BEYOND CULTURALISM:A DEWEYAN READING OF THE EXPANSION OF ‘NDRANGHETA

In this paper, I focus on the expansion of ‘Ndrangheta’s power and influence in central and northern Italy. The Calabrese mafia has been in expanding its activities beyond the relatively poorsocieties and economies of Southern Italy in many region of central and northern Italy. The key question is then: how has ‘Ndrangheta achieved such an astonishing success in exporting its activities to Northern Italian societies? In this paper, I would like to endorse an anti-culturalist approach to this phenomenon. Culturalist approaches explain the expansion of organized crimeoutside its original boundaries by understanding mafia as a simple by-product of a certain cultural milieu. Since the culturalist hypothesis appears as one sided and incomplete, I would like to sketch an alternative explanation by leaning on Sciarrone’s (2009, 2014) and Varese’s (2011) critical stance against culturalism. In the first part, I discuss culturalist interpretations of ‘Ndrangheta, and more generally of mafias, trying to show their weaknesses. In the second part, I propose to deal with the expansion of ‘Ndrangheta by articulating John Dewey’s concept of interest. In the third part, I discuss the criticism according to which Dewey’s approach is unable to account for power asymmetrical relations. In the conclusion, I point at some further issues which this approach will have to consider.