Antropologia
type: channel
description: Antropologia, a biannual journal published in Spring and Autumn, discusses themes that are crucial in contemporary anthropology. It publishes Special Focus and miscellaneous issues based on free submission. It is available online free of charge. Antropologia publishes original scientific papers following a favourable report by two anonymous reviewers. Titles, abstracts and keywords are also published in English to make works easier to locate and streamline their international outreach. ISSN: 2281-4043 E-ISSN: 2420-8469 Journal Ranking: A for area 11 A5 of the ANVUR classification. To buy print issues and subscriptions, please visit Ledizioni website
publisher: Ledizioni-Ledipublishing
language: en
publication name: Antropologia
issn: 2281-4043
copyright: Authors maintain the copyright of their original work and grant the Journal the right to first publication, licensed after 36 months under a Creative Commons Licence – Attribution, which allows others to share the work by indicating the authorship and first publication in this journal. Authors may agree to other non-exclusive licence agreements for the distribution of versions of their published work (for example in institutional archives or monographs) under the condition that they indicate that their work was first published in this journal.
items: The Authors
items: Reviews
items: Making the Invisible Visible. Fetal Ultrasound Images and Oracular Consultations in Southern Benin
items: Rhetorics of Invasiveness. Cat Management Policies in Italy, Australia, and Scotland
items: Companion Nutria. Proximity, Emotions, and Affective Resistance within a Biological Invasion
items: Feral Wild Boars. Politics of Nature in African Sewin Fever Crisis on the Appenines (Quattro Province Region)
items: Of Miracle Clams and Doomsday Crabs: A Guide to the Taxonomies of the Capitalocene in the Sacca di Goro
items: Companions and Antagonists in the Anthropocene Ethnography of the Biocontrol of Glycaspis brimblecombei and Beekeeping in Sardinia
items: Native, Invasive or Native Invasive? Ixodes Ricinus Ticks in the Belluno Mountains, between Memories, Perceptions and Encounters
items: Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions: Ethnographies of Conflict and Coexistence between Human and Animals
items: Afterword. Anthropology and the interdisciplinary research
items: Knowledge and power in a “disputed forest” : participatory research in French Guiana Amazonian Park
items: About paperclips (and anthropology). Interstices, traces and interdisciplinary connections
items: Anthropology among plants, data, and scientists : in search of context in data-driven interdisciplinary collaboration
items: Unexpected allies : the conservation of amazonian stingless bees between biological sciences and cultural anthropology
items: Introduction. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
items: About the Authors
items: Dancing Power in Porto-Novo: the Adjògàn between Royal Court and Catholic Church
items: Affects, Transgressions and Resistance among Girls, Boys and Families in Times of Crisis (Gallura, Sardinia)
items: “NO PFAS Moms”: Understandings Parenting and Reproduction in a Context of Life Altered by Chemical Contamination
items: Embryos, Pregnancies, and Transgressions: a Comparative Analysis of Social Representations of Surrogacy and Embryo Donation in Italy
items: “But where is your Husband?”.“Matrifocalizing” Connections among the Meshes of the Somali Diaspora
items: Relatedness and Non-Heteronormative Subjectivities. Insights from Fa'afafine Experiences
items: Violating Statutory Bans: an Ethnography of “Forbidden” Marriages in the Highlands of Madagascar
items: Introduction. Contemporary Relatedness: Between Normativity and Transgressions
items: Training practices, dietary choices, and resistance strategies in the gym
items: Apology of Ethnography: methodological reflections from Marc Bloch's The Historian's Craft

The Authors
type: item
description: The Authors
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Various Authors
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 143
ending page: 146
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp143-146

Reviews
type: item
description: Maria Șalaru, 2025, An Anthropology of Architectural Transformation: The Changing Fabric of a Romanian Block of Flats, London, UCL Press (Emma Fontana) Gaia Cottino, 2024, Cavallette a colazione. I cibi del futuro tra gusto e disgusto, Torino, UTET (Andrea Nichetti)
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Various Authors
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 135
ending page: 141
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp135-141

