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Romani Studies , Vol. , No. (), – – (print) – (online)
doi:./rs..
Pietro Saitta is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the Department of Statistics, Economics, and
Sociology “W. Pareto”, University of Messina, Via Tommaso Cannizzaro , Messina,
Italy. E-mail: pisait@gmail.com
Immigrant Roma in Sicily: e role of the informal
economy in producing social advancement
PIETRO SAITTA
e article focuses on Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. It aims to show how a group of Roma
from Kosovo, living in the area since the s, has gained a livelihood through such
enterprizing methods as music, improvized handicras and small-scale drug dealing.
eir precarious situation is conditioned in large measure by the complex interplay of
state regulations and the practice of local authorities. Nevertheless, these individuals
have been able to exploit the ambivalence of the authorities as well as opportunities pre-
sented by the thoroughgoing informality of this south-western Sicilian city. Although a
culture of poverty perspective would suggest that they are merely reproducing poverty
from generation to generation, in-depth observation shows that the informal economy
represents a paradoxical means for social advancement.
Keywords: Roma, Kosovo, immigration, Sicily, Italy, informal economy, social change,
deviance
1. e framework
In this article, Idiscuss the experience of a group of Roma, composed of about
households and individuals originally from Kosovo, who have been living
in Mazara del Vallo (Sicily) since the s. In particular, Ifocus on the jobs that
some of the members of this community perform, and show the role played by
the informal economy in shaping the life of the Roma. Iargue that, paradoxic-
ally, years of precarious, informal, illegal, dangerous, and poorly paid activities
have allowed these immigrants to experience social advancement. Moreover,
Iargue that we need to reconsider informality and immigration because of the
repressive and xenophobic tendencies that characterize contemporary Italy.
ese are inclinations that rightly cause concern among EU institutions and
they should be answered with a call for human rights. Since , in fact, immi-
gration and public order have become two intertwined, inseparable, and fre-
quent issues in the Italian political agenda. In , an endless “safety campaign”
targeting minor crimes committed by foreigners (in particular, Romanians and
Roma) lasting several months produced dramatic ethnic backlashes. Several
racist raids against Roma squatter settlements took place, and the Italian pol-
itical forces, eschewing nuance, called for “zero tolerance” (evoking Rudolph
Giuliani’s methods and policies). e proposed arguments are that punitive
policies sanctioning deviance from orderliness will reduce crime by creating
broader cultural and behavioral changes, and that these policies will prevent
Italy from becoming a destination for foreign criminals. To discuss the roles
that informal and/or illegal labor markets play gives us a means to deconstruct
current rhetoric on security and shed light on the complex functions of infor-
mal and illicit activities both for the illegal immigrants and for those who strug-
gle to maintain their legal status. It is common for the immigrants in Italy to
follow “oscillating trajectories” consisting of alternate cycles of regular and ille-
gal residency. In other words, due to Italian legislation on immigration, which
links permits to stay to employment contracts, and the prevalence of temporary
jobs in the sectors occupied by most immigrants, foreign workers commonly
lose (and regain) their legal status (Reyneri ).
In the transition from regularity to illegality, immigrants are likely to enter
in illegal/informal circuits. If the conditions for a new regularization become
newly available, the immigrant is likely to abandon illegal activities (either
forever or until they are necessary again). In contrast, should these conditions
not hold anymore for a very long time or if he/she confronts the control agen-
cies and enters the penal system, the immigrant is likely to start a “full-time”
criminal career (Sbraccia ). Accordingly, most of the informal and self-
entrepreneurial activities performed by the Roma I studied have only a slight
criminal impact, either because they are “irregular but legal” or because they
are “victim-less.” But in the formalistic perspective that dominates the Italian
debate on immigration in the mainstream media and the public discourse in
general, Roma’s jobs are just illegal.
is article took shape during the rst month of the Berlusconi’s
administration (the fourth government led by the Premier), and my impression
is that the “zero tolerance” policy that Mr. Berlusconi’s administration intends
to pursue at the heyday of its cycle is unlikely to concern itself with distinc-
tions between acceptable and unacceptable forms of irregularity. Nevertheless,
Iclaim that such a distinction would help, mainly because it would not inter-
rupt the slow process of insertion into Italian society that many immigrants
pursue. An ethnographic examination of the activities performed by those that
the makers of public opinion label as “public enemies” may provide a better
understanding of the dynamics operating in criminalized communities.
To dene the framework of my analysis, it is useful to outline what I mean
by the “formal–informal” dichotomy. In an entry for a dictionary of economic
theory, Hart (, my italics) suggests that:
. For critical discussions of zero tolerance, see Harcourt () and Taylor (). For a discus-
sion of repressive tendencies in contemporary Italy, see VV.AA. (). For further details on
the criticisms posed by the EU, see Fusani () and La Repubblica ().
[T]he ‘formal’ economy is the epitome of whatever passes for regularity in our con-
temporary understanding, here the institutions of modern nation states, the more
corporate levels of capitalist organization and the intellectual procedures devised by
economists to represent and manipulate the world. e ‘informal’ economy is anything
which is not entailed directly in these denitions of reality. From the standpoint of high
civilisation, whatever it cannot control or comprehend is ‘informal’ – that is, irregular,
unpredictable, unstable, even invisible.
We can argue with Hart that the matter of “informality” is essentially “nom-
inal.” In his perspective, “informal” economy appears, rst of all, as a problem
of denition of reality. Informality is not the quality of an object in itself, but
a “construction” (Berger and Luckmann ), which takes place in the course
of time and under certain circumstances. In other words, we should ask when,
where and why some groups of interest dene who and what are “informal.”
Choosing this approach requires that we neglect, temporarily or permanently,
the formal logic of the law and the principle of obedience. What is essential
is that the analysts observe the structure of interests and the forces operating
in the eld and that they look at the disposition of the actors not in terms of
legality/illegality but as outcomes of a dialectic process (Bourdieu ). Such
a process is not merely cognitive but also political. “Political” here has two
meanings: on the one hand, it implies that the process reects the social distri-
bution of power, and on the other, that it is largely determined by the policies
of a country. As Beck (: , italics in original) puts it:
[S]ocial groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance,
and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders ... e
deviant is one to whom that label has been applied successfully; deviant behavior is
behavior that people so label.
e acceptance of this constructivist vision of the concept has clear implications.
