Editor de active
Rezumat
This article explores Roberto Saviano's international best-seller
Gomorrah as an "ethnographic novel", an expression that actually turns
upside down and compleme nts the characterization the author himself
suggested for his book as a "literary investigation". The main purpose is
not so much to analyse Saviano's distinctive non-fictional (or blurred)
genre and rhetorical style, but rather to take advant age of his book as a
way to consider how cultural anthropology identifies and constructs its
own research objects. Notably, focusing on the passages in which the
author considers or discusses significant issues such as language, time,
space and knowledge, I argue that Gomorrah represents a chance to reflect
upon how the conventional aims and methods of cultural anthropology
are currently challenged and reorganised under present-day neo-liberal
corporate capitalism. Finally, while most commentators see Gomorrah as
a book about the illegal trafficking of the Neapolitan Mafialike criminal
organization known as "Camorra", this article provocatively suggests
understanding it as an inspired and morally disturbing account of
ourselves.An ethnographically sensitive account exploring both legal and
illegal practices of production, consumption, and circulation of goods and
commodities in which we all are deeply implicated.