Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article analyses literary sources that have influenced interpretations of the Italian collective identity, focusing on the conceptual pairing ‘familism-particularism’. In 1958 Edward Banfield coined the term ‘amoral familism’, generating an intense, persistent debate among Italian and foreign scholars. However, by expanding the analytical focus, similar explanations for Italian social, economic and political ‘backwardness’ can be traced much further back: to Alberti’s ‘land of self-interest’ or Guicciardini’s particulare. Representations of the cultural absence of civicness in Italy developed over the centuries, stemming initially from Italians’ own recognition of their self-image. It was only later, through the diaries of travellers on the Grand Tour, that this image was incorporated into the hetero-recognition of Italians by Northern Europeans and North Americans. When an identity feature maintains this ‘dual recognition’ for such a long historical period, it becomes a recurrent cardinal point in individual and collective representation of a people. Attempts to sustain theories conflicting with Banfield’s are confronted by other obstacles: the absence of comparable ethnographic studies translated into English and the rhetorical force of the expression ‘amoral familism’. The symbolic power of Banfield’s interpretation, which might be considered a stereotype, goes beyond its (in)ability to reflect social reality.
Highlights
Familism-particularism and collective identityIn this article, extending our hermeneutic gaze beyond the field of sociology, I analyse influential literary sources and their interpretations of Italian collective identity, constructed through the twentieth-century conceptual pairing ‘familism-particularism’
The story does not begin with pre-existing academic interest in the so-called ‘Questione Meridionale’ (Southern Question) such as Gramsci’s philosophical observations (1952), or with the season of studies on Southern Italy initiated by other American sociologists (Douglas, 1915; Friedmann, 1954)
Selecting influential contributions from the Grand Tour literature is motivated by the role it played in shaping the modern and contemporary image of Italy both outside and inside the country: a powerful cultural influence that led to a hegemonic narrative of Italy and Italians
Summary
When an identity feature such as ‘familism-particularism’ maintains dual recognition (by Italians and by foreigners) over a long historical period and in relevant literary sources, it becomes a topos, a pivotal point in the individual and collective representation of a people In this sense, scholars (for or against the familist-particularist interpretation) must take into account not just the academic accuracy of what could be considered a stereotype, and the fact that belief in such a picture has tangible social and cultural consequences, culminating in a self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton, 1949): ‘If men define things as real, they are real in their consequences’ This will enable me to reflect on the difficulty of other ethnographic studies in challenging the familist-particularist cultural paradigm, due to impinging ideological frameworks and the lack of dual Italian-English linguistic status
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