Where Saints Show Respect: Mafia, Modernity, and Rituals of Power

Where Saints Show Respect reveals the penetration of mafia values in Sicilian society. Instead of focusing on sensational criminality, this study considers rituals through which local society learns deep respect - sometimes fearful, but often playful or pious - for those values and their enforcers. State and Church misconstrue these values as vestiges of a society morally damned and left behind in a pagan past. This study draws on three decades of ethnographic research to explore a strikingly different Sicily from the self-congratulatory version of government and religious leaders, where a seemingly obscure set of rural practices offers a critical perspective on modernity itself.

Berardino Palumbo is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Messina. In addition to co-editing two series of anthropological monographs, he is the author of several books and articles on the anthropology of Italy, and Sicily in particular.