e most important of these is that to study and discuss informal activities
only in formal terms (rules/infraction of the rules) is reductive and hinders
the comprehension of the context in which “deviance” takes place. Moreover,
it consolidates the idea, apparently very common in public discourse, that
a clear line separates crime (or deviance) from probity. Indeed, the existing
research shows that the informal may be the variable content of the form; thus,
for instance, street peddlers of cigarettes invisibly complete the chain linking
tobacco rms to consumers. Second, the informal economy may be the neg-
ation of formal institutions, whether by tax evasion, shop-oor resistance or
the world trac in drugs. ird, it may be the residue of what is formal, that is,
more or less independent and not a predicate of it – as is the case of much of the
ird World’s countryside, which is so alien to the urban and state-made econ-
omy that it would be nonsensical to suggest a dialectical relationship between
the two) (Hart ). In any case, what is informal is likely to be in a direct or
indirect relationship with the “ocial world.” e informal economy, in fact,
may be considered as (a) the product of the absence of the state; (b) the result of
its excessive intervention; or (c) the fruit of its inadequacy to include the entire
society. Furthermore, the idea that it is possible to draw clear lines to sep-
arate formal from informal seems to conceal a prejudice: it implicitly suggests
that dark creatures from a species other than the one operating on the surface,
inhabit the underground economic world. is representation is dangerous
because it fails to highlight that (a) a signicant part of the ocial economy
in the developed world is based on illegal labor and other forms of irregular-
ity (Harris ; Ruggiero ); (b) illicit markets exist due to the demand
of “regular” consumers for prohibited goods (Dal Lago and Quadrelli );
and (c) in spite of the growing criminalisation of the informal economy and
the multiple “projects of increased reassurance” in post-fordist cities (Gibson
), the informal sector allows societies – especially if characterised by lower
levels of redistribution and a decient welfare state – to tolerate the presence of
“excess population” (Rahola ; Bauman ) by giving a chance of improv-
ing their real income to those who live at the margins of the labor market (Hart
; Swaminathan ; Bagnasco ; Bodo and Viesti ).
Immigration ows constitute an important part of the dynamic I have
described. Not because migrants are the main actors of the informal market;
but because they play an important role in reproducing informal practices in
the host countries and they usually hold weaker positions in the formal sector,
they are more likely than the nationals to enter the informal labor markets.
With particular regard to the southern European case, for instance, King and
Zontini (: ) notice that:
[T]he role of the informal economy has been absolutely fundamental in conditioning
the types and outcomes of immigration into Southern Europe ... It was well estab-
lished in Southern Europe before the recent immigration, and is widespread amongst
virtually all sectors of the population and across most sectors of economic activity ...
Hence it is not correct to target immigrants as the “cause” of the existence of undocu-
mented economic activities. On the other hand, immigrants have interacted with the
black economy in a very dynamic way, causing it to expand and reshape itself in many
new directions. For many years, until the regularisations of the mid-s and the
s, the underground economy was the rst and only chance immigrants had of
obtaining any kind of work.
e informal economy of Mazara del Vallo has several salient features, in
agreement with the perspectives I have discussed. First of all, “informal” actu-
. In the most industrialized countries there are noticeable exceptions: Naples, for instance, is
one. In this southern Italian city, the informal and criminal economy enrolls as many nationals
as immigrants; see Pardo (); Saviano ().
ally designates in this milieu two very dierent kinds of economy. ere is
the principal, twofold economy produced by Sicilians, which either comprises
individuals who have regular jobs and augment their wages by pursuing fur-
ther activities, mostly in the countryside, or entrepreneurs who hire irregular
workers on a regular basis. e other kind of informal economy is the one
created by the immigrants themselves.
ese two kinds of informal economy dier from each other because only
the former presents systemic traits, in my estimation. We can see the informal
economy not as a parallel and separate articulation of the markets for goods
and labor but, rather, as an intertwining of the formal and informal sectors.
eir partial fusion determines forms of mutual dependence, based on the
costs of production. However, in Mazara del Vallo, only the informal enter-
prises owned or run by Italians participate in these interactions: the informal
activities of immigrants and Roma (with the possible and notable exception of
drug dealing) do not enter the ocial market and do not aect it.
My research site, Mazara del Vallo, is a city of about , inhabitants
located in the southwestern coast of Sicily, distinguished by a high ratio of
immigrants, mostly Tunisians ( per cent of the population), and an econ-
omy mostly based on shing (the city is home to the biggest shing eet in
Europe) and agriculture. e city is slightly depressed relative to similar areas
elsewhere on the island. e undocumented segment of the local labor mar-
ket employs a consistent number of workers, both of Italian and immigrant
origins (Hannachi ; Saitta ). According to the National Statistical
Institute (ISTAT), in the irregular (or “black”) labor market rate in Sicily
soared above per cent ( per cent was the average in Italy as a whole with
. per cent in the north-east of the country). is market corresponds to the
southern type outlined by Reyneri and Payar (), which is characterized by
seasonal and undocumented employment mostly in the agriculture sector (but
also in construction and the domestic sector).
From a purely socio-economic perspective, which neglects the important
relationship between underground economy and the current criminalization
processes operating in Italy, Iam aware that to focus on the role of foreigners
is quite unfair, and it is a choice that hides a sort of prejudice. In fact, there is
no reason to study the Tunisians and the Roma while ignoring the Sicilians
operating in the same market. However, if we are interested in the informal
economy, then local low-income households are in general more likely to be
. Broader and classic analyses of the relation between capital, immigration, and informal econ-
omy include Meillassoux (); Sassen-Koob (); Petras (); Bach and Schraml ();
Massey (); Waldinger (). Part of this debate was summarized in Saitta ().
. For a discussion on this specic segment of the labor market in Sicily, see Cole and Booth
().
inserted in a “mixed” market that combines both formal and informal econo-
mies (when at least one of the members of the family has a regular job) (Gallino
; Portes ; Borghi and Kieselback ). Immigrants and especially
the Roma are much more likely to depend on entrepreneurial means of mak-
ing a living, whether “legal but irregular” or totally illegal. erefore, Ithink
that immigrants in general, and the Roma in particular, are more interesting
than poor Italian families because the former groups’ survival depends almost
entirely on informality. Moreover, their situation is even worse than that of
the Italian “poor” because they must not only struggle to make a living, but
also face the risk of deportation on a daily base. us, beside the ghosts of
poverty and hunger, they also struggle against the Italian state (Spencer ;
Mezzadra ). Several authors have discussed at length the Italian regulation
of immigration, its contradictions, its hidden “nationalist ideology,” and its
eects on biographical paths. As Joppke (: ) puts it, “Italy is perhaps the
most complex and fascinating European ‘latecomer’ to immigration. e core
contradiction of the contemporary European immigration scene is nowhere
more evident than here.” Joppke’s words summarize a situation in which the
objective demographic and economic need for more immigrants is accompa-
nied by a political process placed under the sign of populism and public order
and safety issues. is process produces increasingly tough and exclusionary
stances toward the immigrants together with deliberately ineective policies
(Cornelius and others ; Calavita ).
2. Methods
I collected the data on which this account is based in the course of an ethno-
graphic research I started, together with Alvise Sbraccia, in . Our study
originally focused on Tunisians, and it resulted in books, articles, and a docu-
mentary on the immigrant condition and the trajectories followed by these
workers in the local and national markets. Over time, we shied or focus to
the Roma.
e study took place over dierent periods of participant observation (from
two weeks to two months) over the course of ve years (Spring to Summer
). It involved in-depth interviews and unrecorded conversations with the
members of the Roma community and the local stakeholders, social workers,
and privileged witnesses. Conversations took place in Italian and, occasionally,
in German.
