The Grecanici of Southern Italy: Governance, Violence, and Minority Politics

The Grecanici of Southern Italy

The Grecanici of Southern Italy

Governance, Violence, and Minority Politics

Stavroula Pipyrou

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

PHILADELPHIA

Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.

Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112

www.upenn.edu/pennpress

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-0-8122-4830-2

This book is dedicated to my mother Eleni and stepfather Giorgo

Contents

A Note on Superscripts for Foreign Words and Phrases

Chapter 1. The Governance of Endangered People

Chapter 2. Meet the Grecanici

Chapter 3. The Vicissitudes of Civil Society

Chapter 4. Hegemonic Networks, Kinship Governance

Chapter 5. Messy Realities of Relatedness

Chapter 6. Ancestors, Saints, and Governance

Chapter 7. An Invitation to Dance

Chapter 8. Minority on the Fringes of Europe

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

A Note on Superscripts for Foreign Words and Phrases

All foreign terms are written in and translated from Standard Modern Italian, apart from where superscripts are applied as follows:

CD = Calabrian Dialect

GO = Grecanico

MG = Standard Modern Greek

For clarity I have not maintained the gendered and numbered forms of Italian and Greek nouns and adjectives.

Chapter 1

The Governance of Endangered People

As I walk with my friend Gianni in his natal village high in the mountains of area Grecanica, he suddenly starts speaking in Grecanico. He warns me that if we want to avoid being seen by other villagers who will definitely want to invite us into their homes, an offer we could not refuse, we should head down this dark alley. We are walking side by side with our heads down—thank God he is unable to see the astonishment written across my face. I keep walking and manage to respond in a calm voice that this indeed is a great idea.

I have known this man of twenty-six from the very first days of my research in Reggio Calabria, on the toe of Italy. He and his family are some of the most welcoming people I have ever met. They opened their home and hearts to me and treated me with respect and honor that very few people are lucky to receive. On commencing my ethnographic journey with the Grecanici, the Greek linguistic minority of Reggio Calabria, I tactfully asked Gianni and his brothers whether they spoke Grecanico, a minority language officially recognized by the Italian state. A mumbled "ligoGO (a little") revealed his discomfort in further elaborating on issues of language and politics. Gradually, as I became convinced he did not speak Grecanico, I withdrew from posing such questions.

Gianni had resisted my ethnographic inquiries for nearly ten months, but our relationship grew strong and transcended the realms of researcher/researched. He and his family provided invaluable ethnographic material along with friendship, but Gianni had always abstained from speaking in Grecanico despite the fact he knew it was the focus of my research. That overcast winter day in his village, hurrying along and shivering under our thick overcoats, our relationship took a sudden turn. He started speaking to me in Grecanico, and continued doing so intermittently whenever we subsequently met back in the city.

When I first arrived in Reggio Calabria in April 2006, a considerable number of local civic actors, professors, politicians, and everyday people, each in their own way, tried to persuade me that working with the Grecanici was a utopian project. It was insisted that these people no longer use the Grecanico language, that the language is dead and that "the younger generations have no interest in it other than instrumentally seeking a job in the Provincia (provincial government)" through national and EU-sponsored courses. Conflating language with people, actors with multiple agendas and interests made it their personal goal to influence the ethnographer to denounce the existence of the language and declare to an Anglophone audience the fictional character of the minority. Echoing right-wing views akin to those of the Lega Nord and Alleanza Nationale,¹ these political positions were overwhelmingly influenced by the fear of a break-up of the Italian state provoked by the relatively recent recognition of minorities—ethnic and linguistic² (Prato 2009). Both the Silvio Berlusconi government and the more recent transitional government of Mario Monti demonstrated incredible indifference to minority policies, cumulating in the 2013 budget cuts that left the apparatuses of minority self-government bankrupt, with employees going months without pay. The present study is a powerful reminder that official recognition of a minority—linguistic or ethnic—does not, in practice, necessarily secure the lawful benefits promised to the people.

