La Regione Sicilianista. Antropologia dell’Assessorato dei Beni culturali e dell’Identità Siciliana

The problem of defining local identities has been at the center of the interests of anthropologists since the mid-nineteenth century and throughout the first half of the twentieth century. We can say that the elaboration of the concept of culture for generations of anthropologists was the basis of the substantialist conception of identities, whether ethnic, national, religious or linguistic. As I tried to clarify in the first chapter of the thesis, the last decades of the twentieth century and the early 2000s were strongly marked by a new vision of the concept of culture and cultural identity, as a process and not as a substance, as a construction and not as a static thing. This paradigm applies to identities which, especially during the twentieth century, were used politically to separate, discriminate, persecute, to the point of genocide. A perverse mechanism that involves both the production and use of stereotypes from outside the group concerned, and of stereotypes self-produced by the group itself, in a sort of disemia (distance) between what is the representation of a social group made by outsiders and what is the group in question’s representation of itself. In the research I present I have chosen to deal with the Sicilian case, which is not different from other particular cases, but which presents very interesting characteristics, constituting an emblematic example. In the second, third and fifth chapters I highlighted which are these “particular” characteristics that make the Sicilian example very useful for understanding the cultural, historical and social mechanisms of the relationships between the gaze from the outside and the gaze from the inside. In summary, we can say that Sicily, from ancient times to the contemporary age, has a history of colonization and contamination which has made it a very interesting laboratory of linguistic, cultural, political and religious exchanges. Furthermore, its geographical location, as an island within the Mediterranean Sea, has allowed it to cross fruitful and prolific civilizations also on an artistic, urban and technological level. In particular, I focused on narrative techniques (such as literature, photography, cinematography) which are able to “construct” narrated identities according to pre-established stereotypes. Furthermore, the rise of Sicilianist ideologies and separatist yearnings contribute to making the Sicilian case interesting. The origin of the research was the story of the transformation of the Department of Cultural Heritage which placed the theme of cultural identity at the center of regional policies. The case study, analyzed in the fourth chapter, was born when, with article 4 of the law of the Sicilian Region n.19, of 16 December 2008, the Department of Cultural Heritage changed its name, adding “and of the Sicilian identity”. It was a significant act by the newly elected president of the Sicily region, the Hon. Raffaele Lombardo, who founded the Movement for Autonomy in 2005. Movement that started from the Special Statute, accentuating its autonomist aspects. Lombardo wanted to recover the issues forgotten since the defeat of separatism in the 1940s. With presidential decree n.12 of 5 December 2009, the regulation was approved which in art. 2 established the regions within the departments. The region Cultural Heritage and Sicilian identity was established at the Department of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity: archaeological, architectural, archival, library, ethno-anthropological and historical-artistic heritage; protection of assets and promotion and enhancement of Sicilian tradition and identity. I was able to reconstruct the story, beyond the papers, thanks to four interviews carried out with institutional subjects: the current councilor for the Cultural Heritage and Sicilian identity Alberto Samonà (now replaced after the 2022 elections), and the councilor for the Cultural Heritage before the change of name, Fabio Granata; as well as two managers involved at that time, Gesualdo Campo and Sergio Todesco. In the sixth chapter I reported on a series of interviews held with Sicilian students in Messina and Sicilian-Americans in New York, Long Island. Summing up as best as possible, we can say that young Sicilians perceive themselves as part of a handed down culture, but they place emphasis above all on their belonging to an Italian and global culture that escapes the stereotype of the Sicilian cart and the cannoli, typical Sicilian stereotypes. However, the charm of an identity that cinema and literature have made “strong” remains strong. I would like to point out that my scholarship was paid for by the Sicilian Region and included 6 months abroad over the three-year period. The mission to the USA was useful, where the presence of Sicilians is strong in the population, even in the collective imagination. Both on Long Island and in Manhattan and Brooklyn, especially in the second part of my mission, I was able to meet various people and families with whom I could do interviews, some of which were very interesting. In particular, I reflected on something new to include in my doctoral thesis. These are the traces of the memory of a Sicilian (but also Italian) identity that in Sicily we struggle to maintain and which there, instead, is part of the shared heritage of both the Sicilian-American community and, more generally, of American society. I have collected images and statements in this sense which I intended to elaborate in an organic and, I hope, convincing way. I hypothesize that precisely those characteristics and cultural signs that weighed so heavily on the capacity for integration of Sicilians in New York in the years 1880-1960, often branded as mafiosi, illiterate, poor, last in history, today overturn the perspective and appear in a multicultural and intercultural as positive characteristics and signs. There is not only recognition or self-recognition, but the representation of an image which, in the meantime, has been structured and revealed its multifaceted face. One interviewee, for example, believes that the film The Godfather, whose fiftieth anniversary was celebrated in 2022, has now become a classic; it is seen and studied in schools and universities; transcends the ethical evaluation of the story told. Mirably, this interviewee of mine grasped a crucial point: literature or cinema, in their work of building the identity of a social group (in this case the Sicilian community of New York), can go further and relaunch sensations, perceptions and unexpected feelings.