Abstract
This chapter aims to relaunch the question of ethnographic practice trigged by Geertz’s manifest. Did Geertz’s reflections undermine the authority of the ethnographic paradigm in its connection with the field as it had hitherto been known and practiced? In his collected works, do the “parochial facts” allow the emergence of the “broad principles” in which the possibility of understanding them is embedded? Can we say that the interpretive paradigm has been truly revolutionary, innovative, alternative or that it must be repositioned in the discipline’s historical trajectory oriented toward assuming diversity within the framework of cultural creativity? The author emphasizes the critical issues of the interpretative and ethnographic perspectives that emerged in the twentieth century, in particular research contexts, such as those in which corruption and organized crime are articulated.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Berger, P. L. (1983). On the Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor. In S. Hauerwas & A. MacIntyre (Eds.), Revisions: Changing Perspectives in Moral Philosophy (pp. 172–181). Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.
Blok, A. (1974). The Mafia of a Sicilian Village 1860–1960. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Blok, A. (2001). Honour and Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Böll-Stiftung, H., & Schönenberg, R. (Eds.) (2013). Transnational Organized Crime Analyses of a Global Challenge to Democracy. Political Science, 17.
Clifford, J. (1986). Introduction: Partial Truths. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (pp. 1–26). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Crapanzano, V. (1980). Tuhami‚ Portrait of a Maroccan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
De Herdt, T., & Olivier de Sardan, J. P. (Ed.) (2015). Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Game of the Rules. London: Routledge.
De Lauri, A., & Achilli, L. (2008). Campi di battaglia e campo dell’etnografo. Etnografia, conflitti, violenza. In A. De Lauri & L. Achilli (Eds.), Pratiche e politiche dell’etnografia (pp. 113–126). Meltemi.
Dei, F. (2007). Storia, memoria e ricerca antropologica. In C. Gallini & G. Satta (Eds.), Incontri etnografici Processi cognitivi e relazionali nella ricerca sul campo (pp. 40–67). Meltemi.
Firth, R. (1963). We, the Tikopia. Boston: Beacon Press.
Foucault, M. (1979). What Is an Author? In J. V. Harari (Ed.), Textual Strategies (pp. 149–50). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Geertz, C. (1983). Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Book.
Geertz, C. (1988). Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Geertz, C. (2000). Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gupta, A. (1995). Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State. American Ethnologist, 22(2), 375–402.
Gupta, A. (2012). Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in India. Durham: Duke University press.
Herzfeld, M. (1980). Honor and Shame. Man, XV, 339–351.
Kawata, J. (Ed.). (2006). Comparing Political Corruption and Clientelism. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
Kobayashi, M. (2006). Political Clientelism and Corruption: Neo-structuralism and Republicanism. In J. Kawata (Ed.), Comparing Political Corruption and Clientelism (pp. 2–22) Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
Licausi, L. (1976). Antropologia e ideologia: note sul “patronage” nelle società mediterranee. Rassegna italiana di sociologia, 1(XVIII), 119–131.
Licausi, L. (1979). Patronage” e clientelismo in una società mediterranea: Lampedusa 1896–1976. Uomo e Cultura, n.23–24, 45–76.
Lombardi Satriani, L. M. (2005). Della mafia e degli immediati dintorni. In S. Morabito (Ed.), Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra nelle trame del potere parallelo (pp. 33–48). Roma: Gangemi Editore.
Lombardi Satriani, L. M., & Meligrana, M. (1975). Diritto egemone e diritto popolare la Calabria negli studi di demologia giuridica. Collana: Quale cultura.
Marcus, G., & Cushman, D. (1982). Ethnographies as Texts. Annual Review of Anthropology,11, 25–69.
Matera, V. (2004). La scrittura etnografica. Roma: Meltemi.
Muir, S. (2017). Recursive in/Formality Time and Ideology in a Distributed Monetary System. ANUAC,6(2), 77–83.
Muir, S., & Gupta, A. (Ed.) (2018). Introduction to “Rethinking the Anthropology of Corruption”. Current Anthropology, 59, Supplement 18, 4–15.