During longer periods of residence, we rented an apartment in the same
urban area where the Roma and the other immigrants live. For shorter stays,
we were hosted by a household composed of to members (the number has
changed in the course of time due to the mobility of those members of the
family who succeeded in their search for a healthier and roomier residence).
As noted earlier, the Roma households living in the area total , and the
community is composed of about individuals. Although we happened to
meet many members of the group, our study is centered on a relatively small
number of individuals and families: about people and households. Within
this group, it is possible to distinguish a core of “informants” representing
dierent age groups (from to ).
3. e process of community formation
Members of the observed community reside mostly in Mazara del Vallo, but
they are typically involved in transnational networks that play a multi-pur-
pose role in their social world. ese networks, which authors such as Levitt
and Glick Schiller () would conceptualize in terms of a “transnational
social eld,” link Sicily with various places in the north of Italy, Germany, and
Macedonia, and provide members with dierent options, all of them viable
depending on the needs and the moment (a simple evasion from the daily
routine, the search for a job, troubles with the institutions, etc.). is is an
important element of variation in the number of people residing in the area; it
also points to the process of community formation.
e settlement dates to the second half of the s and was begun by one
young man, Radjo, who was at that time in his early twenties. Like so many
others, Radjo had le Kosovo in . He was pushed not only by the extreme
poverty of his people and ethnic group, but he was also following his fantasies
and spirit of adventure. Contrary to common understanding, neither Radjo
nor the other Kosovars were nomads. Rather, for generations he and his ances-
tors were settled in Gilane. Nomadism was not a cultural trait of this group;
rather, it is mostly a consequence of conditions which are historically given
(Reiss ; Liégeois ; McVeigh ; Levinson and Sparkes ). e
event that initiated the exodus of the Kosovarian Roma (and a subsequent
nomadic condition) is the civil war in the s. But this mass escape happened
much later. In the s, when Radjo came to Sicily for the rst time, ethnic
antagonisms were not so apparent. He was just an “explorer,” a young man with
no skills who aimed to discover new worlds. For a few years he travelled all
over Yugoslavia to work in the elds as a day-laborer and outside restaurants
as a musician. Soon, he realized that Yugoslavia did not oer much in the way
of a better life and he decided that he had to try to go abroad, no matter where.
When Radjo reached Sicily, he and an associate travelled randomly around the
island until they met a small group of “gypsies,” that is, nomadic Roma living
in trailers, who made a living by begging money on the street and stealing
from homes. In this early period, Radjo learned how to become a professional
beggar: in fact, he started to sell for small change sacred pictures bought from
local print shops outside of churches and cemeteries. Trapani, the main city in
the area, and the other towns in that province, including Mazara del Vallo and
Marsala, became the sites of “begging raids.” At this point, Radjo was not really
an immigrant. Today, we would say that he was still following a “circular tra-
jectory”: He used to return to Gilane quite oen; Italy, and Sicily in particular,
were just places where he liked to go from time to time because life was easy,
the police were not too tough on foreigners, and the strong religiosity of the
older inhabitants allowed him to make some money with little eort. By living
in this nomadic way and augmenting his wage by further activities (as a musi-
cian in the restaurants, as a thief, and by swindling car insurance companies)
in less than ve years he was able to save enough money to buy an old car and
a trailer. At that point of his life he was already married and had three children.
eir life in Kosovo started to appear extremely miserable to him. Moreover,
his “circular migration” had become tiring. So he loaded the trailer and le
Kosovo with his wife Ferida and the children.
e second part of Radjo’s story is quite complex as it includes stays in sev-
eral cities, both in Italy and Germany. It contains many interesting elements
which involve the economic structure of the places where he chose to be as
well as the law (such as local asylum-seekers legislation and police attitude
toward minor crimes). But with regard to the topic at hand, we should notice
that Radjo’s activities in the course of his life have mostly consisted of the same
elements. e only dierence now was that he could ask Ferida and some of
the children to help and beg for money in the street. Because of space limita-
tions, Iwill not describe every single stage in their family history, and I will not
mention how they happened to move from town to town. Rather, Iwill focus
on the past ten years of their life; that is, on the years that this household has
spent in Sicily, together with the other families (mostly close relatives) who
joined them before the civil war started at the beginning of the s. In other
words, Iwill focus on a phase of this household’s life in which children became
grown-ups and created new families, everybody’s legal status became regular
aer a long struggle, but their resources remained scarce and mostly derived
either from informal or illegal activities. Later on, Idescribe these activities in
some detail. For now, Isimply note that many of the young Roma we studied
are mostly musicians, improvized artisans, mechanics, and drug-dealers.
4. Housing and policies: necessary conditions for the settlement process
Before describing these jobs and their organization, Iwill say something about
housing. e role of space in shaping dierent groups and individuals’ self-per-
ception has been explored by a many scholars (Heidegger ; Levinson and
Sparkes ; Cahn ; Levinson ; Osce ), and it should be central
in our analysis. e Roma I studied, for example, do not live in trailers but in
houses. is is something that had positive consequences for their self-esteem
and identity. One of these consequences, for instance, is that the established
Roma we studied adamantly refuse to be called “gypsies” (in Italian zingari).
In their view, gypsies live in the trailers and do not want to live in regular
houses. ey claim that gypsies are dirty, thieves, and dangerous. At this point
of their history, therefore, the people we studied call themselves Roma. e
change the community has experienced implies a claim for new rights, and
is related to sporadic dynamics in multicultural Italy. Recently, a few studies
have analysed some of the “ethnic” strains and riots that have occurred in Italy
since the s. In referring to these events and, especially, their follow-up,
Sciortino () speaks of a process of “organization of the immigrant pro-
letariat in Italy” (appropriately resuscitating the lost concept of “proletariat”
from the dictionary of Italian social science). Deepening Sciortino’s analysis
and discussing the revolt of the Chinese shopkeepers in a Milan neighbor-
hood, Borghi () uses Hirschman’s concept of “voice” and suggests that
these riots were rational protests aimed at inuencing not only the policies of
the city concerning immigrant businesses but the general process of govern-
ance of immigration (for instance, in the aermath of the riot, the Chinese
Ministry of Foreign Aairs complained ocially to the Italian government,
and the Chinese consul met with the city’s mayor). In sum, according to these
and other authors (see Mantovan ; Mangano ), the phase Italy is now
witnessing consists of a weak shi from voice to organization. e change in
the life-style of the Roma community should be analyzed in this framework:
it implies, on the one hand, a claim for rights that preceded later struggles by
immigrants in Italy, and also has been successful; on the other hand, it involves
signicant aspects related to gender relations and the role of Roma women in
producing social change. Tired of living in the trailers, surrounded by mud
and dust, women in the course of time have pushed their husbands to settle
and create a space of their own. Although these women have not fully identi-
ed the key sources of the social inequality they face, they have dened a vision
of their future and undertaken concrete actions to reach their goals. is is
not enough to assert that these women have dramatically altered their role and
position in the community. For example, as in many Roma communities, there
remains a very clear distinction between the concepts of “men’s work” and
“women’s work.” Especially at the beginning of the settlement process, Roma
women were the real breadwinners. As in a similar account by Slavkova (),
. On the camps in Italy (interestingly dened “Campland”) see Piasere (); Brunello ();
Revelli (); European Roma Rights Center (); Sigona (); Spinelli ().
