Search

The chapter proposes a critical discussion of the notions of sustainability and sustainable development. It should be noted that the global and national policies of "sustainable development" implemented in the last thirty years have failed to stop the worsening of the planetary crisis and of climate change of anthropogenic origin at the planetary level. We then go over some of the main lines of reflection and analysis on these issues within socio-cultural anthropology

In the Paraguayan Chaco, cattle evoke images of power, prosperity, and celebration, but they also trigger one of the quickest deforestation processes in the world. The presence of cattle in the region has deep historical roots, dating back to the beginning of the colonization process, when the establishment of a double economy based on cattle ranching and the tannin industry dispossessed indigenous people of their territories. Through a historical and ethnographic analysis of the Carlos Casado tannin company, I suggest considering domestication and ferality—and their local related idioms (amansar, anestesiar, sagua’a, señuelo, carne)—as inter-species categories crucial for understanding processes of colonization from a local perspective. In particular, I claim that practices and idioms related to the (un)domestication domain have been used to make sense of ethnic, class, and power relationships, as well as of practices of resistance. RESUMEN En el Chaco paraguayo, el ganado bovino evoca imágenes de poder, prosperidad y abundancia. Pero, a la vez, es la causa de uno de los procesos de deforestación más rápidos del mundo. La presencia de ganado en la región tiene profundas raíces históricas y se remonta al principio del proceso de la colonización, cuando el establecimiento de una doble economía basada en la ganadería y la industria del tanino despojó a los pueblos indígenas de sus tierras. A través de un análisis histórico y etnográfico de la compañía taninera Carlos Casado S.A., propongo considerar a la domesticación y a lo asilvestrado—en sus distintas declinaciones: amansar, anestesiar, sagua’a, señuelo, carne—como categorías interespecíficas fundamentales para entender los procesos de colonización desde una perspectiva local. En particular, sostengo que las prácticas y los términos relacionados con el campo semántico de la (de)domesticación fueron utilizados para poner en escena y conceptualizar relaciones étnicas, de clase y de poder, como así también prácticas de resistencia.

This article aims to analyze the ideas of health and illness in ancient Buddhism, making use of the theoretical tools of medical anthropology and historical–philological inquiry. As a contribution to the conceptual history of medicine in Buddhism, I intend to focus the present investigation on the ascetic problem of the “end of the world” as a means of achieving complete healing. The asceticism of early Buddhism reconciles the goal of transcendence with that of healing, carrying out a complex reflection on awareness and presence.

Divine love is the central theme of many ancient Mesopotamian compositions. Both Sumerian and Akkadian texts poetically describe the love and sexual relationship between gods. The object of this study is to analyse, through a gender and anthropological perspective, the metaphorical language used to describe divine love relationships, focusing on the use of images from agriculture, pastoralism, and the plant world. Such metaphors contribute to the creation and at the same time to the reinforcement of a sexual imaginary, not only divine but also human. Divine sexuality and the metaphors used to describe it become, over the millennia, paradigms for understanding and thinking about human sexuality: male power and vigour, female desire, and sexual intercourse. Moreover, these texts certainly have a ritual implication, probably linked to the celebration of the so called ‘Sacred Marriage,’ whose aim is the political legitimisation of the rulers. It is divine sex that guarantees not only the political but also the socio-economic regeneration of the community, renewing the alliance between the human and divine spheres

When, where, and how do asylum seekers encounter the state? Anyone seeking asylum in the Global North might meet state authorities of the country where they want to apply for international protection long before arriving at its borders. However, if the state often becomes “very present” by transcending its geopolitical margins in border control, once asylum seekers have managed to cross into national territory, the state frequently vanishes. Insufficient information, opaque proceedings, difficulties in reaching state agencies, which dramatically increased with the COVID pandemic, often translate into a denial of asylum seekers' rights and their exclusion from welfare programs. Moreover, following a widespread tendency to outsource public services, access to asylum and related welfare programmes are being increasingly mediated by a range of nonstate actors (such as NGOs, activist groups, companies, and individuals) acting as state agents. Drawing on the analysis of ethnographic results from Spain and Italy, this article proposes the concept of “ghost bureaucracy” to theorise the street-level bureaucrats from their absence and explore asylum seekers’ encounters with a seemingly powerful and omnipresent but unreachable state through closed offices, digital bureaucracy and third-party actors.

