The ‘Camorra’ in the public debate: images, topoi, turning points

Attention towards the “Camorra” has been very uneven in Italian public debate. Considered up to recent times as a minor form of the Mafia, and often identified with the general history of the urban popular classes of Naples, the Camorra has only rarely drawn the attention of intellectuals and opinion makers, mostly in coincidence with important trials (such as in the Cuocolo case at the beginning of the XX century, or in the Cutolo case during the Eighties). At the same time, however, myths and stories about the “setta” (secret society) have nourished a very rich production of literary and fictional narratives. In this paper we intend to analyze the patterns and categories that scholars, opinion makers, and politicians have used to represent organized crime in Campania from the Fascism to the beginning of the Republican era: what social categories, what political concepts do they use to interpret the phenomenon? What turning points do they identify in the history of organized crime in Campania? These questions will be addressed in the analysis of newspapers, of judicial chronicle, of political debates and pamphlets in the period under consideration.