. On the role of Roma women in determining social change, see Flecha and Oliver ().
while their men were unemployed and got by with small hustles, these women
used to provide for their households by working outside the community at
extremely low wages and with no regulations of working conditions. e pos-
ition of Roma women, in sum, was no dierent from what one would expect
on the basis of both common sense and scholarship. Notwithstanding that,
Ferida, her sisters, and the other women who came later to town accompanied
by their husbands and children knew that they wanted to settle and reproduce
the stable family life they used to have in Kosovo before the war. Indeed, they
dreamed of a better life than the one in Yugoslavia, and expected their men to
work and actively pursue that dream. But at that time, settling and putting a
roof over their heads were the rst steps needed to plan the future. e women
of the community, however, have governed the settlement process, which
appears as the synthesis of two dierent types of need and attitude: on the one
hand, there is the women’s need to settle down in a proper place to raise their
children and grab the opportunities of improvement oered by a stable style of
life; on the other hand, there is the men’s need to explore the world and make
new experiences. erefore, the women’s role has been that of preventing men
from continuing their search, and helping them to recognize that Mazara del
Vallo could oer much in terms of “interstices,” uncontrolled spaces and ex-
ibility with regard to law enforcement.
I meantioned earlier that these people do not only have to struggle against
poverty, but must also face the state. In this case, the state and housing are
interrelated. e nature of this relationship is not of the kind one might expect
– aiming at supporting low-income families by standardized procedures. e
state or, more precisely, the local authorities, in fact, have not provided hous-
ing. ese Roma do not live in projects; rather, they mostly live in “ruins,” that
is, houses that have been seriously damaged by earthquakes in the s and
s and have been abandoned by the Italians. When the Roma got to Mazara
del Vallo in the s, the municipality faced a sort of humanitarian emergen-
cy. Anumber of poor families had arrived in the territory; each of which was
composed of six or more members (usually two adults and four minors or so),
mostly unemployed, unable to aord the housing available in the rental market
and unqualied to receive public assistance (apart from medical care or educa-
tion for the children). e law did not provide any means for confronting this
grave situation. e solution consisted of allowing this mass of beggars into
the old ruins of the historical center. ese ruins consisted of bare walls, with
no facilities, and close to collapse but they were free for the taking. Nobody
would claim any rent for them, no dangerous competition would start, and
no public money would have to be spent on these miserable foreign families
. On the relation between common discourse, science, and policies against the Roma, see
Helleiner ().
without legal status. e Roma were in fact admitted into the houses and they
improved the area. ey xed up the buildings, signed water and electricity
contracts, and paid no taxes. In a short time, two small areas in the historical
center of the city were occupied by a number of Roma families.
I believe this is an important part of the process I am describing. We notice
in fact that the word “informality” does not mean only “not ocially recog-
nized”; it may also indicate something that is recognized, accepted, tolerated,
but not ocially… not ocially what? What term should we use to describe
this situation? If I am allowed to borrow a word from the legal jargon, Iwould
say that in this specic case we are witnessing a legal ction. Action, as
we know, is a rhetorical and logical artifact that pushes us to act as if some-
thing is happening. What I want to say is that in this specic case as well
as in many others that are described in the existing literature on the south
of Italy (Barbagallo ; Saviano ), the distinction between formal and
informal is a ctitious line drawn for the sake of appearance, one that oen
has no real meaning. In particular, the state – and it does not matter whether
local government and state are not exactly the same thing, since the latter is not
that dierent from the former – seems to be motivated by ambivalent forces.
One can read this action – allowing people to live inside ruins – as a peculiar
expression of negligence and reprehensible policy. Nevertheless, there is a sort
of paradoxical humanism in this tolerance – a humanism based on the refusal
to draw hypocritical distinctions between acceptable and inacceptable forms of
poverty and degradation. In a milieu characterized by extreme poverty, where
the black-labor market is the norm in agriculture, on construction sites, in
the shing eet, and also in the commercial sector, and in which hovels can
be found at every corner, to refuse to admit that small army of gypsies in the
name of human dignity would be ridiculous and grotesque.
In my opinion, the distinction between formal and informal is oen inac-
curate. In a context like the one I investigated, “formal” and “informal” are
just two articially separated segments of the same continuum. is distinc-
tion reminds me of the classes on an airplane: what separates the business
and economy classes is merely a curtain. Of course, business class has plenty
of privileges, space, and better service. But the bottom line is that passengers
on both sides of the curtain y to the same destination and do so thanks to
the same engines and body. As in an airplane, most of the privileged passen-
gers in business class need, at some level, the travelers thronged in the back.
Without this much bigger group of people, many of the passengers in busi-
ness class could not aord the trip. One nds similar dynamics in the ethnic
. For a discussion on legal ction (or ctio), see Oliver (); Olgiati (). With regard to
legal ctions in the immigration regulation, see Wani (). For an interesting outlook on the
relation between informal economy and state, see Hart ().
neighborhoods. e area where the Roma settled is a sub-area in a broader
neighborhood that, at the beginning of the s, has been mostly occupied by
Tunisians. Most of the North Africans live in rented houses only slightly better
than those occupied by the Roma. In other words, what has been created is an
underclass neighborhood. Here and here only the settlement of Roma could
be tolerated by Sicilian institutions. Today we may say that, paradoxically, their
choice was not wrong, for it resulted in the integration of the Roma popula-
tion into the marginalized population of foreign workers needed by the local
economy.
5. Work
Unlike other communities, based for example in Hungary, the Roma in Mazara
del Vallo are not wage workers and are not part of the immigrant working
class living in the area. Rather, they struggle for an independent way of life.
Traditionally, in this community, like in many others all over Europe, this
independent way of life means trade (Stewart : ). In contrast with the
existing literature (Sutherland ; Silverman ; Piasere ), however,
Iargue that the Roma’s attitude toward their means of subsistence should not
be interpreted as opposite to the work ethos of the surrounding non-Roma.
According to the accepted body of literature, the classic non-Roma work ethic
places moral value in the eort expended in the production of goods or ser-
vices, while “gypsy culture” considers that “the good life” is tantamount to deals
that demand no work (Bell : ; Stewart : –). is is not entirely
true in the case of the Mazara Roma because, in fact, they put much work and
eort in some of their life activities. We see it in the manufacturing of artisanal
products or in the construction work that the members of a crowded house-
hold undertake to renew the decrepit houses they bought almost for nothing in
the historical center of the town, with the goal of renting them (an interesting
emerging approach to business in the community). In these examples, looking
for a deal is still the core activity but it requires eorts, manual skills, and time.
