Suchergebnisse

"Der Begriff Organisierte Kriminalität tauchte erstmals in der Prohibitionszeit der 1920er Jahre in den USA auf. Er bezeichnete eine Kategorie von Verbrechen, die sich nach Umfang, Gewaltbereitschaft und langfristiger Kontinuität sowie im Hinblick auf ihre unternehmerischen Investitionen in illegalen Geschäften und das erforderliche Ausmaß an politischen und polizeilichen Gegenmaßnahmen deutlich unterschied von kleineren kriminellen Netzwerken, etwa von räuberischen Jugendbanden der Slums. In medialen, offiziellen und wissenschaftlichen Diskursen werden kriminelle Gruppen mit Verbindungen zur sizilianischen Mafia und zur neapolitanischen Camorra oft als typische Beispiele herausgegriffen, so dass Mafia beinahe als übergeordneter Begriff für organisierte Kriminalität schlechthin eingesetzt wird. Zusammen mit der Globalisierung wird seit den 1970er Jahren auch von anderen Mafia-ähnlichen Formationen und Phänomenen gesprochen, insbesondere bei Unternehmen, die in illegalen Handel von Waren und Dienstleistungen verwickelt sind." (Autorenreferat)

The ambiguity of the concept of crime is evident in the two strands of anthropological research covered in this review. One strand, the anthropology of criminalization, explores how state authorities, media, and citizen discourse define particular groups and practices as criminal, with prejudicial consequences. Examples are drawn from research on peasant rebellion, colonialism, youth, and racially or ethnically marked urban poor. The other strand traces ethnographic work on more or less organized illegal and predatory activity: banditry, rustling, trafficking, street gangs, and mafias. Although a criminalizing perspective tends to conflate these diverse forms of "organized" crime, in particular erasing the boundary between street gangs and drug trafficking, the forms have discrete histories and motivations. Their particularities, as well as their historical interactions, illuminate everyday responses to crime and suggest ways to put in perspective the "crime talk" of today, which borders on apocalyptic.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, we circulated an essay outlining possible comparisons between the 1980s and 1990s repression of organized crime in Italy and Sicily and the pending repression of the al‐Qaeda network. Distributed in several countries, and as a contribution to the Anthropological Quarterly's reflections on September 11, the essay elicited critical and provocative commentary. Respondents questioned, in particular, our neglect of abuses of civil liberties in the antimafia process, our implied conflation of racketeering with religious extremism, and our positive assessment of the role of citizens' social movements in delegitimating terrorist violence. In this article, we address these and related criticisms, in part through expanding and clarifying the original argument. Our premise at the time, that the rhetoric (and pursuit) of a "war" on terrorism distorts what should be framed as a repressive action against a cellular and networked, violent and secretive organization, is reinforced. [Keywords: criminal networks, mafia, social movements, Cold War, revenge]

Combining archival, ethnographic, vital, and oral historical data, this paper compares the experiences of population growth and demographic transi tion among different social classes of a Sicilian rural town from 1850 to the pres ent. Four locally named groups have dominated this town's social life during most of the period in question—gentry, artisans, landed, and landless peasants. Of particular concern are the contrasting patterns of demographic transition be tween the gentry and artisanry, and a consideration of why, in both cases, fertility decline occurred earlier than among landless peasants. Comparison underscores the theoretical advantage of disaggregating population change in relation to historical context and social class.