Nordstrom, C. (2004). Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nordstrom, C. (2007). Global Outlaws: Crime, Money, and Power in the Contemporary World. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Nordstrom, C. (2008). Interpretazioni in conflitto. Il ruolo dell’antropologia nell’analisi dei conflitti contemporanei. In A. De Lauri &L. Achilli (Eds.), Pratiche e politiche dell’etnografia (pp. 127–42). Rome: Meltemi.
Nordstrom, C. (2010). On ‘‘Global Outlaws:’’ A response to Anton Blok. Dialectical Anthropology,1(34), 151–157.
Olivier de Sardan, J. P. (1999). A Moral Economy of Corruption in Africa? The Journal of Modern African Studies, 37(1), 25–52.
Palumbo, B. (2013). Il Viennese e il professore. Prospettive di ricerca antropologica su mafie e neoliberismo. In A. Balzola e R. Aldemaro Barbaro (Eds.), Società disonorata. Identikit multidisciplinare della criminalità organizzata italiana (pp. 117–160), Bruno Mondadori.
Pitzalis‚ S. (2015). Positioning as a Method: The Earthquake in Emilia Romagna and the Forms of “Exilience”. Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo‚ 17(1), 29–39.
Rokopulos, T. (2018). From Clans to Co-ops Confiscated Mafia Land in Sicily. New York: Berghahn Books.
Resta, P. (1984). Democrazia e particolarismo. Lecce: Milella.
Resta, P. (2002). Pensare il sangue. La vendetta di sangue in Albania. Rome: Meltemi.
Resta, P. (2005). Mafie Balcaniche: il caso albanese. In S. Morabito (Ed.), Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra nelle trame del potere parallelo (pp. 131–136). Roma: Gangemi Editore.
Sahlins, M. (1961). The Segmentary Lineage. An Organization of Predatory Expansion. American Anthropologist, 63(2), 322–345.
Satta, G. (2007). Introduzione a C. Gallini G. Satta (Ed.), Incontri etnografici Processi cognitivi e relazionali nella ricerca sul campo (pp. 10–26). Roma: Meltemi.
Saviano, R. (2006). Gomorra. Milan: Mondadori.
Schneider, D. M. (1984). A Critique of the Study of Kinship. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Schneider, J., & Schneider, P. (1976). Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicily. Cambridge: Academic Press.
Schneider, J., & Schneider, P. (2003). Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia and the Struggle for Palermo. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Scionti, F. (2011). Capitalisti di faida, la vendetta da paradigma morale a strategia d’impresa. Rome: Carocci.
Shimizu A. (1991). On the Notion of Kinship. Man, 26, 377–403.
Signorelli, A. (1983). Chi può e chi aspetta Giovani e clientelismo in un’area interna del Mezzogiorno. Napoli: Liguori.
Smart, A. (2017). Informality Within Government Agencies Tasked with Controlling Informal Economic Practices. ANUAC,6(2), 91–95.
Smart, A. (2018). The Unbearable Discretion of Street-Level Bureaucrats Corruption and Collusion in Hong Kong. In M. S., & A. Gupta (Ed.), Rethinking the Anthropology of Corruption. Current Anthropology, Volume 59, Supplement 18, 537–547.
Tedlock, B. (1991). From Participant Obseruation to the Observation of Participation: The Emergence of Narrative Ethnography. Journal of Anthropological Research,47, 69–95.
Varese, F. (2013). The Structure and the Content of Criminal Connections: The Russian Mafia in Italy. European Sociological Review,29(5), 899–909.
Zerilli F. (2013). Corruption and Anti-Corruption. Local Discourses and International Practices in Post-Socialist Romania. Human Affairs. Postdisciplinary Humanities & Social Sciences Quarterly, 23(2), 212–229.
Zerilli F. (2013). Gomorra” romanzo etnografico. In A. Balzola e R. A. Barbaro (Eds.) Società disonorata. Identikit multidisciplinare della criminalità organizzata italiana (pp. 161–179). Bruno Mondadori.
Ziegler, J. (2000). I Signori del crimine, le nuove mafie europee contro la democrazia. Milano: Marco Tropea Editore.
Zinn, D. (2001). La raccomandazione. Clientelismo vecchio e nuovo. Rome: Donzelli.
Sitografia
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Resta, P. (2021). Stumbling Blocks: The Irruption of the Interpretive Approach in Twentieth-Century Anthropology. In: Matera, V., Biscaldi, A. (eds) Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51719-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-51720-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)