Principiis Obsta: Strategies of narrative resistance to Italian organized crime governance /

Abstract

Organized crime controls and exploits the communities where they operate by way of governance. Organized crime governance also manifests itself through master narratives, which are standard views of social reality. In response, people can express resistance through alternative narratives, which are counter-narratives that have the power to counter governance. This study is one of the first to analyze the counter-narratives used to counter governance by organized crime. Drawing on fifty semi-structured interviews of people who claimed to have had direct or indirect experiences with members of organized crime, it was possible to identify three types of counter-narratives–“Rejecting unethical entrepreneurship,” “Denying organized crime fascination” and “Making the pervasiveness of organized crime governance irrelevant “–and to determine which of them has greater potency in countering the master narratives of organized crime governance.