I often felt pulled in different directions as local actors requested I take sides for or against minority politics. Every time I was invited to dinner I was instructed in what I should and should not record in my research. Very often I was asked as to the progress of my work and whether I have found any Grecanici speaking the Grecanico language. It was automatically assumed by all interested parties involved in the management of Grecanici affairs that research conducted by a scholar from a British university would have international impact, transcending the borders of Italy. They regularly spoke of the capacity of the English language to reach out and communicate local issues to wider audiences. Thus in their fervent efforts to convince me of their stance, actors uncovered complex and entangled pleats of local politics and histories, of which some feature in this book and some not. Apart from their heuristic and methodological value, these other stories, the untold stories, always distorted by the actors for reasons of self-preservation, are destined to occupy the mind of the ethnographer, reminding her that fieldwork is not always about taking or giving but also about not telling.

Gianni’s refusal to admit openly to an outsider that he spoke a language that until recently was deemed inferior, troublesome, and the language of a second-class citizen, epitomizes the fear felt among younger Grecanici that they are not proficient in their own language. Especially during visits from Greek tourists, Grecanici between twenty and thirty feel uncomfortable demonstrating their ability to speak Grecanico in front of an expectant audience, for, despite the fact that Modern Greek and Grecanico have similar linguistic roots, they have developed into two different languages where communication is attainable but not always straightforward (discussed at length in Chapter 2). This uneasiness is partly the outcome of official schooling’ in Grecanico, whereby the language is no longer a matter of familial pedagogy but passed into the hands of instructors (Grecanici and non-Grecanici), who are competent in Grecanico language, history, and folklore. Consequently, over the last three decades competence in the Grecanico language has been officialized with certificates provided by the Grecanico civic associations recognizing linguistic proficiency that secure rights and privileges" to knowledge and future management of minority affairs.

Young Grecanici like Gianni who do not possess such precious certificates feel excluded by the scheme of Grecanici minority governance that privileges book-learned Grecanico over lived experience. Gianni’s refusal to reveal his ability to speak Grecanico should first be interpreted as his discontent with what I represent—a foreign academic whose own competence in Grecanico culture and politics would be certified by the acquisition of a Ph.D. Second, as will become apparent throughout this book, Gianni’s case is characteristic of the hardship entailed in forming relatedness, something that takes a great deal of effort, desire, time, and ordeal and resists any notion of pre-assumed closeness. What Gianni shared with me was his capacity to speak a language learned through family lived experience and his conviction that his knowledge should not have to be certified by an official piece of paper. After the incident in the village, when we met in public in Reggio Calabria we usually conversed in Italian, only to switch to Grecanico when approached by someone with the inability to judge Gianni’s capacity in the language. The language switch operated as a clear demarcation of space (a private conversation), shared origin (I am Greek, he is Grecanico), and relatedness (we are true friends).

Gianni works in a coffee shop in central Reggio Calabria and serves what he calls "la borghesia (the bourgeoisie). He often complained that a lot of these rich women know that I am of Grecanico origin. When I serve their coffee they often look at my hands to spot whether they are clean or dirty. Every time they evaluate me in that manner I feel angry and depressed. But then I grind my teeth and mumble "piateteto ston coloGO (take it in the ass) and I suddenly feel much better. This is my angry declaration that I exist as a Grecanico, I spit in the face of this hegemonic culture that for decades continues to pretend I do not exist.

Fearless Governance

For decades locally portrayed as dirty peasants of second-class status, Grecanici have developed the means to invert hegemonic culture, promote self-governance, and participate in the power games of minority politics on local and national scales. This book tells the stories of Grecanici who have successfully crafted a place in contemporary politics through minority claims, narrating how minority relations have been turned into contexts of power, authority, and governance. An ethnographic account of the analytics of power, the book demonstrates how nexuses of relatedness have furnished Grecanici with effective and affective governance since their migration from area Grecanica to the city of Reggio Calabria during the 1950s, when they commenced systematic management of Grecanico as a linguistic and cultural asset.

