos's ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labor, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that cooperatives bring to people's lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperativism, how labor might be salvaged from market fundamentalism, and to emergent discourses about the 'human' economy.

Sommario

List of Illustrations and Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Problems with Cooperatives

Chapter 2. The Anthropology of Co-ops, the Mafia and the Sicilian Lens

Chapter 3. Cooperatives and the Historical Anti-mafia Movement

Chapter 4. Worldviews of Labour: Legality and Food Ideologies

Chapter 5. The Limits of 'Bad Kinship': Sicilian Anti-mafia Families

Chapter 6. The Use of Gossip: Setting Cooperative Boundaries

Chapter 7. 'Wage Is Male-But Land Is a Woman'

Chapter 8. Community Troubles: Cooperative Conundrum

Chapter 9. Divided by Land: Mafia and Anti-mafia Proximity

Conclusion: The Private Life of Political Cooperativism

Bibliography

Index

Info autore

Theodoros Rakopoulos is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He is author of From clans to co-ops: Confiscated mafia land in Sicily and editor of The global life of austerity: Comparing beyond Europe.

Riassunto

From Clans to Co-ops explores the social, political, and economic relations that enable the constitution of cooperatives operating on land confiscated from mafiosi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafia in Italian history. Rakopoulos’s ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labor, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that cooperatives bring to people’s lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperativism, how labor might be salvaged from market fundamentalism, and to emergent discourses about the ‘human’ economy.

Testo aggiuntivo

“Overall, the book should have wide appeal, and will be of interest to scholars of cooperatives, organised crime and counter-organised crime. While the books primarily subject is cooperatives, it would sit comfortable with other ethnographies of organised crime. Moreover, it provides an important critical d”imension to the growing literature on the use of economic development to counter organised crime and illicit enterprise, especially the power inequalities inherent in such endeavours.” • Irish Journal of Anthropology

“Erudite and readable, scholarly and passionate, this stunning ethnography reveals how the Sicilian anti-mafia movement shares with the mafia deep-seated social bonds no less significant than the mutual enmity that divides and defines them.  Focusing on the anti-mafia’s cooperative movement, which credits itself with the relative peace that Sicily now enjoys, Rakopoulos whisks from the mists of sinister secrecy a detailed and riveting portrait of the pas de deuxof social complicity and ethical engagement that has enabled this new configuration to emerge within the ethos of modern capitalism.” • Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University

“This theoretically-sophisticated ethnography will not only change popular images of Sicily, it will also provide hope for those struggling to find new ways of organizing life in today’s troubled world. A seminal contribution to human economy.” • Chris Gregory, ANU College of Arts and Social Science

“Based on sensitive fieldwork and thorough ethnographic research, this is a marvelous account of the anti-mafia co-op project in Palermo, Sicily, which aims to transform landholdings previously owned by mafia families into functioning anti-mafia cooperatives. From Clans to Co-ops not only takes readers inside the dynamics of these producer cooperatives, but also usefully reviews cooperatives from other places and other times.” • Peter Schneider, Fordham University

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Theodoros Rakopoulos
• Editore: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pubblicazione: 28.02.2017
• EAN: 9781785334009
• ISBN: 978-1-78533-400-9
• Pagine: 240
• Serie: The Human Economy; The Human Economy
• Categoria: Scienze sociali, diritto, economia > Scienze sociali, tematiche generali