Il contributo propone una riflessione sul tema della maternità che lega, come un filo rosso, gli oggetti del Museo etnografico siciliano Giuseppe Pitrè e ne struttura la narrazione. Lo sguardo rivolto alle collezioni e al loro ordinamento restituisce la centralità di una tematica che riflette il senso profondo della cultura che gli oggetti comunicano e svela, attraverso i suoi simboli, i significati contestuali delle sue figure: le madri e i loro corpi, le madrine e i loro ruoli, le levatrici e le loro potenzialità. The contribution proposes a reflection on the theme of motherhood that links the objects of the Sicilian Ethnographic Museum Giuseppe Pitrè as a core idea and a narrative structure. A look at the collections and their ordering restores the centrality of a theme that reflects the deep sense of culture that the objects communicate and reveals, through its symbols, the contextual meanings of its figures: mothers and their bodies, godmothers and their roles, midwives and their potentialities.

Il Mastro di Campo di Mezzojuso è una performance carnevalesca tradizionale che presenta un articolato simbolismo rituale riconducibile al pattern delle cerimonie di capodanno. In particolare si osservano il tema della ierogamia e della lotta rituale come elementi di promozione della fecondità. Ambedue i simboli rituali, la rappresentazione di una danza o di uno scontro armato, con l'eventuale coinvolgimento degli astanti e la celebrazione di un matrimonio, correlati o disgiunti, sono, come è noto, costitutivi ab antico delle cerimonie di capodanno, segnatamente di quelle primaverili. Altri rituali carnevaleschi europei hanno una simile articolazione. Il saggio presenta una serie di esempi documentati nel mondo antico, in prospettiva storico-comparativa, utili alla comprensione delle odierne cerimonie folkloriche. The Mastro di Campo di Mezzojuso is a traditional carnival performance that presents an articulated ritual symbolism that can be traced back to the pattern of New Year's ceremonies. Both ritual symbols, the representation of a dance or an armed confrontation, with the possible involvement of bystanders and the celebration of a marriage, correlated or separated, are, as is well known, constitutive from ancient times of New Year's ceremonies, especially of spring ones. Other European carnival rituals have a similar articulation. The essay presents a series of documented examples in the ancient world, in a historical-comparative perspective, useful for understanding today's folk ceremonies.

Austrian and German anthropological traditions are considered in view of the influence they had on global anthropology. The chapter is built around the centrality of the anthropological notion of culture and cultural dynamics. The particularistic and relativist notion of culture is in fact believed to have emerged from Germany from the eighteenth century, where intellectuals have juxtaposed the term Kultur to Zivilisation. Within German anthropology, universalistic perspectives on culture have continued through the nineteenth century, as in the evolutionary approach of Gustav Klemm and Johann Jakob Bachofen. A different form of cultural universalism was introduced by Adolf Bastian with his theory of the psychic unity of mankind. Towards the end of the nineteenth century a third declination of Kultur emerged within the well-known cultural-historical school. Ratzel and Leo Frobenius’s methodological contributions opened the possibility to compare the cultural tracts of different peoples for the reconstruction of processes of cultural diffusion. At theoretical level this led to the definition of the Kulturkreise (‘culture circles’ or ‘culture complexes’). The greabnerian version of this model was adopted by the Vienna school. The particularistic and relativistic notion of Kultur as well as the methods and concept of the cultural-historical school have informed the early phases of American anthropology through the mediation of Franz Boas and his school. The Nazi phase forced several influential anthropologists to leave the country. However, the presence of important museums and research institutes allowed the recovery of some continuity with the classic approaches after the war. The Frobenius Institute is a case in point, with its capacity to keep focus on the cultural morphological approach through the work of Frobenius, Jensen and Haberland, three scholars linked by direct teacher-pupil relationships. Germanophone anthropology is today highly diversified, open to new topics and contaminated by the most diverse tendencies, but it is still possible to identify elements of continuity with the classic themes and approaches. The rhetoric culture project, promoted by Ivo Strecker and Stephen Tyler, is a case in point. With this initiative, American anthropology, with its post-modern developments of the discipline, seems to be paying back its early time debt to German anthropology.

By examining the Sutta Nipāta, considered one of the collections containing the oldest texts of the Pāli canon, this study aims to reconstruct social, historical, and anthropological aspects of archaic Buddhist doctrine at the time of its definition in dialectic with the forces of orthodoxy and constituted power in 6th century BCE India. This study also provides important insights into the development and definition of contemplative practices devoted to the search for the ‘absolute’ (paramattha and brahmavihāra), which has often received little attention in meditation studies.

