The Social Anti-Mafia in Western Sicily: An Experiment in Visual Ethnography

Abstract

Frustrated by the constraints imposed on visual ethnography by any one film, Toni de Bromhead has been filming around the subject of the Sicilian mafia for a quarter-century, building up a body of visual ethnography with eleven different films so far. In this paper she aims to demonstrate how these films “talk to each other” and, together, build up different themes. Each film has its own principle subject, but inevitably “trespasses” onto subjects found in other films, so adding to the viewers’ understanding and knowledge. These subjects range from values of masculinity among Sicilian criminals in Florence, and the work of the social anti-mafia in Sicily, to a group of young people contesting the local elections in their small Mafia-infested Sicilian town. Viewers are invited to make their own journey through the films, according to the theme that interests them. Here a journey is made through the films that reveal what the Mafia may mean to ordinary Sicilians, described so as to give an idea of how this might work.