It is nevertheless true that the Roma in Mazara del Vallo, as in the classic
accounts, evade the controls that the outside environment tries to exert over
them and avoid the discipline of wage work. Indeed, many other elements men-
tioned in the literature are also present. Here too, as in Days, Papataxiarchis, and
Stewart’s account (:), personal autonomy is achieved through “strokes of
luck,” by tapping into sources of abundant wealth, by sharing wealth with those
who ask and by the immediate use of goods and resources. is becomes espe-
cially clear when we observe how the Roma swindle car-insurance companies
or how they dissipate the money obtained from the same companies as com-
pensation aer the death of a relative in a car accident (these accidents, fatal
or not, are in fact quite common in the community; we can also read them as
a sign of the relation that the Roma establish with “things”). Notwithstanding
that, as in Gropper (: ) and Silverman’s (: –) classic analyses of
the economic forms of Roma settlements, non-Roma are part of the Roma
socio-economic and cultural systems. Roma not only interact with the gage
(non-Roma) culture but they also adopt and re-adapt many aspects of it, and,
nally, redene and incorporate them into their own culture and practices.
Isuggest that non-Roma’s economic forms should be read as elements of this
“mirrored” culture. In my view, economic forms are also cultural forms, and
they are learned by the immigrants who develop a sense of what is licit or illicit,
protable or unprotable.
Turning to the jobs that the Roma perform in Mazara del Vallo, they typic-
ally involve handicras, drug-dealing, and diverse forms of “self-employment.”
e population also forms part of the larger reserve-labor army that includes
other immigrants and Sicilians as well. Occasionally they wait tables and clean
dishes in the restaurants, work in the countryside, and paint houses. ey
are irregularly employed, and they contribute to the vast informal economy
created by the natives. But as mentioned above, the Roma in particular have
created their own informal economy, one which scarcely transects the Sicilian-
dominated one.
5.1 Bottles
e Roma engage in mostly entrepreneurial activities that involve no more
than two people. For instance, the artisanal production I mentioned earlier
consists of bottles being melted and reshaped in an artistic manner. In one case,
the activities involve two people in the household – the father and one son.
ere is a division of labor: the son produces the bottles, and the father sells
them in the local fairs and street markets. Both of them nd the bottles in the
street, in bars, etc. en, the bottles are cleaned and production starts. Using
a technique they invented, the father and son melt the bottles by means of a
homemade electric device and asbestos. Given the components of the process,
this manufacturing activity is dangerous: bottles may explode, electric shocks
may occur, and asbestos is likely to cause serious diseases. To make a bottle
takes ve minutes, and each piece is sold at the fair for (or for three bot-
tles). On a quite regular basis, they provide a shop in Palermo with bottles.
In this case, each bottle is sold for to the shopkeeper (who will sell it for ).
5.2 Selling hash
Another typical activity is selling hash. Here the interplay between state and
immigrants is more obvious. Roma are not “big sh,” so to say. ey sell rela-
tively small quantities of this substance (they never buy more than of it,
usually much less). e quality of the drugs they sell is generally low. Moreover,
other drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, have become more popular among
consumers. Although such drugs promise greater prots, the Roma do not
want to enter that market. ey do not really consider hash a drug, a notion
which helps them not feel guilty. is process of rationalization may be con-
sidered a form of neutralization aiming at “denying the injury,” as Matza and
Sykes () put it. Anyway, Ibelieve that the formal legal perspective, which is
implicit in the concept of neutralization, does not take into account the struc-
tural bounds of agency. In order to get by, these actors have a few options and
selling hash is rational both in economic and legal terms. is activity allows
the Roma to make a living and support their families; at the same time, it is
an illegal activity which is tolerated and, in the specic framework in which
this crime takes place, the chances of arousing the interest of the police are
relatively small. Furthermore, they think that the police share this opinion and
will turn a blind eye to their activity. Subsequently, clients are not many and the
earnings are quite limited. Buyers are mostly young Tunisians and lower-class
Italians. Transactions take place in apartments, and the dealers try not to let
parents notice what is happening. e individuals who knock on their doors
are usually known people, and the Roma try to avoid bigger concentrations of
buyers near their houses in order not to raise the attention of the police.
What of the police? Is it possible that they do not know what happens in
Roma neighborhoods? I claim that they do, but, as the Roma themselves
suggest, the police pretend not to notice because the scale of the trac is so
small and they know that this activity provides Roma households with min-
imal means of survival. Iclaim that there is a tacit agreement among the cops
and these small-size traders: as long as the Roma limit their activities, remain
unobtrusive, and avoid the street, the police do not intervene. Isuggest that,
from the ocers’ perspective, hash represents a non-problem that is an accept-
able trade-o in terms of public order.
Finally, one may think that those who sell hash might be able to take “loans”
from their providers (consisting of a few hundred grams of hash to reimburse
in some weeks). But our Roma do not want to have debts of this sort with
trackers. is precaution protects them from risks deriving from a heavier
involvement with organized crime and “real criminals.”
5.3 Music
Finally, Iturn to a third kind of activity, music. e anthropological literature
has largely highlighted the importance of music in the Roma’s economy. First,
one might mention Beynon (); Silverman (, ); Stewart ();
Slobin (); but one limitation of the reported literature is that most of the
authors deal with the role of music in the Eastern-European Roma commu-
nities. In my opinion, there are many common elements in the experiences
of Roma in Western and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, the Western European
ethnic and non-ocial music market has smaller dimensions, and it is spatially
fragmented. Most of the cities host small communities of Roma, and for the
gage Roma’s music is not appealing. In other words, non-Roma do not rep-
resent part of the expected audience – unlike Eastern-Europe, where Roma
music is quite popular among the gage people, whether Roma are not. For this
reason, local markets are usually very small and the musicians are forced to
look for “gigs” out of the towns and, sometimes, out of the countries where they
reside (so that e.g. Italian-Roma musicians go to Germany and vice versa). is
implies big eorts by the musicians to develop either transregional or transna-
tional networks, high costs and, subsequently, higher fees and less appeal for the
organizers of the events (who are unlikely to pay a musician whose reputation
is not consolidated yet). Although in Italy one would not nd entire commu-
nities of professional musicians like the Lautari in Romania (Beissinger ),
music fullls an important role in the life of these groups. Like in Kodolányi’s
account (reported by Beynon : ), young Roma musicians feel they are
the “aristocrats of their race”: in the villages the artisan Gypsies oen raised
themselves in the social scale by becoming musicians. ey gave up making
their wooden spoons and formed small orchestras with some companions;
then they used to go from village to village and from fair to fair, educating
themselves little by little. All that they needed was the listener who directs their
eorts and imposes the correct musical style upon them. In the meantime
nothing has really changed, and the musicians of this Sicilian community fol-
low the same path and share the same aspirations of artisans in the old villages.