Based on a critical assessment of the historiography of Colombian anthropology, the chapter provides a synthesis of the history of anthropology made in Colombia, defined as “that produced in the country and which constitutes an empirical, methodological or conceptual contribution to new anthropological works or debates in Colombia” (Restrepo, Rojas, Saade 2017). The history of Colombian anthropology can be generally divided into three periods. The first goes from 1941 till 1968 and coincides with the birth and the institutional and academic consolidation of the disciplinary field. The second goes from 1968 till 1991: these years are marked by the rise and fall of the season of social and political commitment of anthropologists alongside social movements and subordinate subjects. The third and last period begins in 1991 and arrived to the present days. It starts with the launch of a broad project of a critical anthropology of modernity seen from the Latin American perspective, and with definitive professionalization of the discipline, in a sociopolitical national context strongly characterized, however, by the resurgence of internal armed conflict and by the penetration of neoliberal logic even within university institutions. The chapter explores continuities and discontinuities between these three periods, from the point of view of the institutionalization of anthropology, privileged research fields and methodologies, positioning end political engagement of researchers with respect to the situation and the struggles of the people who are the subjects of their researches and, more generally, the relationships of the history of the anthropology made in Colombia with the complex history of the country. In particular, a recurring and still unresolved issue is that of the possibilities of a critical participation of anthropologists who work in Colombia in the public debates and conflicts on the construction of a national identity that have taken place over time, and on the place that they owe occupy the great cultural and ethnic diversity of Colombian people.

In the chapter, I show the connection between the ways in which the nineteenth-twentieth century sociocultural anthropologists became interested in the study of human-animal relationships and the dominant conceptions about the relationship between humanity and animality in philosophical and scientific thought of these two centuries. Till the last part of the twentieth century non-human animals were considered by anthropologists mainly as material and/or symbolic resources for the reproduction of humans and their social orders. This view paralleled the dominant vision in Western modern philosophical and scientific thought in which non-human animals were assimilated to mindless machines belonging to ‘nature’ as a separate ontological domain with respect to “culture’ and ‘society’. These ways of conceiving the relationship between humanity and animality were reflected in ethical and political ideas about the treatment of non-human animals, juridically assimilated to things devoid of any subjectivity. By the end of the twentieth century, the so-called ontological turn in anthropology, philosophy and STS have led a strong rethinking of this reified concept of non-human animals. I review some new approaches to the study of relationships between human and non-human animals, among which multispecies ethnography. Nonetheless, still today the relationship these new approaches and the debates on and social movements for animal rights and welfare remain quite tense. I explore the reasons for this tensions and some possibilities, in the near future, to develop a closer dialogue between these new fields of study emerged in sociocultural anthropology, on the one hand, and, on the other, critical animal studies and debates and movements in the field of animal advocacy.

Nei culti rivolti alle Madonne e alle Sante in Sicilia e a Creta, in particolare in quelli caratterizzati dall’ostensione e dalla manipolazione di fronde vegetali, dall’uso di acque salutifere, dal riutilizzo di antichi spazi cultuali (grotte, cime montuose, boschi), sembra continuino a reiterarsi modelli mitici e simboli rituali propri di un antico pattern del sacro femminile che, di volta in volta, disarticolato e rimodulato, si rivela tutt’altro che inattuale e che anzi continua a conferire senso alle molteplici e rinnovate istanze dell’esperienza religiosa contemporanea. Che si voglia ammettere ovvero respingere l’ipotesi di una relazione storica delle espressioni del sacro femminile e delle relative forme cultuali antiche con quelle popolari contemporanee (di dee e ninfe con sante e Madonne), che si voglia accogliere o meno l’idea stessa di una preminenza delle divinità femminili nell’universo magico-religioso preistorico e protostorico delle culture mediterranee, resta il fatto, incontestabile, che una molteplicità di riti, di credenze, di culti documentati nel folklore euro-mediterraneo non sono in alcun modo riconducibili a orizzonti ebreo-cristiani né possono essere considerati, se non altro in ragione della loro diffusione, neo-formazioni popolari o invenzioni moderne e contemporanee. È necessario, pertanto, sia per le discipline folkloriche sia per quelle storico-religiose, tornare a riflettere criticamente sulle relazioni tra le diverse divinità del Mediterraneo antico, a loro volta riconducibili al motivo mitico-rituale della Grande Madre, e le diverse declinazioni locali del sacro femminile cattolico. In the cults addressed to the Madonnas and Saints in Sicily and Crete, in particular in those characterized by the display and manipulation of plant fronds, the use of healing waters, the re-use of ancient cult spaces (caves, mountain peaks, woods), mythical models and ritual symbols typical of an ancient pattern of the sacred feminine seem to continue to reiterate which, from time to time, disarticulated and remodulated, proves to be anything but outdated and which indeed continues to give meaning to the multiple and renewed instances of experience contemporary religion. Whether we want to admit or reject the hypothesis of a historical relationship between the expressions of the sacred feminine and the related ancient cultic forms with contemporary popular ones (of goddesses and nymphs with saints and Madonnas), whether or not we want to accept the very idea of pre-eminence of female divinities in the prehistoric and protohistoric magical-religious universe of Mediterranean cultures, the indisputable fact remains that a multiplicity of rites, beliefs, cults documented in Euro-Mediterranean folklore are in no way attributable to Jewish horizons -Christians nor can they be considered, if only because of their diffusion, popular neo-formations or modern and contemporary inventions. It is therefore necessary, both for folkloric and historical-religious disciplines, to return to reflect critically on the relationships between the various divinities of the ancient Mediterranean, in turn attributable to the mythical-ritual motif of the Great Mother, and the various local declinations of the Catholic sacred feminine.

