four - Premodernity and postmodernity in Southern Italy

Summary

Is Southern Italy (il Mezzogiorno) the most economically underdeveloped and culturally traditional part of the country, in the throes of the processes of ‘detraditionalisation’ and individualisation? Is there a waning of the influence of tradition, which, although ‘freeing’ the individual from the bonds of the past, brings with it the eradication of frames of reference and exposure to uncertainty?

Does the dismantling of life trajectories associated with the demise of the ‘job for life’ model make it impossible to plan the future according to a shared social calendar?

Does the collapse of collective allegiances and solidarity give rise in turn to a process of individualisation, and leave responsibility for decision making entirely to the individual? If so, how do these processes manifest themselves, and what effects do they have on individual life stories?

And, ultimately, what implications do such issues have for social policy?

This chapter seeks answers to these questions.

It may seem strange to pose the question of whether a reality such as Southern Italy can remain wholly intact in the face of such overarching phenomena. Their connection to the globalisation process alone seems to suggest its pervasiveness. To suggest that intractable backwardness/tradition might act as a form of antibody, or antidote, rendering this part of the country impervious to change, may even seem misleading. Nevertheless, the view presented here is that this is a legitimate question, and one that deserves attention. The combination of the common conceptualisation of globalised, flexible, postindustrial, late-modern society – or however else one wishes to define it – as the society of the future, and the equally deep-seated tendency to view the South as the locus of the past and of premodernity, can easily generate misunderstanding. For example, consider the way that Southerners, experts in the art of ‘making do’ by doing a myriad of jobs in the underground economy, are seen as being at an advantage when it comes to withstanding the conditions of ‘fluidity’ imposed by the new social and economic order, and which has flexibility as its cornerstone.

As with any field of enquiry, it is possible to address the issue at hand in a variety of ways. The approach adopted here takes the form of a comparison between the biographies of two Neapolitans, Filippo and Franco.