The study of relations sheds light on layers of politics among Grecanici themselves and between Grecanici and various actors who occupy the local and national scene. This has theoretical implications for contemporary anthropology regarding scales of governance that are realized at intersections of local and global encounters. The manner that Grecanici find political representation through a number of avenues, including the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), state policy, local civic associations, family networks, and illegal organizations points to governance facilitated by a matrix of scaled relations as actors make use of available channels of power and authority. Often this multiplicity involves violence, corruption, and mismanagement, all constituting inextricable parts of the social fabric.

I argue that relations that have turned a multiplicity of persons into a social arena of authority (Strathern 2005:62) are to be understood in tandem with conventional modes of governance encapsulated in state policies and public institutions (Foucault 2000). As a result, the concept of governance I propose concerns Grecanici claims to difference born out of the creative synergies of everyday affective relations and national and transnational bodies that shape curricula of political action, providing tools to subvert national hegemony. Thus I avoid making any assumptions about a top-down permeation of governmental power in creating forms of subjectivity or resistance. Instead we encounter rebounding, overlapping, and sometimes contradictory realizations of governance that have taken shape in uncoordinated ways in public and private spheres.

Of a Foucauldian tenor, governance has a practical and experiential dimension, as it is directly associated with the management of Grecanico language and culture and the experiential capital invested therein. Throughout the book we encounter Grecanici who talk about other Grecanici, their civil society, their conflicts and desires, and the manner the interests of the minority are governed on local, national, and international levels. Since the end of the 1960s Grecanici have gone to great lengths to promote Grecanico language and culture as a worthy constitutive of Italian heritage. With local and international associations, Grecanici civil society, UNESCO, and the EU all interested in the management of cultural assets, there is a certain anthropological challenge in explicating how large-scale processes of governance converge with local particularity (Wright 2011).³

Although the terms governance and government are regularly used interchangeably, governance captures a broader concept of resource management and decision making by a plurality of actors spanning different scales of politics, as opposed to the exclusiveness of government (Shore and Wright 1997; Minicuci and Pavanello 2010; Orlandini 2010). A significant break between governance and government is that the former allows for multidimensional circulation of power between diverse, not necessarily institutionalized actors. The state constitutes only one fragment of power in the contemporary political scene, together with the Church, civic associations, the family and mafia, themselves assemblages of powerful, often abstract and non-identifiable relations (see Herzfeld 1996; Das and Poole 2004; Pizza and Johannessen 2009; Muehlebach 2012). Converging with the idea of enlargement (Pizza and Johannessen 2009: 18), governance allows for a more dispersed understanding of processes of decision making, taking equal consideration of local and global actors operating on different scales, with different degrees of success as well as bodily attributes of governance actualized through powerful performance.

Examining the heuristic validity of governance in macropolitical processes such as the EU, Cris Shore suggests that apart from a tool for observation and ideological recast, European governance could be viewed as a form of Foucauldian governmentality, a more complex regime of truths about the people and things to be governed (Shore 2009:3). As I argue here, it is not only global actors such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that direct decision making and policy management; local actors and civil society also have an input in this process. This plurality brings attention to interesting intersections of power, which in the management of Grecanico language and culture are rooted in complex relations that intertwine with international and regional governmental institutions, civic associations, and powerful local families. Foucauldian governmentality in relation to norms, regulations, and institutions that reinforce or resist state power is founded on governing the conduct of others’ conduct (Gordon 2000:xxix) and is a starting point from which to problematize the multiplicity of relationships that constitute minority governance. But I wish to push the argument farther.