This article discusses some of the critical elements related to the taking care of adolescent leaving care. To this end, Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological perspective will be adopted, taking up suggestions from the notion of chronosystem and applying it to boys and girls leaving care. In this way, it emerges how the process of building autonomy and the transition to adulthood does not begin at the age of 18, but is already built up during the child’s care. In the light of these considerations, the key role of the autonomy tutor is analyzed with respect to the national experimentation conducted in Italy, highlighting the tools and skills he/she should have.

I mascheramenti cerimoniali, che vanno dal semplice occultamento del viso al rivestimento del corpo con specifici indumenti e attributi, ricorrono più diffusamente, in Sicilia come altrove, nel periodo carnevalesco. A cortei e performances di mascherati si accompagnano comportamenti tesi a segnalare la temporanea sospensione o il rivolgimento delle norme sociali e culturali: i giuochi licenziosi, le danze pubbliche e i balli domestici, le questue e lo smodato consumo di peculiari cibi e di bevande, la produzione di rumori e di schiamazzi, le tenzoni, il dileggio delle autorità, i motteggi e gli scherzi d’ogni sorta. Tra le performances carnascialesche che meritano di essere ricordate: la pantomima del Mastro di Campo di Mezzojuso, vera e propria rappresentazione di morte e rinascita dell’eroe cosmogonico; l’Ursu di Saponara, maschera teriomorfa, un tempo presente in altri centri della Sicilia, che al suono di strumenti tradizionali e seguita da varie altre maschere (il Principe, la Principessa, i Guardiani, i Cacciatori, ecc.) viene condotta al laccio a questuare di casa in casa; la tenzone dei Misi i l’annu, rappresentazione un tempo anch’essa assai diffusa e ancora osservabile a Rodì Milici e Barrafranca, che vede dodici uomini mascherati e armati, i “mesi” appunto, percorrere a cavallo il paese declamando ciascuno il proprio apporto alla fecondità della natura con l’intenzione di spodestare il Re loro padre e ancora il corteo dei Picurara di Antillo, epifanie teriomorfe di un indistinto altrove donde provengono le energie necessarie all’annuale rifondazione del tempo e della società. I mascheramenti, al pari degli altri simboli rituali caratterizzanti le celebrazioni carnascialesche siciliane, paiono tutti riconducibili alla sintassi propria delle feste di chiusura e apertura di un ciclo ossia di rifondazione ciclica del tempo, e finiscono con il proporre l’istituto carnevalesco, nel suo complesso, come “modello esemplare” delle cerimonie di Capodanno. Las mascaradas ceremoniales, que van desde la simple ocultación del rostro hasta el recubrimiento completo del cuerpo con ropaje y atributos específicos, son más recurrentes en el periodo carnavalesco, tanto en Sicilia como en otros lugares. Los desfiles y las actuaciones de los enmascarados están acompañados por comportamientos cuya intención es la de remarcar la suspensión temporal, o el vuelco completo, de las normas sociales y culturales: es el momento propicio para los juegos licenciosos, las danzas públicas y los bailes domésticos, las cuestaciones y el consumo desmedido de ciertas comidas y bebidas, la ejecución de ruidos y alborotos, las luchas, la mofa de la autoridad, las burlas y las bromas de todo tipo. Entre las actuaciones carnavalescas que merecen recordarse, queremos citar: la pantomima del Maestro di Campo (“Maestre de campo”) de Mezzojuso1, una representación certera de la muerte y el renacimiento del héroe cosmogónico; el Ursu (“Orso”) de Saponara2, máscara teriomorfa que, en otros tiempos, estaba presente en otros lugares de Sicilia y que, acompañada por instrumentos tradicionales y seguida por otras máscaras (el Príncipe, la Princesa, los Guardias, los Cazadores, etc.) es amarrada y conducida de casa en casa, para pedir dinero; la disputa de los Misi ’i l’annu (“Meses del Año”), muy común hace tiempo, es una manifestación a la que, hoy en día, es posible asistir en las zonas de Rodì Milici y Barrafranca, en esta ocasión, doce hombres mascarados y armados representan cada mes y recorren a caballo el pueblo, declamando, cada uno, su aportación a la fecundidad de la naturaleza, con la intención de destronar a su padre el Rey; el desfile de los Picurara (“Pastores de ovejas”) de Antillo, epifanías teriomorfas de un lugar extraño y no identificado, del que surgen las energías necesarias para la refundación anual del tiempo y de la sociedad.