Music is certainly a means for earning money with little eort; but rst
of all, it is a way to gain reputation, consideration and fame within the local
community and outside of it – that is, among the Roma communities resid-
ing in other cities and states. According to the musicians and the other mem-
bers of the group as well (the audience that “directs and imposes the correct
style,” as argued by Kodolányi), a musician is expected “to nd the words
and make people cry”; that is, the sentiment of the lyrics must accord with
Roma public values (Kertész-Wilkinson : ), and the musician should
embody the stories, the pain, the nostalgia, and the joy of the audience in front
of which he performs. By giving voice to these collective and individual stories
and sentiments, the artist gains reputation and becomes a “hero.” ough in
order to understand musicians’ motivations, fame and reputation do not suf-
ce. Other aspects, mostly economic in nature, should be kept into account.
In Roma communities, life is accompanied by a permanent soundtrack. e
music plays loudly from the speakers all the time. Parties without musicians
are inconceivable (Williams ). Also, celebrations and parties in general are
extremely frequent: circumcisions, marriages, religious festivities, and events
of every sort represent good reasons to party. Moreover, the fertility rates in
these communities guarantee a steady ow of new baptisms and circumcisions.
For this reason, music represents one of the highest form of entrepreneurial
behavior among the Roma. Moreover, it is important to bear in mind that key-
boards have replaced the bands composed of three or more musicians, making
playing an ever more individual activity. Staiti (), for example, argues that
mobile phones, video cameras, and satellite dishes are the new instruments
of an ancient oral tradition. Likewise, saxophones, drum-sets, and electronic
keyboards have substituted almost completely the surle and the daouli, the
oboes and the two-skin drums that the Roma themselves once spread across
the Balkan (see also Pettan ). Yet, famous musicians have the chance to
play all over Italy and also abroad, mostly in Germany. For each party, a musi-
cian is expected to earn at least ,; but he is likely to earn much more than
that thanks to the guests’ gratuities.
Any analysis of the economic aspects of the music would be incom-
plete without noting the role of new technologies and the industry that has
developed around it. Recording and video studios, homemade CD and DVD
print shops, and graphic studios have been started. YouTube, MySpace, and
other similar networks are utilized by the musicians in order to enlarge their
audience. Producing videos has become a must for musicians, and many direc-
tors and technicians have appeared on the scene to assist in their production.
As a result, this particular ethnic music market has become so crowded that it
is as hard for these musicians to gain fame, popularity, and money as it is for
mainstream artists.
6. Discussion: Informal labor market and social advancement
With regard to their structural characteristics and role, the activities described
above have a very limited impact on the ocial economy. In other words, they
do not create mutual forms of dependency and do not intersect each other by
inuencing the cost of labor and the price of the goods. We may describe this
specic ethnic niche in the simplest way as a parallel articulation of the market.
Research suggests that milieus that are very complex with regard to extension
of informal activities do not provide social groups with equal chances of inser-
tion. Informal markets are generally as articulated as formal ones. As we know,
the success of informal business depends on the extension of the networks,
the skills of the individuals involved, and demand (Ponsaers, Shapland, and
Williams ; Vande Walle ).
Although the cases of informal economic activity I studied are certainly not
successful, they do play an important role at an individual level, and the impor-
tance of this element should not be undervalued. e idea that the informal
and self-entrepreneurial activities I described should be read as “acts of resist-
ance” (Scott ; Bourdieu ) has been met with harsh criticism (Ortner
). However, in my view, the idea of resistance, already used in the studies
of the Roma (Asséo ; Piasere ; Spinelli ), has given an impetus to
the anthropological studies of politics encouraging the study of politics from
“below,” in the context of everyday life. e concept of hegemony throws doubt
on the processes of legitimation and consent; its critics, however, maintain that
many of the studies of resistance which it inspires suer from essentialism and
romanticism, particularly when they come to describing the intentions of the
poor (see Stoler ; Abu-Lughod ). e most serious limitation of these
studies has been aptly described in terms of an “ethnographic denial,” that is,
the refusal of thick description. For instance, in the words of Ortner (: ),
Resistance studies are thin because they are ethnographically thin: in on the internal
politics of dominated groups, thin on the cultural richness of those groups, thin on the
subjectivity—the intentions, desires, fears, projects—of the actors engaged in those
dramas.
Afocus on the resistance to domination has oen involved a curious assump-
tion of internal homogeneity, at times an assumed backwardness of “culture”
(e.g. in religious beliefs) as well as a somewhat instrumental view of polit-
ics (Days et al. ). Rubin () and Leblanc () argue that the con-
ceptualization of resistance requires three distinct moments: (a) a subjective
account of the real or imagined oppression; (b) an express desire to counter
that oppression; and (c) an action (broadly dened as word, thought, or deed)
intended specically to counter that oppression. Other scholars, nally, have
also highlighted that that the term resistance should be limited to situations
where actors and observers are equally aware of the resistance act (Hollander
and Einwohner : ).
I believe that the Roma in Mazara del Vallo provide us with an example of
“semi-overt” resistance: their actions are in fact explicitly intended as resist-
ance by the Roma and recognized as such (but only up to a certain extent) by
their targets, the Italian authorities and citizens. e Italians do not conceptu-
alize the Roma’s actions as “resistance” but react to them, if possible, through
incarceration or deportation; moreover, they develop a discourse on the Roma
that labels them unt to work. Finally, the observer (that is I) acknowledges
the actors’ partial awareness, through their own words and by analysis of their
courses of action.
In practice, the Roma are aware that they earn as little in performing these
deviant jobs as they would by working for others (typically, Italian employers
seeking undocumented employees). But they would work much harder than
they do now, and in a hostile environment as the “black labor” relationships
are characterized by hardship and suspicion (Saitta ). Certainly, one may
claim that entrepreneurial activities of this sort do not represent resistance in
itself, either because they are embedded in the normal dynamics of capital-
ism or because they are part of a common process of insertion that character-
izes immigrants’ trajectory in liberal states. Nevertheless, the conceptualized
refusal of these immigrants to enter the local, underpaid, and exploitative labor
market should not be understood merely in rational terms, that is, as a logic-
al economic choice. None of these jobs provides these people with chances
either of success or of “living comfortably” – that is, by the standards of the
working-class (the only class they may aim to emulate). e Roma are fully
aware of it but they explicitly refuse to join the army of immigrants employed
in elds, in restaurants, and on shing boats. Even when no resource of any
kind is any longer available, they declare that they would never accept to join
the mass of immigrants who sell their lives for so little money. It is true that,
from time to time they are likely to go against their principles, for example,
when their children are really starving, and there is no way to earn money
otherwise; but their relation to subordinate work is purely instrumental and
mostly occasional. Most of the Roma living in the area regularized their status
in , aer a mass amnesty. Many of them took a license for street vending
and were able to fulll the requirements and have been issued a work visa.
