Italy’s other ‘other mafia’: Remediation and representations of the ’ndrangheta

Phillips, Amber

Abstract

It is generally agreed that public perceptions of organised crime are profoundly impacted by the mass media and popular culture, and that cultural representations play a major role in constructing dominant narratives. Furthermore, many scholars have observed that fictional representations of organised crime have helped shape the policies of governments and law enforcement agencies. Woodiwiss, for example, points to the impact of the ‘mythology’ of the Italian-American mafia on organised crime control policy in the United States and internationally. The Italian-American mafia has certainly cast a long shadow in this regard; Smith notes the implicit racism of many media representations of organised crime, highlighting their frequent recourse to ethnic descriptors in the portrayal of a dangerous ‘other’. This reflects the so-called ‘alien conspiracy’ myth, the nefarious and lingering perception that organised crime is ‘not a part of society and shaped by society itself, but is instead a problem of ‘outsiders’ that threaten society’. The Italian-American mafia is the archetype for this myth; in the 1950s, televised senate hearings helped to propagate the idea that organised crime in the US was in the grip of a foreign criminal conspiracy originating in Sicily. The dominance of the alien conspiracy narrative in the US began to recede in the 1980s, but the tendency to categorise organised crime through ethnicity and to concentrate the blame on ‘outsider’ groups rather than confront wider social causes has proved enduring.

• Online Publication Date: May 15, 2023
• Publication Date: May 15, 2023
• Deposit Date: May 15, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 16, 2024
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Series Title: The Law of Financial Crime
• Edition: 1
• Book Title: Organised Crime, Financial Crime, and Criminal Justice: Theoretical Concepts and Challenges
• Chapter Number: 1
• ISBN: 9780367897451
• Keywords: Organized Crime
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/10785601
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/Organised-Crime-Financial-Crime-and-Criminal-Justice-Theoretical-Concepts/Jasinski-Phillips-Johnston/p/book/9780367897451