Since the appearance of Homo erectus, the consumption of meat has been constitutive of human life. Food is sacred because it is derived from the death of other living beings, but depriving these of life constitutes an offence against the gods, so any deprivation of life must take place according to precise rules. Food represents a symbol, and the occasions of its consumption are elective moments both of mediation between the here and the hereafter and of affirmation of the social body. On this awareness, albeit with specific articulations within each culture, the relationship between human beings and gods, and between men and men, has been founded. In increasingly limited contexts, it continues to be founded today.

Folklore e profitto. Tecniche di distruzione di una cultura (1973) di Luigi Lombardi Satriani costituisce una preziosa testimonianza di una fase trasformativa della società e della cultura italiane le cui tracce restano ben visibili. Il saggio cerca di sottolineare come questo lavoro di Lombardi Satriani costituisca una lucida e disincantata analisi di come la cultura folklorica, gramscianamente intesa come cultura delle classi subalterne, venisse, all’indomani del ’68 e per tutti gli anni Settanta, accolta, manipolata, smembrata secondo le sensibilità, le esigenze e gli interessi tanto dai giovani figli delle classi egemoni quanto dalla borghesia intellettuale politicamente impegnata e, essenzialmente se non esclusivamente ai fini del profitto, dal mercato industriale. Una lucida e disincantata analisi delle implicite e esplicite contraddizioni insite in un recupero ideologicamente orientato e economicamente viziato della cultura popolare. Folklore and Profit. Techniques of destruction of a culture (1973) by Luigi Lombardi Satriani constitutes a precious testimony of a transformative phase of Italian society and culture whose traces remain clearly visible. The essay tries to underline how this work by Lombardi Satriani constitutes a lucid and disenchanted analysis of how folk culture, understood in Gramsci's terms as the culture of the subaltern classes, was, after 1968 and throughout the 1970s, welcomed, manipulated, dismembered according to sensitivities, needs and interests both by the young children of the hegemonic classes and by the politically engaged intellectual bourgeoisie and, essentially if not exclusively for the purposes of profit, by the industrial market. A lucid and disenchanted analysis of the implicit and explicit contradictions inherent in an ideologically oriented and economically flawed recovery of popular culture.

Based on a critical assessment of the historiography of Colombian anthropology, the chapter provides a synthesis of the history of anthropology made in Colombia, defined as “that produced in the country and which constitutes an empirical, methodological or conceptual contribution to new anthropological works or debates in Colombia” (Restrepo, Rojas, Saade 2017). The history of Colombian anthropology can be generally divided into three periods. The first goes from 1941 till 1968 and coincides with the birth and the institutional and academic consolidation of the disciplinary field. The second goes from 1968 till 1991: these years are marked by the rise and fall of the season of social and political commitment of anthropologists alongside social movements and subordinate subjects. The third and last period begins in 1991 and arrived to the present days. It starts with the launch of a broad project of a critical anthropology of modernity seen from the Latin American perspective, and with definitive professionalization of the discipline, in a sociopolitical national context strongly characterized, however, by the resurgence of internal armed conflict and by the penetration of neoliberal logic even within university institutions. The chapter explores continuities and discontinuities between these three periods, from the point of view of the institutionalization of anthropology, privileged research fields and methodologies, positioning end political engagement of researchers with respect to the situation and the struggles of the people who are the subjects of their researches and, more generally, the relationships of the history of the anthropology made in Colombia with the complex history of the country. In particular, a recurring and still unresolved issue is that of the possibilities of a critical participation of anthropologists who work in Colombia in the public debates and conflicts on the construction of a national identity that have taken place over time, and on the place that they owe occupy the great cultural and ethnic diversity of Colombian people.

