The Biopower of the Oldest Mafia: Economics, Biopolitics, and Ecology in Mediterranean Society

Abstract

This dissertation, The Biopower of the Oldest Mafia: Economics, Biopolitics, and Ecology in Mediterranean Society, tracks the evolution of the Camorra criminal organization through a literary and cinematic study of its representations. I propose that we understand the Camorra not only as a global economic force but also as a modern technology of power that affects biological life of a vast population. Drawing on Fredric Jameson’s work on postmodernism and his notion of pastiche, merged with a biopolitical framework, I deconstruct a genre of popular movies known as “Neapolitan Westerns,” as well as literary texts such as Giuseppe Marrazzo’s Il camorrista (1984), Nanni Balestrini’s Sandokan (2004), and Roberto Saviano’s Gomorra (2006). Through the lens of these cultural products, my work shows how the Camorra created a totalitarian society, based on the ghettoization of migrants from different African countries, notably Nigeria. My research also draws a parallel between the Camorra and the French criminal organization, known as the milieu marseillais, operating in Southern France. Through the analysis of TV shows, movies, and novels, I demonstrate how over the last century the Marseille Mafia has shaped the geopolitics of the Mediterranean by exploiting the strategic position of the port of Marseille. In this way, the Marseille Mafia has exercised a pervasive power over North African migrants and controlled the flow of people and capital from former French colonies. The Biopower of the Oldest Mafia moves away from the long-standing literary, anthropological, and historical paradigm which considers the Camorra, and other Italian Mafias, either as the result of the backwardness of Southern Italian society or as a pathological articulation of the economic system. By using the notion of biopower, I demonstrate that the Camorra is a dynamic social system. I reveal its role as a transnational criminal organization affecting the biological life of millions of people by imposing precise sexual behaviors, regulating race relations, and systematically devastating the Mediterranean habitat in the name of profit. Finally, my analysis of the biopower exercised by the Camorra provides essential clues about the operating procedures of Mafia-like criminal organizations throughout the world.