Afew of them became street vendors and still perform this activity (clothes
and toys are the items they sell in the fairs); the rest of them did this job for a
short period, and today pay the yearly taxes that allow them to renew both the
license and visa, but no longer sell on the streets.
e majority of the Roma had short experiences in restaurants, construction,
industry, and services. With few exceptions, none kept their job for more than
a few weeks (usually, for a day or two). e chances of having either a regular
job or a job that does not imply any form of abuse or exploitation are quite
low in Mazara del Vallo. Illiterate or semi-illiterate, unskilled, with no reputa-
tion, without documents most of their lives, most of the Roma I studied have
never had any chance of experiencing relatively safe and well-paid jobs. Indeed,
under certain circumstances, these immigrants are likely to seek and obtain a
regular job. Otherwise, they could not fulll the eligibility requirements for
a permit, but usually there is a trade-o: the employer will ask the worker to
pay the taxes and contributions that by law the employer himself should pay;
otherwise, the employer will withdraw the “family check” that the state gives
workers as a support measure, whose amount depends on the number of chil-
dren living in his household. Oen, the employer will do both these things.
Moreover, one should ask what “regular employment” means. In fact, normally
the employer will ask the employee to work longer hours and he will not pay
him adequately for the extra hours. Yet, workers’ functions change all the time,
and the employee is likely to perform dangerous tasks with no training at all
and for a very low wage (between and a day). As a consequence, the
Roma can occasionally establish agreements with Italian employers, but these
will be either admittedly ctitious or instrumental and short-lived as they are
only aimed at fullling the amnesty requirements.
In sum, none of the Roma rejects the idea of working in itself; they only
refuse what they openly conceptualize as “exploitation.” By doing so, they
seem to reproduce traditional cultural traits such as the idea that it is possible
to live without working and producing, existing instead through the market,
in Williams’ words (: –). All these activities depended, it was said,
on being “lucky,” on having gone out and “tried one’s luck” in the non-Gypsy
world. Notwithstanding that, Ibelieve it is wrong to overemphasize the impor-
tance of the traditional cultural elements. e existing literature on marginal
communities in the metropolitan areas of the West shows similar forms of
rejection of subordinate work among non-gypsies (Clark ; Liebow ;
Bourgeois ; Duneier ). Moreover, the insistence on traditional culture
implies a monolithic vision of culture. As Tauber (: –) suggests, the
debate on authentic vs. non-authentic Gypsy culture is indeed obsolete, for
this is a culture that lives, survives, and creates itself among non-Roma. Tauber
sees Roma culture as a continuous creative process that includes non-Gypsies
in their world view, using, transforming, and re-interpreting the latter’s cul-
tural and material features. It is a continual process of re-invention and recrea-
tion of the cosmos in which the non-Roma play a fundamental part. is is
probably why, despite the role of the traditional gipsy ethos on work, the dier-
ences between the approach of the Roma toward labor and that of native local
sub-proletarians appear to be slight. Both groups deal with the same structure
of opportunity, and their adjustment depends probably more on the interplay
with the surrounding society than on any xed cultural traits.
However, it would also be incorrect to claim that there is no dierence
between the native poor and the Roma. Although both groups deal with simi-
lar problems, the Roma experience a surplus of diculties (mostly related to
their legal status, the label applied to them, and so forth). As I noted before, in
the course of time the Roma in Mazara del Vallo decided to struggle against
their eternal destiny as outsiders: settling down in the town as they have done
is the clearest evidence of their resistance. In this context of struggle, their
approach to work is one more expression of their will to oppose the very local
social order and its hierarchies.
In particular, Iargue that informal and autonomous jobs aect the identity
of these immigrants positively. Although they oen experience frustration and
nd these jobs not remunerative, they feel that they are experiencing a sort of
advancement. e young members of the community proudly claim that “they
do not beg for money” as their parents and they themselves did during their
own childhood. Although they perceive themselves as poor (and in fact are
in comparison with the natives) their pride and self-consciousness are amply
rewarded. ey feel almost free from the exploitative Sicilian labor market, and
the economic restrictions are an acceptable price for their emancipation from
local employers’ abuse. Moreover, it is important to highlight that their repre-
sentation of the labor market as highly exploitative is not framed in an “ethnic”
discourse: members of the community do not counterpose the Roma and the
non-Roma worlds. Rather, they point out that the “Mazaresi are exploiters and
they suck. Mazara del Vallo sucks!” As they dene the surrounding environ-
ment in these terms, the young members of the community state at the same
time that sooner or later “they will go north!” where it is easier to nd jobs in
restaurants and factories, and having la regola (that is, a regular work contract,
needed to renew the permits). But this talk resembles that of natives in the
same age-group (Cava ), and cannot be easily interpreted in the light of
specic cultural categories (e.g. Roma vis-à-vis non-Roma culture). Rather,
these representations reect, in my view, the insertion of the younger members
of this community in the economic and cultural structure of southern Italian
society. For the young Roma as well as for the young Sicilians, Mazara del
Vallo represents in fact the idea of both “home” and “trap.” For both the Roma
and the natives, the town limits and hinders personal development; most of
the young people, regardless of their nationality, think they do not have many
chances to improve their lives, and claim that one day they shall leave. But
when they put this idea into practice, their departure is oen not denitive;
many, in fact, come back at some point. It is a consequence of the general
economic structure of Italy, which, especially in the lower segments of the
labor market, does not provide adequate wages and rejects the less motivated
internal migrants (Berti and Zanotelli ). By necessity or by choice, Mazara
del Vallo is a loved–hated “home base” that entraps, rescues, and rejects its
inhabitants, regardless of their national or foreign status.
Finally, in the state’s view, these individuals are unwanted but realistically
cannot be easily deported. Actually, the new disposable legal tools would make
this task easier than in the past. e current Italian act on immigration, “Legge
Bossi-Fini” (), is in fact very tough on illegal immigrants. In , the
newly elected government has passed a new act (“Decreto Sicurezza”), which
introduces the crime of “clandestine immigration.” Anyway, despite the dec-
. In fact, some of them put into practice this project and joined some relatives in the north of
Italy (Lombardia).
. Of course, the relationships between the states and the immigrants are too complex to be
investigated in the space of a few lines. For an eective historical analysis, see Zolberg ().
larations of the proponents, Mr. Berlusconi’s government in provided
the largest amnesty in European history (, illegal immigrants were
legalized), and a new amnesty was announced the day aer the new Decreto
Sicurezza was approved. e implicit contradictions in the legal apparatus
(amnesties and regularizations) have allowed the Roma to obtain permits and
visa. At this point, the Roma became part of the landscape and they cannot be
easily removed. eir presence is not structural, that is, needed by the local
rms. Nevertheless, due to the small number of people belonging to the group,
they have been included in the new Italian underclass. e combination of
ethnic informal economy, informal legal practices, and the ambivalence of
national regulation has produced the conditions needed to stabilize the pres-
ence of this group.