This article examines the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on dog-mediated rabies, a neglected tropical disease that remains endemic in >65 countries. A globally agreed strategy for rabies elimination is underpinned by a One Health approach, coordinating human and animal health sectors and engaging communities. We present data on the scale and nature of COVID-19 disruption to rabies control programmes and the wider learning for One Health implementation. We argue that the global shift in health priorities caused by the pandemic, and consequent side-lining of animal health, will have broader ramifications for One Health implementation and preparedness for future emergent zoonoses.

This article explores the interplay between image and reality in the Thai seafood industry’s humanitarian engagements with migrant labour. Revisiting Aihwa Ong’s notion of ‘worlding’ and Peter Jackson’s discussion of the ‘Thai regime of images’, it examines the situated, informal interactions between migrant rights NGO s, fishing companies and state officials in the Thai port city of Samut Sakhon, on the outskirts of Bangkok. Through ethnographic case studies, this analysis illuminates the ‘invisible worldings’ that regulate spaces of migrant workforce from behind the scenes. As I show, migrant labour NGO s operate in a context-sensitive play of appearances and disappearances, humanitarian aid and migrant forced labour, and need to navigate local hierarchies of power in the service of Thailand’s international ‘image’ (phap-lak). It is argued that ‘invisible worldings’ sustain Thailand’s ongoing leadership in the fish trade and, concomitantly, the Thai military government’s cosmetic attempts to rebuild global reputation amid growing international scrutiny.

This contribution focuses on Osoyoos Nk'Mip Cellar, an indigenous winery in British Columbia. Specifically, this study has highlighted the possibility of overcoming the classic dichotomy, often present in anthropological studies focused on agricultural practices, between a subsistence system and an industrial agricultural production. In particular, the productive and cultural context of Osoyoos Nk'Mip Cellar allowed joining, within the same investigation, issues related to the actions of indigenous self-determination against the Canadian government, which proved to be an important factor of attraction for visitors particularly sensitive to the issues of political recognition of native Canadian groups. To these considerations is also added the preference of consumers towards particular wines, such as Icewine, which also allowed the investigation of the consumption experiences of visitors in the winery.

Through an ethnographic survey of Italian ethical jewelers and representative customers, this study focuses on how the topic of traceability in the Canadian diamond industry is communicated and negotiated within two representative Italian ethical jewelry stores in Milan and Bologna. To better understand communication strategies deployed by jewelers to convey the concepts of ethical jewelry, the authors explore themes related to traceability in the context of Canadian ethical diamonds (CEDs). A specific dominant narrative built around CEDs is identified that leverages customer concerns about the violation of the safety and human rights of workers on the diamond supply chain. To more deeply analyze how information about the traceability of CEDs successfully mitigates consumer concerns about the ethics of jewelry supply chains, the authors explore the role of identity obsession (Remotti 2010) in ethical jewelry purchase decisions by Italian consumers. They further discuss rationales for the general resistance of many Italian jewelers to offering ethical jewelry in local stores, to better understand why, to date, ethical jewelry remains a niche market segment in Italy, with most Italian consumers unaware of the degrading environmental and sociological impact of such products as blood diamonds.

L’industria mineraria è stata travolta da preoccupazioni riguardanti l’inquinamento del suolo e dell’aria, gestioni del lavoro poco etiche e violazioni dei diritti umani. Rintracciando interpretazioni culturali del concetto di eticità relativamente ai diamanti canadesi, questo contributo problematizza i significati della certificazione dei diamanti etici canadesi e la loro tracciabilità lungo la filiera. Specificatamente, l’autrice evidenzia che più ci si allontana dal contesto estrattivo canadese, più il concetto di eticità legato al diamante si fa nitido grazie a narrazioni pubblicitarie, mentre più ci si avvicina al contesto di indagine, più il concetto di eticità diventa offuscato, eterogeneo, frammentato e incomprensibile. In particolare, il contributo si basa su una ricerca etnografica multi-situata e multi-scala a Yellowknife, la capitale dei Northwest Territories, e in una gioielleria italiana che vende diamanti estratti nella regione canadese. L’autrice ha notato che gli italiani intervistati che vendono ed acquistano diamanti canadesi sono fedeli alla retorica pubblicitaria sui diamanti etici canadesi, mentre particolari categorie professionali assunte dalle multinazionali nel contesto estrattivo dei Northwest Territories evitavano di parlare di diamanti etici. il contributo mira a comprendere quindi il significato di tale reticenza nel contesto minerario analizzato., Anuac, Vol 11 No 1 (2022)

