Salvatore Giusto
Salvatore Giusto is a Ph.D. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology (University of Toronto, 2019) currently working as a Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar at the University Pompeu Fabra's Department of Communication (Barcelona, Spain). His ethnographic research work reflects a sustained interest in how state-regulated and organized-crime-managed processes of cultural production, media circulation, and publicity formation respectively operate within Euro-Mediterranean contexts historically connoted by systemic conditions of capitalist and crypto-colonial exploitation, such as the southern regions of the Italian peninsula, as well as the pivotal role that these dynamics of social (mass-)mediation play within current subaltern politics on a transnational scale.
Salvatore is the author of several research articles in socio-cultural anthropology, qualitative criminology, and critical social theory, published in various top-tier journals including "Visual Anthropology", "PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review", "Global Crime", and the "Journal of Modern Italian Studies". His scholarly work complements his parallel activities as a literary author (2000, "Ritzomena: Cose che Danzano"), documentary film-maker (2014, "Good Time for a Change"), and digital magazine editor (2021-present, www.deephinterland.it), as well as his burning passion for “old school” horror movies, horse riding, and home-made Sicilian cuisine.
Salvatore is the author of several research articles in socio-cultural anthropology, qualitative criminology, and critical social theory, published in various top-tier journals including "Visual Anthropology", "PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review", "Global Crime", and the "Journal of Modern Italian Studies". His scholarly work complements his parallel activities as a literary author (2000, "Ritzomena: Cose che Danzano"), documentary film-maker (2014, "Good Time for a Change"), and digital magazine editor (2021-present, www.deephinterland.it), as well as his burning passion for “old school” horror movies, horse riding, and home-made Sicilian cuisine.
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enjoyed immense commercial success among the Southern Italian subaltern social classes, while having simultaneously ignited heated
interpretative conflicts on its supposedly subversive themes and modalities of artistic expression. Many critical voices within the
Italian mainstream media, national academia, and broader civil society have levelled accusations against neomelodica, claiming that it
propagates apologetic narratives regarding the Camorra, an extremely powerful and violent Neapolitan Mafia-like criminal organization.
According to these critics, neomelodic songs would foster symbolic links between the social identities and cultural heritage of the Neapolitan
poor (and the overall Southern Italian subaltern, often their primary target audience) and organized crime culture. Other commentators have taken less critical stances toward this controversial music genre. For example,
neomelodica has been lauded for providing the Southern Italian social peripheries—that is, some of the most marginalized areas of
contemporary Western Europe—with an original platform for public expression, as well as new counter-hegemonic modalities for affirming otherwise silenced subaltern forms of class-based cultural heritage through artistic means. As such, neomelodica (in tandem with the aesthetic tropes it inspires and its ongoing multimedia influence) would literally “give voice” to the underrepresented socio-political grievances of the lower-class inhabitants of these subaltern social spaces.
the mediascape of Naples, Southern Italy, since the late 1980s.
Neomelodic songs depict the experiences of lower-class
Neapolitan subjects with a preference for those engaging with
the Camorra, a powerful criminal organisation that is also a
major investor in the local media industries. This article constitutes
an exploration of the Camorra-mediated neomelodic milieu of
cultural production vis-à-vis the political landscape of the current
Neapolitan social peripheries. In so doing, it ethnographically
shows how the neomelodic modalities of cultural production
mediate and reify local forms of organised crime hegemony visà-
vis the discursive power of the state. Accordingly, it also demonstrates
how such modalities turn the neomelodic industry into a
relational infrastructure of subaltern publicity, which engenders
political dynamics of personal mobility and social identity construction
amid its sponsors, performers, and publics.
and Caserta, southern Italy, which was historically covered up by the national secret services. The widespread mass-mediation of such a dramatic news significantly impacted the local cultural sphere. At the same time, it elicited eclectic (re)actions among the dwellers of these two areas, which the media dubbed as the “Land of Fires.” This article ethnographically analyzes the “Land of Fires” case study as a discursive milieu that mirrors the relationships between power, cultural production,
and political change in neoliberal Italy. In so doing, it aims to redefine the contemporary Italian mediascape, which most academic literature describes as a “cynical” machine of political consent merely engendering “televised” subjectivities amid its publics, as an highly controversial (but still sophisticate and vibrant) space of socio-cultural production.
