Growing in Mafia Territories

Abstract

As a theoretical extension of other previous studies, this work represents an improvement of the notions about the relationship between adolescence and Mafia. The research has been aiming at exploring teenagers’ universe within specific social contexts where the presence of criminal organizations is significant, focusing the attention on the modalities through which evolutionary tasks are coped with in contexts with high Mafia density and often characterized by a perception of social space that makes personal, financial, and political development problematic. The research has involved 93 teenagers who live in southern regions where the presence of Mafia organizations (Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, and Cosa Nostra) is significant. Six focus groups have been carried out, recorded, and transcribed. Verbalizations were analyzed through appropriate qualitative templates, which allowed detecting of three thematic macro-areas: representations of Mafia, emotions connected to it, and planning skills. The qualitative analysis of transcriptions points out that the presence of Mafia organizations, the contiguity between legal and illegal symbolic–cultural codes, the commonality of belonging matrices, and sharing the same symbolic and social spaces are all elements that violently enter these teenagers’ identification and release paths, deeply influencing them.