My hypothesis is that through informal practices and the other strategies
it employs in its relation with the institutions and the surrounding environ-
ment, the observed community challenges the ideological, legal and material
apparatus that has erroneously labeled its members as “nomads,” revealing its
incapacity to comprehend the logic of the “others” (the Roma). e adoption of
legal strategies to avoid immigration laws, the frequent contacts with lawyers
and authorities, are a way to claim their right to stay in Italy and live a stable life.
In this perspective, Radjo and the others embody Schutz’s criticism to Weber’s
theory. Schutz () distinguishes the dierent meanings that an action has
for the subject who undertakes it (the institutions, in our example) and for
the alter (the Roma). In other words, in order to be considered “rational” and
“sensible,” social actions must be based on a common experiential ground, and
on the actors’ consensus on the employed signs (verbal and non-verbal dimen-
sions, symbols, etc.). Bearing this denition in mind, Iposit that the short
circuit of the policies and of the emergency-based approach of the European
common discourse on immigration (Bonifazi ) originates in part from the
actors’ lack of agreement on the ultimate meaning of their moves. For many
years, local authorities, political parties, civic associations, and public agencies
have acted as if the Roma were impenitent nomads; on their part, the Roma
aimed at settling down but they were not understood by their counterparts. In
sum, their respective actions were not inserted in a communicative ow that
could produce reciprocal understanding. In our example, if the states and the
police force in Italy and Europe have treated Radjo and his friends as nomads,
and for decades have pushed them away from the place they were occupying
(in Apulia, Sardinia, Germany, etc.), what else could Radjo and the others do if
not run away to escape deportation? Apragmatic answer could be that, instead
of moving from town to town, Radjo and his family should have found a job,
stopped begging and stealing, and shown their willingness to get included in
“normal” society. is option, however, was not viable because in Radjo’s view
“people like him do not work regular jobs.” In his perspective, in fact, nobody
employs the “Gypsies” and for him there are not many options le apart from
using the “nomadic,” “parasitical,” and “predatory” practices to make a living
that he has learned in the course of his experience. It is not by chance, there-
fore, that this vicious circle gets partially interrupted when the involved actors
(authorities and the Roma) come to an agreement in the context of informal
practices (the concession of the decrepit houses in the casbah). is agreement
beyond the boundaries of the law – the only possible space – is a moment of a
signicant change. Since then, in fact, the Roma community was able to settle
down and develop new perspectives about itself. Ahouse, documents, a job
and the hope for a decent life became possible expectations for the members of
the community.
erefore, Iclaim that “informality” acted as a paradoxical means for rst-
level inclusion – an occurrence that suggests the opportunity of avoiding
repressive policies inspired by zero-tolerance principles and the importance
of supporting the slow process of insertion of those immigrants who live on
the borders of legality. If this support should not be provided, Italy will likely
witness new generations of Roma and other immigrants be denied the oppor-
tunity for any kind of social mobility, and this situation will increase the num-
ber of incarcerations and reproduce the worst forms of marginality. Moreover,
one should bear in mind that groups such as the one I studied have already
reached the third generation. Without being “deterministic,” classic studies
show that second and future generations tend to have higher crime rates than
the rst ones (Sellin ; Hirshi ; Killias ; Sampson, Moreno, and
Raudenbush ). In fact, Radjo and his relative’s children, who are second
generation (or “. generation,” if one employs Rumbaut and Portes’s ()
label), are involved in crimes like drug tracking that require a better know-
ledge of the local environment and are, from the perspective of the law, worst
oences than those perpetrated by their parents (although the idea of perform-
ing legal jobs is still part of the mental horizons of the young Roma). Iargue
that Radjo’s grandchildren, who are now under nine years of age, may in the
future consider criminal careers and exclude legal jobs from their perspective
(a “choice” adopted, for example, by many young Tunisians living in the casbah,
despite their belonging to the immigrant working class of shermen and agri-
cultural workers, and to families who, in general, aim at a better education for
their children (Sbraccia and Saitta ). In fact they have already learned “to
open cars” and sneak in the shops’ storage areas to steal sweets. eir parents
do not tolerate their behavior and scold them severely. Nevertheless, parents
do not have the necessary moral authority to discipline their children because
they themselves express ambivalence with regard to the law, and the children
perceive the ultimate contradictions which characterize their parents’ approach
to legality. Moreover, just like the Sinti studied by Gomes () and Tauber
(: ), neither parents nor children see the school as particularly helpful
in overcoming discrimination or making a living. Most of the Roma residing
in Mazara del Vallo have no particular ambition with regard to schooling and
most of them do not see education as a provider of a better future. Moreover,
while Tauber (: ) reports that to be a child among the Sinti means to
grow up in a very controlled surroundings, and that children until the age of
ten or twelve are not allowed to hang around town, not even if accompanied by
other relatives, the reality experienced by the little Roma in Mazara del Vallo
is very dierent. ey are allowed to go out by themselves at the age of ve or
six and spend much time with cousins and older relatives in their houses and
in the streets of the town. is exposes them to the cultural inuence of the
external society, develops their knowledge of the local milieu, and helps their
insertion in the local society (included the “deviant cliques” of both ethnic and
natives that operate in the historical center of the town).
erefore, this combination of poor education, family ambivalence, and
“ecological” inuences does not bode well for a regular insertion of the young-
est members of the community into mainstream Italian society.
In this scenario, we may expect that the authorities will be tempted to solve
the problem by getting rid of the immigrants who cause it, and by reinfor-
cing the law. But as I have said, these Roma are no longer illegal and they can
hardly be deported en masse. In the course of time, some of them may lose
their regular status but most are quite likely to maintain their positions in one
way or another. Far from being deported, they are joining the class of national
sub-proleratians and adopting the same means for getting by. Moreover, the
Roma are joining the lumpen not only because they occupy the same position
in the social and economical hierarchy, but also because they are starting to
marry Italian men and women who belong to this class (mostly people with
low wages, no education, unstable jobs, and criminal records).
In a situation of this sort, authorities should intervene to prevent outsiders
new and old from choosing marginal positions. But the police measures which
have hitherto been implemented by the present government are likely to
reproduce marginality and siphon o resources destined to other initiatives.
In fact, one should bear in mind that Italy’s current right-wing government
has based much of its success on the promise of cutting taxes. A few days
aer the Berlusconi government was installed, the rst tax to be cut was
the ICI – a local property tax that represented the main source of income for
municipal governments. City services depend mostly on local taxes, and so
these cuts appear to benet only the citizens; in fact, the trade-o is indirect
for it will probably result in fewer services and a worsening in the performance
of the public administration. Yet, we should still put these cuts in the context
of rising xenophobia among voters, who complain about the competition of
immigrants in housing, school, etc.
In short, the risk is that the local administrations will prefer not to invest
in services that address the needs of foreigners, and increasingly assign to the
police the task of coping with marginality by means of arrests and expulsions.
To a signicant extent, this picture already corresponds to the present situation
in Italy. But my claim is that an eective response should aim at addressing the
causes of social disorganization rather than just adopt new criminal policies.
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