While governmentality is the overarching scheme that produces governable subjects, governance captures the creative constellations and interactions between individual actors and institutions, including markets, networks, and the family, on a multitude of scales. Although Foucauldian in its inspiration, the concept of fearless governance takes the governmentality paradigm in new directions. Foucault’s governmentality is concerned with how techniques and rationalities of rule render people governable and orient their conduct; he did not have room for unruly populations seeking self-governance at every turn and at any expense. The Grecanici uptake and appropriate the available political and bureaucratic channels of governance, working with these categories rather than being subject to them. In many cases, Grecanici are not governed in a Foucauldian sense, but rather creatively and subversively operate within the political and legal parameters. For Grecanici, specific ways of thinking, talking, and performing governance resonate with how conduct is governed in both its mundane and transnational level. Three dimensions of governance are particular pertinent here: (a) the technical aspect that relates to the fabrication of certain kinds of subjectivity and identity as well as discourses and rhetorics of value; (b) the rationale of governance and the relevant forms of knowledge that arise from and subsequently inform the act of governance; and (c) the ethics of governance as an incitement to study the form and consequences of universals in particular historical situations and practices grounded in problems raised in the course of particular social and political struggles (Dean 1999:42).

The analytics of governance highlight the workings of "practices of freedom and states of domination, forms of subjection and forms of subjectification rather than dictating any liberating strategies (Dean 1999:34, original emphasis). Clearly, then, we discuss forms of power not directly and necessarily identified with domination, or with homogenizing frameworks imposed on local particularity; governance is neither pure freedom and domination nor consent and coercion (Foucault 2000, 2001a). Human subjectification and agency are viewed not as properties of a utopian sphere that lies outside relations of power and domination but as shaped within nexuses of relations that may be hierarchical, illegitimate, irreversible and exceptionally personal. Thinking about the materialization of governance through various techniques, practices, languages, and performances may clarify how forms of domination, relations of power and kinds of freedom and autonomy are linked, how such regimes are contested and resisted, and thus how it might be possible to do things differently" (Dean 1999:37). The concept of fearless governance that I propose resonates with managing multiscaled relations that are delineated between the state, family, Grecanico civic associations and the ’Ndrangheta (Calabrian Mafia), to name but a few protagonists. Governance is located in three main pillars of Grecanici life that are inextricably interrelated—civil society, relatedness, and performances.

I argue that this governance is fearless because it is based on principles of navigation (see Ben-Yehoyada 2012) through complex channels of politics and representation, in the face of the potential danger and violence associated with hegemonic politics. Employing sharp senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, and imagining, Grecanici foresee and embrace the possible hazards of confronting conventions of governance. Heterogeneous elements of superiority, justice, self-perpetuation, violence, and morality are brought together as Grecanici fearlessly contest and skillfully maneuver the intricate, multiple, and often contradictory realizations of governance. Fearless governance does not negate violence, fear of failure, and discrimination but rather embraces them in uniquely creative ways.

Examining Classical and Greco-Roman texts, in his book Fearless Speech, Foucault (2001b:15–20) describes fearlessness as the courage to say anything based on qualified knowledge. The speaker must believe that he or she is speaking the evidential truth based on his or her view of morality. The proof of fearlessness is in courage, the fact that a speaker says something dangerous and different from what the majority believe is proof of fearlessness. The fearless person must be in a position to take a risk, to potentially lose something, incur anger, put friendships on the line, invite scandal, lose debates, and even run the risk of death. Sure of one’s own genealogy, pedagogy, and status, the fearless speaker always appears less powerful than the one with whom he or she speaks, with arguments that come from below and are directed above. The fearless speaker has a certain relationship to danger, moral law, freedom, and duty and is critical of the political status quo, and would rather risk death than choose a life of security, flattery, and silence.

Although the fearlessness discussed by Foucault can only be found in acts of speaking, the fearlessness I propose can also be actualized through bureaucratic management and bodily performances. Grecanici challenge the top-down governmental status quo through fearless acts spanning a wide range of political channels. Grounded in their knowledge of their minority culture and language—often certified through government and civic schemes—they risk personal friendships and the wrath of official law as they pursue power and political representation through scales of civil society, clientelism, and illicit activities. Thus I must draw attention to the ways macroscale governance (such as minority policies) converges with local desires to control, regulate, dominate, and govern their own affairs. Toward this pursuit, the conceptual limits of the field site need to be extended to facilitate a more holistic understanding of multiscaled relations, a means by which to engage ethnography with emerging resonances of society with the contours of a nascent social (Holmes 2000:6).

