Abstract
Starting from an analysis of the public discourse, identitarian representations, and practices, this chapter aims to show that stereotypical and essentialist representations can sometimes be changed, challenged, adapted, and politically activated by the subaltern in order to make specific claims and can also often be reversed. In particular, this chapter analyzes the objectivation strategies put in place by the “outsiders” (those who do not live in the slums), in line with their role (journalists, politicians, strangers, or the citizens of Messina), and the tactics used by the slum residents to resist, subvert, or exploit such stereotypical representations according to their needs and the political framework in a given time.
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- 1.
This provocative reference is to the elusive bridge across the Messina Strait, which would connect mainland Italy with Sicily, and which, from the Second World War onwards, has been seen as a strategic and symbolic part of the infrastructure, and one that would mark the economic rebirth of the island. However, over the past fifteen years, environmentalists have challenged the project, which would have a devastating ecological impact, in a high-risk area for seismic activity with a high concentration of goods and passenger traffic across the Strait, which would make this large-scale project uneconomical (The Economist 2003; for a more in-depth review, see: Angelini 2011). The bridge has never been built, but the various factions involved in electoral campaigns mention it now and again because the subject arouses strong local feelings of interest and therefore unites voters. The bridge across the Strait is another example of speculative economy, which helps to generate the movement of capital and revenue even though there is no concrete result. Even before the building begins, the design project has managed to open up certain expenditure channels. Suffice it to remember here that at the beginning of the 1980s a company called “Stretto di Messina Spa”, was set up, using public capital, was fully staffed, and entirely dedicated to this project. It is estimated that from 1981 up to the present, the cost of running the company amounted to over €300 million (Morgantini 2016). Between 2000 and 2012, during the Berlusconi governments, the final project was approved, and some of the additional work was tendered out; however, the fall of the government meant activities were suspended, and they still are (De Luca 2016).
- 2.
On this subject, part of the video interview with Signora Concetta in which she tells her story can be seen on YouTube, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBSh4dYccPs) as part of a research project about the lives of the slum-dwellers carried out by Pasquale Filippone; this video was probably the inspiration behind the television story we refer to. The video opens with Signora Concetta who, despite the heat and the decrepit state of the apartment, appears lively. Sitting on a wooden bench, she welcomes the journalist into her home, chatting to him in Sicilian dialect, and explaining that she has lived there for seventy years (like the majority of the slum-dwellers, therefore, she was not born in her shack). She goes on to explain how she spends each day and how she manages to wash. At one point, she even jokes: “You know where I’ll finally get a house, don’t you? In the cemetery!”. Again, when the journalist asks where she eats, she says: “Oh, I eat here! I take out a little saucepan, I’ve got plates and crockery, I’ve got a lot of stuff put away, it’s not that I don’t have anything!” (This forceful clarification is in distinct contrast to the reference about the one single spoon used to beat back the rats made in the television story). She adds: “for now I’m not really taking care of myself”, and she gets upset at the thought of the four cats she had adopted to keep the rats away, and to whom she was very attached and who are now dead. This is the reason for her loneliness.
- 3.
For example, the decades-long criticism that followed the seminal work by Lewis (1966) on how the protestant imaginary has influenced the analysis of poverty and how, implicit in his theory, significant blame has been apportioned to those who live on the margins of society. On this subject, see the observations put forward by Bourgois (2003, p. 64) and Wilson (2012, pp. 182 passim).
- 4.
From the Fascist period, home ownership in Italy was seen as a way to integrate the masses into the order of the State. The regime, therefore, saw the increase in home ownership as a way of extending the base of those who had “interests”, in the hope, therefore, that they would aspire to order, to the same order that Fascism produced and guaranteed. Similar ideas are to be found during the transition to the Republic and, again, in the post-war period, when the congressional documents of the Democratic Christian party, the primary Italian governmental party up until the 1990s, adopt this legacy of ideas and electoral management, while incorporating it into a Catholic framework based on family values. (Bortolotti 1978, p. 263).
- 5.
Here, the reference is to that branch of anthropological studies regarding the policies of self-representation, that is, the selection processes and use of public cultural themes aimed at fulfilling the functions and achieving the objectives of a social group, including subaltern ones. If some of the seminal references to this subject have been put forward by Ortner (1984), Marcus and Fisher (1986), Clifford and Marcus (1986), Herzfeld (1987), are the works by Palumbo (2003, 2009) that provide many local examples of this type of subordinate manipulation of reality and are, therefore, more closely related to our analysis.
- 6.
A discursive and aesthetic climax similar to that of “humanitarian reason” as identified by Fassin (2012).
- 7.
Despite some significant differences regarding the generality of the claims, similar dynamics are apparent in the famous study by Holston (2008) about the struggle for the recognition of the right to housing space in the São Paolo favelas.
- 8.
This is a post-democratic government (Crouch 2004), as can be seen by their contempt for parliamentary democracy and the institutional seats that preside over democratic dialogue (Parliament, the Presidency of the Republic, the magistracy and the press). These have been substituted by fake direct democracy, endorsed by the constant personal presence of the leader of the government on personal social networking sites, which he uses to communicate directly with the public. In reality, the public become the passive users of news that is presented without any possibility of contradiction. Deprived of any critical elements that might help them to evaluate the quality or truth of the information received, they can only exercise the right to publish a “like” or a comment. This is a truly limiting form of liberty, in complete contrast with the idea of active participation typical of direct forms of democracy. Furthermore, the impulsive, emphatic, and sensationalist tones used to present the facts transform the public into permanent potential electors, so that they are under the impression of being perpetually involved in an election campaign.
- 9.
There are very close links between the construction industry and the mafia. Regarding the Sicilian case cfr. Sacco (2010).
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Farinella, D., Saitta, P. (2019). Messina Today: Representation, Identity, and Mobilization for Change. In: The Endless Reconstruction and Modern Disasters. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19361-4_7
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