Popular Religiosity and Collective Effervescence in Contemporary Sicily

This paper focuses on the religious feasts of St. Agata, one of the most important religious feasts in Southern Italy, in the city of Catania. Drawing upon participatory observation and a netnography of virtual communities of devotees, the Christian popular religiosity towards this female Saint can be seen to represent an annual consecratory encounter between the Saint/Sacred and the local community, and also a kind of contemporary ordeal for young people. As Durkheim suggested, religion is what brings people together by reinforcing social relations and moral norms through a “collective effervescence”. This group energy, when felt by the individual, is not recognized as the result of communitas, but is attributable to the sacred. I suggest that this event has a double aspect: on the one hand, every devotee has to submit him/herself to this initiation rite at least once in his/her life to confirm belonging to the local community; and on the other hand, worshippers experience a sort of humanization of the Saint, who becomes one of them, someone to ask for employment, good health and so on, in exchange for extreme performances of devotion, such as enduring of more and less severe trials. Once a year, the collective suffering for Agata is perceived by the local actors as an initiation rite during the three-day feast. I suggest that this religious celebration is not only a social form of embodiment but a perpetrated contemporary form of ordeal

L’antropologia filosofica di Remo Cantoni: umanismo critico, “connessione orizzontale” e partecipazione

The paper proposes a critical reflection on Remo Cantoni’s philosophical thought, with particular regards to his anthropological point of view that addresses concepts such as “critical humanism” and “horizontal connection”. The strict relationship between anthropology and participation are his main topics on which he has made outstanding remarks in the second decade of XXth century in the Italian cultural panorama. Since his early works, Cantoni points out the need to develop a different way of analysing the pluridimensionality of human beings and widely debates contemporary European cultural context after the end of World War II. The paper tries to put in evidence how Cantoni’s anthropological thought originally tends to a knowledgical intentionality dimension which should be taken into account for ethnographic investigation. In order to apply his point view, he suggests to consider an epistemological approach which could connect all the social-scientific sciences through a “horizontal connection”, whose aim is to gain a vital relationship of culture with the existing variety and alterity

Anti-ziganismo e mass media

Il saggio focalizza l'attenzione sul fenomeno dell'antiziganismo nei media, quale vettore di fenomeni di stigmatizzazione sociale

Ethnically Unprivileged: Some Anthropological Reflections on Roma Women in Contemporary Italy

This chapter focuses on the conditions of extreme poverty and uncertainty of Roma women in Italy, and on the consequences they have on their children. The present analysis starts from the living context and from the organizing of families in ghettos. Finally, it proceeds to the women’s economic activity and to the debate on the ethnicity of this community

Living in urban interstices: the survival practices of excluded Gypsies in Italian borderlands.

The paper focuses on the case-studies of nomad camps in Italy, where groups of “gypsies” live in condition of ghetto. The nomad camps generally constitute a world out of the city, as an encompassed microcosm. They represent a borderland or a grey zone. The only interaction between “them” and “us” happens when Romanì exit from the camp and cross the municipal streets. Roma people develop a capacity to survive in urban interstices. These practices consist in unusual welfare forms of material help for day by day survival, while living in a condition of human rights negation by majority society members

Corpi d’acqua. Memorie odeporiche di minori migranti in una prospettiva etnostorica

The essay presents some results of an ethnographic survey conducted in Palermo (Sicily) in a host community for unaccompanied foreign minors, focusing on the collective imaginary of the sea that a group of migrant minors from South Africa in-corporated during their travels. It highlights, from an ethno-historical perspective, the oral narratives and life stories collected during the symbolic-liminal passage through the Mediterranean sea. The re-elaboration of time and space in the boat correlates to the “bodies of water” as a possible contribution to the prospective discourse on trau-ma, exclusion, survival of separated children

Separated Children’s Migration in the Mediterranean Sea. An Ethnohistorical Perspective

In the imaginary of Italian people, the Island of Lampedusa (Italy) has always been considered a paradise destination for summer holidays. The beauty of this small island at the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, far from big harbors and cities, with its rich biodiversity and unspoilt nature, has made it a national and international tourist attraction. However, in recent years its name become associated with scenes of tragic, desperate journeys made by people of different origins trying to reach Europe from North African coasts. This shift exists not only in Italian people’s perception, but also all over the world, as the news related to Lampedusa and other Italian areas affected by this phenomenon often finds a place in major foreign newspapers. Even if migrants have been reaching Italian (and, more generally, South European) coasts for the last 20 years, the date of 3 October 2013 constitutes a significant turning point, as the shipwreck that occurred on this day lead to numerous deaths and the Italian coast guard has been accused of an unsuccessful, belated rescue of the people on the vessel. In recent months the number of people, especially unaccompanied children, arriving by boat has increased. Most of them are fleeing from wars and persecution, and even if they are aware of the risk of crossing the Mediterranean Sea, they still decide to try. The paper presents the results of an ethnographic research conducted with unaccompanied and separated children in Sicily, in order to point out their oral memories

The Complex Role of the Tutor for Autonomy in Care Leaving Processes

This article discusses some of the critical elements related to the taking care of adolescent leaving care. To this end, Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological perspective will be adopted, taking up suggestions from the notion of chronosystem and applying it to boys and girls leaving care. In this way, it emerges how the process of building autonomy and the transition to adulthood does not begin at the age of 18, but is already built up during the child’s care. In the light of these considerations, the key role of the autonomy tutor is analyzed with respect to the national experimentation conducted in Italy, highlighting the tools and skills he/she should have