Father and honour man. “Cosa nostra” as a moral framework in familistic enculturation

Abstract

The article presents the third part of a quali-quantitative survey that points out the representation of gender roles and their implications on the basis of the texts provided by the group of study directed by Girolamo Lo Verso. The survey is divided in three parts and in its wholeness it is oriented to improve the discussion on the possibilities to modify the networks that hold familism and the dynamics of the mafia. In fact the conviction of the researchers is that the recognition of the symbolic system on which the relationships are constructed may be changed. Another point of reference of the whole research is that the same symbolic pattern recognition may orientate the social intervention and its work in the construction of new cultural model, different from the traditional ones that correspond to the subculture of the mafia. In this article, on one hand, we resume what pointed out in the previous two parts of the whole research (Testoni, 2007a; Testoni, et al. 2008) and, on the other hand, we discuss some important aspects about the masculine role. In specific, we recognise in the figure of the “father” a bond of “familistic iperconnection” that ties micro and macro-system. In fact, it may be considered as the pivot of the meso-system of “cosa nostra”, because it is the traitunion between old and new mafias. The hypothesis is that the paternal model serves as moral framework in the anomic criminal systems