The work moves in the field of applied anthropology and addresses the issue of the resilience of care leavers: young people who, after a long stay within residential structures, are preparing to enter society at the age of eighteen. Considering that resilient processes are not without pitfalls and threats, some conceptual axioms are proposed that are useful for considering the multi-dimensionality and cultural relativity that revolve around the resilient process within residential communities. All this will take place within a socio-cultural research and intervention perspective based on participatory and bottom-up approaches aimed at encouraging negotiation practices and settings between micro-cultures.

Sicily is a land of deep religious traditions linked to popular Catholicism. In the winter of 2020, the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic prompted the Italian government to adopt "Urgent measures for the containment and management of the epidemiological emergency due to COVID-19", to control the spread of the plague. The measures included, among other things, the prohibition of meetings, i.e. static or itinerant aggregation of groups of people gathered for any reason, and of demonstrations and events, and consequently the cessation of all public religious celebrations. This has caused that two important religious feasts are not officially celebrated: the feast of San Giuseppe and the rites of the Holy Week. What have been the consequences ? Sicilia es tierra de profundas tradiciones religiosas unidas al catolicismo popular. En el invierno de 2020, la propagación de la pandemia Covid-19 empujó al gobierno italiano ha adoptar unas "Medidas urgentes de contención y manejo de la emergencia epidemiológica por COVID-19", para controlar la propagación de la plaga, que incluyeron, entre otras cosas, la prohibición de reunión, es decir, de agregación estática o itinerante de grupos de personas reunidas por cualquier motivo, y de realización de manifestaciones y eventos, en consecuencia, el cese de todas las celebraciones religiosas públicas. Esto ha provocado que no se celebren oficialmente dos importantes fiestas religiosas: la fiesta de San Giuseppe y los ritos de la Semana Santa. ¿Cuáles han sido las consecuencias ?

Gli ex voto dipinti sono un oggetto di culto dalla lunga storia. Esempi di questo tipo di ex-voto, largamente utilizzati fino alla fine dell'Ottocento nell'Italia meridionale e in altre regioni dell'Europa meridionale, sono infatti già attestati nel mondo classico (pinakes, tabellea pictae). Nel passaggio tra il mondo "pagano" e il mondo "cristiano", nel mutare dei referenti divini e delle teologie, si osserva una continuità dei simboli rituali e delle pratiche votive e, più in generale, una significativa persistenza di forme, funzioni e significati in campo religioso. The painted ex-votos are a cult object with a long history. Examples of this type of ex-voto, widely used up to the end of the 19th century in Southern Italy and in other regions of Southern Europe, are in fact already attested in the classical world (pinakes, tabellea pictae). In the passage between the "pagan" world and the "Christian" world, in the changing of the divine referents and theologies, we observe a continuity of the ritual symbols and votive practices and, more generally, a significant persistence of forms, functions and meanings in the religious field.