Language, Victimhood, and Governance

Grecanici of today are by no means poor, yet collective recollections of social discrimination and racism—especially during the first decade of their migration to Reggio Calabria at the end of the 1950s (Pipyrou 2010)—are rife. Accounts pertaining to the miseria (socioeconomic poverty) provoked by two world wars, trans-Atlantic and European migration, and forced relocation after the devastating landslides of the 1950s are languages of representation and social justification for multifaceted political and ideological dispositions. These particular languages constitute tools of governance embedded in particular lexicons of representation historically employed by Grecanici. Pamela Ballinger (2003) has suggested that languages of representation are organized around specific cultural constructs, one of which is victimhood. The trope of victimhood is part of a wider lexicon employed by disenfranchised people around the world, and which in turn has shaped a commensurate global platform for claims to difference. Nevertheless, local actors do not uncritically adopt tropes of representation, but mold them according to their own desires. The kind of victimhood claimed by Grecanici has lived historical depth and is shaped by a fusion of collective and individual histories of local flavor (cf. Toren 2013). The following three vignettes delve into the complexities and contradictions of the victimhood trope as a tool of governance.

1. Writing a New Statuto

During summer 2006 I was asked to translate the statuto (constitution) of a new cultural association from Italian to Modern Greek. The initiative was conceptualized in Greece as an attempt to unite Greek-speaking populations worldwide. This in itself would not be such an interesting matter, as there are numerous associations in Reggio Calabria representing the Grecanici minority, regularly being formed and disbanded. Nevertheless, this new association for which I had the opportunity to observe genesis came as a direct reaction to upheaval among local Grecanici civil society leaders on issues of cultural heritage and ownership (extensively discussed in Chapter 3). The issue that roused emotions and challenged authority over linguistic heritage related to a 2006 public quota for 300 people to be educated in Grecanico language, history, and culture, with the further aim to select a small number to work as civil servants at the Grecanici sportelli linguistici (linguistic help-desks) (I Foni Dikima 2006:30). Echoing the frustration voiced by Gianni at the opening of this book, it appeared that the allocation of places was based less on origin and more on education, which did not go down well; non-Grecanico candidates were more likely to enter the course than those of Grecanico origin. The statuto I was given to translate addressed the debatable issue of exclusivist rights to linguistic heritage and governance. We read in the introduction to the document, article one:

With the initiative of Mr … (a Greek national) the proposed association will act in Greece (Athens and Thessaloniki) and Italy (Calabria and Puglia) with the aim to understand and address the multifaceted aspects of the Greek linguistic minority in Italy and more specifically in Calabria and Puglia. These communities appear to share common cultural, historical, and financial considerations. With the collaboration of the Grecanico associations … and the employees of the two Greek government institutions of…. we intend to unite as many Hellenophone associations around the world as possible. The ultimate aim of this alliance is the financial and political benefits of the subsidizing schemes toward the minority. Moreover, the appropriation of the Grecanico culture by various associations and individuals motivated by personal interest should stop. For this reason, the proposed union could only be positive for the development and promotion of the Grecanico language all over the world. The current multidimensional Mediterranean development demands a more centralized organization, one that could address any arising matters more efficiently.

Treating Hellenism as a preordained category of relatedness, what the founding members are pleading for in this constitution is a centralization of operations for the linguistic minority to yield better political and financial returns and the desire to take a local campaign global. The aim is prolific capitalization on subsidized schemes from sources such as the EU, Greek and Italian states, and UNESCO. The second point, emerging directly from the first, is that any exploitation of the Grecanico language by associations, institutions, and individuals driven by personal interests should be emphatically avoided. It is clearly suggested in the statuto that Grecanico language and culture are the victims of predatory appropriation. What we are confronted with here is an unprecedented event in the Grecanico associazionismo (associationism) toward centralization that would impose new forms of governance regarding the financial and political future of the minority.

