Black Hole, It Follows e lo Spirito Cannibale. Adolescenza e riti di passaggio: Trauma, isolamento e trasformazione nel dialogo tra graphic novel, cinema e conoscenza etnografica

This essay analyzes the passage to adulthood in three different art and culture contexts. In the graphic novel Black Hole a sexually transmitted disease turns the characters into lonely mutants. In the movie It Follows some teenagers with ‘no-future’ lives are threatened by disturbing figures trying to kill them. Both these works show the lack of adults and youth isolation from the society. Among the Kwakiutl, the Cannibal Spirit kidnaps young boys and take them to the forest where they experience a liminal condition: the rite involves the whole society and the adults play a key role. These social dramas will be used to analyze the weakening of the ritualization related to the transition to adult age in the contemporary world

“Quando il servizio è gratis il prodotto sei tu”. Religioni imprenditoriali ed emergenza sanitaria nel carcere portoghese

This article focuses on the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), one of the most powerful entrepreneurial religions. Analyzing its “marketing strategy” based on donations and humanitarian support, I want to shed light on IURD’s presence and ambiguous positioning within a female Portuguese prison. On the one side, IURD highlights the connections between its values and prison order.  On the other side, IURD aims to penetrate the thick layers of prison governance, especially during the critical juncture of Covid-19 pandemic. I will show the way IURD frames its action within new neoliberal penal ideologies that challenge secularism, reinforcing at the same time control and security.

I rifugiati e le “soluzioni durevoli”: un’analisi critica a partire dal caso ugandese Refugees and the “durable solutions”: critical insights starting from the Ugandan case

The UNHCR officially provides three “durable solutions” to the condition of refugee: voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement. However, in many cases these solutions remain only on paper, not being feasible in reality for most refugees. Taking as its starting point a critical analysis of refugee management in the countries of the Great Lakes Region in Africa, with a particular focus on the case of Congolese refugees in Uganda, this article seeks to investigate how these solutions are conceived and negotiated by refugees themselves in their experience. Viewed from this context, the three durable solutions show their contradictory nature: repatriation is made impossible by the continuing conflicts in Congo DRC; local integration is hampered by the lack of access to citizenship, while resettlement is reserved to a very limited number of people. Given these conditions, many refugees find themselves in a situation of protracted limbo

La représentation de la pandémie dans les narrations Representing the Pandemic in Narratives

The idea that there are not diseases but rather sick people goes back more than a hundred years. The nature of each disease is expressed in biographical narratives based on individual experiences in each community. The disease, depicted in a personal, epic, and narrative schemes, is no longer terrifying. Two years ago, COVID was scary because humanity had no experience with it. Over the years, the media has covered new and varied stories about the pandemic from all over the world and from all parts of the country. These stories represented the pandemic, its spread, progression, and outcome. By analysing the stories from different sources, the lecture traces the narrative representations of the pandemic in Romania

Le travail dans le contexte de l’agriculture sociale: intégration, inclusion et mobilité The shapes of work in social farming: integration, inclusion and mobility

This essay concerns the relationship between work and solidarity in the context of social farming.In order to analyse the data collected during the fieldwork, the article examines the anthropologicaldebate related to the shapes of the work in complex society that shows the historicalcharacter of wage labor separating life and job practices. The ethnographic research, developedin rural areas of Umbria (Italy), concerns the health and rehabilitation practices addressed tovulnerable people. It aims to illustrate opportunities to recompose social ties by work inclusionwithin the welfare of community, centered on three key words: proximity, inclusivity anduniversalism. The analysis of the interviews reveals potential and critic issues of the shelteredemployment but also the construction of a concept of solidarity centered on volunteering ratherthan civil and social rights