Throughout this article, the author deals with the topic of the moral economy of the informal labor market, focusing on the greenhouses' sector in the province of Ragusa (Sicily). The ethnographic experience as a participant observer in one of the richest districts of South Italian agriculture, helped to reconstruct the interplay emerging between the State, the entrepreneurs and the Italian and migrants laborers, harnessed in this quasi-informal system of production. The case of "fake agricultural workers", namely of people fictitiously hired in agriculture in order to receive the unemployment subsidy, represents an interesting example, since it allowed to scrutinize some of the categories, both cognitive and normative, that constitute the "moral order" of the agricultural local labor market. The author, thus, through several empirical examples, tried to rep to some relevant questions, like what is deem to be "legitimate" or "illegitimate" in the economic realm, what is constructed as "convenient" or "valuable" and how does ethnicity play a role in defining the "appropriateness" of individuals’ coping strategies.
Nel corso dell'articolo, l'autrice affronta il tema dell'economia morale nel mercato del lavoro informale, concentrandosi sul settore serricolo in provincia di Ragusa (Sicilia). L'esperienza etnografica da osservatrice partecipante in uno dei distretti più produttivi dell'agricoltura meridionale, ha aiutato a ricostruire le interazioni che emergono tra lo Stato, gli imprenditori e i lavoratori italiani e migranti, imbrigliati in questo sistema di produzione semi-informale. Il caso dei "falsi braccianti", ovvero di persone ingaggiate in maniera fittizia al fine di ricevere il sussidio di disoccupazione agricola, rappresenta un esempio interessante, poiché consente di indagare alcune categorie, di tipo sia cognitivo che normativo, che costituiscono "l'ordine morale" del mercato del lavoro agricolo locale. L'autrice, dunque, attraverso diversi esempi empirici, cerca di rispondere ad alcune domande rilevanti, come ad esempio cosa è ritenuto "legittimo" o "illegittimo" nell'ambito economico, cosa è costruito come "conveniente" o "valido", e in che modo l'etnicità gioca un ruolo nel definire le strategie d'azione più "appropriate".
What is deemed to be "fake"? The case of "fake agricultural workers" in South Eastern Sicily
PIRO, VALERIA
2015
Abstract
Throughout this article, the author deals with the topic of the moral economy of the informal labor market, focusing on the greenhouses' sector in the province of Ragusa (Sicily). The ethnographic experience as a participant observer in one of the richest districts of South Italian agriculture, helped to reconstruct the interplay emerging between the State, the entrepreneurs and the Italian and migrants laborers, harnessed in this quasi-informal system of production. The case of "fake agricultural workers", namely of people fictitiously hired in agriculture in order to receive the unemployment subsidy, represents an interesting example, since it allowed to scrutinize some of the categories, both cognitive and normative, that constitute the "moral order" of the agricultural local labor market. The author, thus, through several empirical examples, tried to rep to some relevant questions, like what is deem to be "legitimate" or "illegitimate" in the economic realm, what is constructed as "convenient" or "valuable" and how does ethnicity play a role in defining the "appropriateness" of individuals’ coping strategies.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