2. I Glossama den ecchi na petheni! Ecchi na zì!GO

(Our Language Will Not Die! It Will Live!)

In April 2010, in a very emotive but affirmative tone, the province councilor of the Partito Rifondazione Comunista—Federazione della Sinistra, Omar Minniti, attacked the Silvio Berlusconi government for a budget cut for the linguistic minorities recognized in Italy by the 482/1999 law. The annual amount allocated to the Greek linguistic minority had been reduced to 165,000 euros from the initially approved 460,000 euros. This amount of money was intended to cover the salaries of fifteen people employed in the eleven sportelli linguistici that operate in the province of Reggio Calabria. Closing down the sportelli, Minniti argued, would constitute the final blow to a language that is still in use by a few thousand people. That would be the ultimate chapter of a cultural genocide committed against the Greeks of Calabria, who constitute an important piece of national history. He went on to plead with the deputies and senators to pressure the government into reconsidering the cuts so that the Grecanici communities and civic associations would not lose their financial resources vital to maintaining in life the flame of the Hellenophone diversity.⁴

3. UNESCO and the Grecanico Language as Immaterial Patrimony for Humanity.

During 2013 the Calabrian regional government proposed that the linguistic minorities of the region be recognized by UNESCO as heritage of humanity. Complying with the UNESCO category of intangible heritage introduced in 2003, the candidacy was heralded by local civic associations, politicians, and regional government as the ultimate acknowledgment of minority contribution to humanity. In April 2013, Tito Squillaci of the Associazione Ellenofona Jalò tu Vua, Bova Marina, Reggio Calabria, appeared emotional as well as cautious about the effects of a positive outcome for the application. While he was optimistic that the candidacy would revitalize the study of the language and culture in a more scientific manner by competent people, he closed his announcement by adding that "it is well noted that today more people talk about the Grecanico language instead of actually speaking the language. If the candidacy serves to stimulate a serious and objective test of reality, demystified, and change the actual state of things, then it is welcome."⁵

*  *  *

The three short ethnographic vignettes presented above tie together questions of ownership, victimhood, and governance of minority issues. With scales of minority representation ranging across local civic associations, regional politicians, transnational state and non-state bodies, and minority policy, all with the burning desire to present local issues on global stages, there is also conflict and contestation as to who has the right to represent whom. In some cases, individuals have consciously championed themselves as living heritage: cultural artifacts with the authority to govern Grecanici affairs and condense the whole minority into their own persona (see particularly Chapter 6).

But what is the genealogy of such thinking behind conceptualizing Grecanico language as immaterial heritage of humanity and Grecanici as victims? What forms of governance brought about these developments? To explore the historical formation of such powerful governance influenced by global frameworks and local desires, we must keep in mind the multiple levels of interests that are invested in minority decision making processes. In some forms of governance the hegemonic position of the state is fearlessly challenged. Local civil society has always looked to civil society of global scale to find space to articulate rights to difference. More than ever, the power of the state for political representation is fragmented, as actors turn to UNESCO, the EU, other nation-states, and illegal organizations to provide accessible channels of governance and information communication.

Victimhood has been part of Grecanici experience for decades. Entwined with social discrimination, extreme poverty until the 1960s, and emigration, victimhood has an experiential, rhetorical, and pedagogical tenor. Since the unification of Italy in 1861, Grecanici villages have gradually become depopulated owing to extreme conditions of poverty, high levels of mortality, migration, and natural disasters (Martino 1979; Bevilacqua 1981; Dickie, Foot, and Snowden 2007). The torrid conditions of many Grecanici villages always attracted the interest of state institutions such as the Associazione Nazionale per gli Interessi del Mezzogiorno (National Association for the Interests of the South) in 1928 as well as private media outlets such as the Milanese journal L’Europeo in 1948. Grecanici felt in their skin what it means to be second-class citizens. Narratives of victimhood of the early 1900s are systematically circulated in Grecanici civil society and families, communicating feelings of bitterness and ambivalence. At the beginning of the twentieth century, and especially under Mussolini’s