In this paper I review and compare the main sources of information about the ka’ulayawaa festivals among the Wayùu, an Amerindian people inhabiting in the semiarid Guajira peninsula (Northern Colombia and Venezuela). For their peculiar mix of songs, dances, imitative plays and competitive games, inserted into a same festive framework, these festivals are particularly interesting to be studied as expressive metacommentaries (in the sense of Turner) of Wayùu social structures, cultural values and worldview. Nevertheless, they have not so far been the subject of a specific anthropological analysis, also because they ceased to be celebrated around the middle of the twentieth century, that is, before the beginning of the first professional ethnographic studies on this population. Any attempt of “reconstruction” of the form, meaning and context the ka’ulayawaa festivals, and of their place in the Wayùu “socio-cosmology” must take in account not only the convergences and the divergences in the descriptions present in the ethnographic documentation available, but also, and above all, the continuous processes of change that have affected the Wayùu, at least in the last five centuries and, with an accelerated pace, in the last hundred years, and to which their sociocultural forms dynamically adapted. Most historical and ethnographic sources argued that in the ka’ulayawaa festivals “theatrical” expressiveness prevailed over symbolic efficacy, and “playfulness” over “rituality”. However, there are very strong and complex relationships between this “festive” and “playful” character of the ka’ulayawaa festivals and a series of fundamental cosmological oppositions of the Wayùu worldview, as described in the ethnographic literature. From the analysis that I have conducted, it can be said that the imitative and competitive games performed during the ka’ulayawaa festivals conformed and, at the same time, “played”, with these socio-cosmological oppositions and the order that they imply. This argument is reinforced by the most recent historical and ethnographical sources on these festivals, which highlight how their good outcome was perceived and considered among many Wayùu people as a “serious matter” and a source of concern and care on the part of all participants, especially the organizers, to the point of requiring prior intervention and approval of superhuman entities. It is therefore appropriate to take in account the coexistence of these traits in the ka’ulayawaa festivals in view of their possible analysis from the point of view of current theoretical reflections in anthropology on the relationship between rituality, playfulness and cosmology. In questo contributo esamino e confronto le principali fonti di informazione sulle feste ka’ulayawaa tra i Wayùu, un popolo amerindiano che abita nella semiarida penisola della Guajira (Colombia e Venezuela). Per il loro peculiare mix di canti, danze, rappresentazioni sceniche e giochi competitivi, inseriti in una stessa cornice festiva, questi festival sono particolarmente interessanti da esaminare offrendo dei “meta-commenti” espressivi (nel senso di Turner) delle strutture sociali, dei valori culturali e della visione del mondo dei Wayùu. Tuttavia, questi festival non sono stati finora oggetto di una specifica analisi antropologica, anche perché si è smesso di celebrarli intorno alla metà del Novecento, cioè prima dell'inizio dei primi studi etnografici professionali su questa popolazione. Qualsiasi tentativo di “ricostruzione” della forma, significato e contesto dei festival della ka’ulayawaa, e del loro posto nella “socio-cosmologia” Wayùu, deve tener conto non solo delle convergenze e delle divergenze nelle descrizioni presenti nella documentazione disponibile, ma anche, e soprattutto, dei continui processi di cambiamento che hanno interessato i Wayùu, almeno negli ultimi cinque secoli e, con ritmo accelerato, negli ultimi cento anni, e ai quali le loro forme socioculturali si sono dinamicamente adattate. La maggior parte delle fonti storiche ed etnografiche hanno sostenuto che nei festival ka’ulayawaa l'espressività “teatrale” prevalesse sull’efficacia simbolica, e che queste performances avessero un carattere più “ludico” che “rituale”. Tuttavia, è possibile identificare relazioni molto strette e complesse tra questo carattere “festivo” e “giocoso” dei festival ka’ulayawaa e una serie di opposizioni cosmologiche fondamentali della visione del mondo Wayùu, per come descritta nella letteratura etnografica. Dall’analisi che ho condotto, si può affermare che i giochi imitativi e competitivi eseguiti durante i festival ka’ulayawaa si accordavano e, allo stesso tempo, “giocavano” con queste opposizioni socio-cosmologiche e l’ordine che implicano. Questa argomentazione è rafforzata dalle più recenti fonti storiche ed etnografiche su questi festival, che mettono in evidenza come il loro successo fosse percepito e considerato da molti Wayùu come una “faccenda seria” e fonte di preoccupazione e cura da parte di tutti i partecipanti, in particolare gli organizzatori, al punto da richiedere l'intervento preventivo e l’approvazione di entità sovrumane. È quindi opportuno tenere conto della coesistenza di questi tratti nei festival ka’ulayawaa in vista di una loro possibile analisi dal punto di vista delle attuali riflessioni teoriche in antropologia sul rapporto tra ritualità, giocosità e cosmologia.

Il saggio analizza da un punto di vista storico-antropologico il mito di fondazione di Piana degli Albanesi, ricostruendo le origini, la diffusione e le trasformazioni del culto della Madonna dell'Odigitria ad esso legato. Il risultato della ricerca rivela che da questo mito dipende una delle fasi cruciali del processo di costruzione di identità degli Arbëreshë di Sicilia.

In Sicily transhumance is still today - even if resized - a practice in which copious shepherds have to turn to, while in Sardinia pastoral mobility disappeared in the 1970s of the last century – however short-range movements remain still active. After outlining a brief historical framework of transhumance in the two islands, the speech would like to reflect on how the traits of history and identity of this practice are starting to change into a new cultural and economic resource, aimed at the safeguard and the valorization of an important material and immaterial heritage and at the promotion of experiential and sustainable forms of tourism.