that have dominated the mediascape of
Naples, Italy, since the 1990s. Neomelodic
media productions depict the experiences of
marginal subjects often engaged in crime. In
spite of the unemployment endemic among
the Neapolitan lower class, the neomelodic
industry generates millions of euros. Most
of this money flows into the pockets of the
Camorra, which invests impressive amounts
of social and economic capital in the industry,
thus influencing its forms, values, and
cultural meanings. The paper focuses on the
coalescence between neomelodic aesthetics
and culture which illustrates the structure of
licit and illicit political economies in neoliberal
Italy. It does so by exploring the commodified
aesthetics leading to the entrenchment of
organized crime within the Neapolitan sociocultural
space.
communication. A web of historical, political and sociocultural instances, as well
as the technical features characterizing cinematography itself, configured the production
of national visual narratives and their fruition in the Italian movie theaters
as the two generative poles of a constantly reiterated ritualistic process. This form of
social drama aims at a strategic construction of a collective Italian historical memory.
Italian films are very much a means of cultural production. Their structural ownership
by the state is organic to the hegemonic reification of a politically driven feeling
of Italian national identity.
enjoyed immense commercial success among the Southern Italian subaltern social classes, while having simultaneously ignited heated
interpretative conflicts on its supposedly subversive themes and modalities of artistic expression. Many critical voices within the
Italian mainstream media, national academia, and broader civil society have levelled accusations against neomelodica, claiming that it
propagates apologetic narratives regarding the Camorra, an extremely powerful and violent Neapolitan Mafia-like criminal organization.
According to these critics, neomelodic songs would foster symbolic links between the social identities and cultural heritage of the Neapolitan
poor (and the overall Southern Italian subaltern, often their primary target audience) and organized crime culture. Other commentators have taken less critical stances toward this controversial music genre. For example,
neomelodica has been lauded for providing the Southern Italian social peripheries—that is, some of the most marginalized areas of
contemporary Western Europe—with an original platform for public expression, as well as new counter-hegemonic modalities for affirming otherwise silenced subaltern forms of class-based cultural heritage through artistic means. As such, neomelodica (in tandem with the aesthetic tropes it inspires and its ongoing multimedia influence) would literally “give voice” to the underrepresented socio-political grievances of the lower-class inhabitants of these subaltern social spaces.
the mediascape of Naples, Southern Italy, since the late 1980s.
Neomelodic songs depict the experiences of lower-class
Neapolitan subjects with a preference for those engaging with
the Camorra, a powerful criminal organisation that is also a
major investor in the local media industries. This article constitutes
an exploration of the Camorra-mediated neomelodic milieu of
cultural production vis-à-vis the political landscape of the current
Neapolitan social peripheries. In so doing, it ethnographically
shows how the neomelodic modalities of cultural production
mediate and reify local forms of organised crime hegemony visà-
vis the discursive power of the state. Accordingly, it also demonstrates
how such modalities turn the neomelodic industry into a
relational infrastructure of subaltern publicity, which engenders
political dynamics of personal mobility and social identity construction
amid its sponsors, performers, and publics.
and Caserta, southern Italy, which was historically covered up by the national secret services. The widespread mass-mediation of such a dramatic news significantly impacted the local cultural sphere. At the same time, it elicited eclectic (re)actions among the dwellers of these two areas, which the media dubbed as the “Land of Fires.” This article ethnographically analyzes the “Land of Fires” case study as a discursive milieu that mirrors the relationships between power, cultural production,
and political change in neoliberal Italy. In so doing, it aims to redefine the contemporary Italian mediascape, which most academic literature describes as a “cynical” machine of political consent merely engendering “televised” subjectivities amid its publics, as an highly controversial (but still sophisticate and vibrant) space of socio-cultural production.
that have dominated the mediascape of
Naples, Italy, since the 1990s. Neomelodic
media productions depict the experiences of
marginal subjects often engaged in crime. In
spite of the unemployment endemic among
the Neapolitan lower class, the neomelodic
industry generates millions of euros. Most
of this money flows into the pockets of the
Camorra, which invests impressive amounts
of social and economic capital in the industry,
thus influencing its forms, values, and
cultural meanings. The paper focuses on the
coalescence between neomelodic aesthetics
and culture which illustrates the structure of
licit and illicit political economies in neoliberal
Italy. It does so by exploring the commodified
aesthetics leading to the entrenchment of
organized crime within the Neapolitan sociocultural
space.
communication. A web of historical, political and sociocultural instances, as well
as the technical features characterizing cinematography itself, configured the production
of national visual narratives and their fruition in the Italian movie theaters
as the two generative poles of a constantly reiterated ritualistic process. This form of
social drama aims at a strategic construction of a collective Italian historical memory.
Italian films are very much a means of cultural production. Their structural ownership
by the state is organic to the hegemonic reification of a politically driven feeling
of Italian national identity.