Making the Invisible Visible. Fetal Ultrasound Images and Oracular Consultations in Southern Benin
type: item
description: Drawing on ethnographic observations and existing literature, this article explores how fetal ultrasound imaging intersects with divinatory practices in Southern Benin. Within religious and oracular contexts, ultrasound images act not only as diagnostic tools but also as mediators between the mother, the fetus, and the spiritual realm. In a setting where individuals may be linked to deities or ancestors, ultrasounds help identify the fetus’s protective ancestor even before birth. By situating this practice alongside other birth-related rituals, the article questions whether spiritual recognition of the fetus also implies its social recognition as a human being. Highlighting the entanglement of biomedical technologies with religious and divinatory practices, it offers insights into local conceptions of personhood, birth rituals, existential continuity, and reproductive trajectories in Southern Benin.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Valentina Vergottini
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 119
ending page: 134
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp119-134

Rhetorics of Invasiveness. Cat Management Policies in Italy, Australia, and Scotland
type: item
description: In many areas of the world, cats are considered legitimate and significant actors within a shared cultural and ecological landscape, but in other areas of the world, concerns over their predatory behaviour and widespread distribution have led conservation biologists and policy makers to list Felis catus as an invasive alien species. This new categorisation and the ensuing debate have had great resonance where there are conservation projects for native or presumed native wild feline species (such as in Scotland) and in areas such as Australia, where several species are considered endangered. In Italy this debate is less well known and has taken shape in other terms. Starting with a brief comparison of some studies referring to the two examples mentioned, the contribution looks at Italy as a case study to examine how policies and practices surrounding the idea of invasiveness contribute to shaping multi-species relations in a scenario profoundly modified by humans.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Camilla Tumidei
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 103
ending page: 117
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp103-117

Companion Nutria. Proximity, Emotions, and Affective Resistance within a Biological Invasion
type: item
description: Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2020 and 2022 with individuals who chose to care for nutria (Myocastor coypus) as companion animals, this article investigates the role of emotions in both producing and unsettling the category of invasive alien species. Within a discursive regime that legitimizes eradication through affective and normative devices, everyday practices of care and intimacy give rise to forms of animal subjectivation that exceed and destabilize the managerial ontology of invasiveness. The interspecies relationships observed in the field highlight how emotions constitute situated modes of knowledge and political agency, far from being irrational residues. They generate relational worlds, reconfigure the boundaries between human and non-human, and radically question the distinction between lives deemed worth protecting and those marked for elimination.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Massimiliano Fantò
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 87
ending page: 102
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp87-102

Feral Wild Boars. Politics of Nature in African Sewin Fever Crisis on the Appenines (Quattro Province Region)
type: item
description: In a context of entangled multi-crisis, the African Swine Fever (ASF) virus has socially transformed the meanings of wild boars: from a reinvented autochthonous animal deeply intertwined with the social history of the Apennines into an invader within war frames and technical and veterinary reductionism. By undermining the pig agribusiness industry, frames and economies of war return to the fore in a social drama that exposes the policies of nature by multiple social actors: wild boars’ ecological success shows the need to follow the “prospects” of wild boar in the “making of the world”, as they become a feral mirror of our abandonment and ruins in inland areas.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Mauro Van Aken
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 69
ending page: 86
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp69-86

Of Miracle Clams and Doomsday Crabs: A Guide to the Taxonomies of the Capitalocene in the Sacca di Goro
type: item
description: Since the 1980s, the Sacca di Goro (Po River Delta) has undergone a radical socio-ecological transformation, turning the lagoon shared by the communities of Goro and Gorino into one of the largest industrial Manila clam (Ruditapes philippinarum) farms in Europe. In the past decade, however, the climate crisis has emerged in this context through the proliferation of various non-native species, culminating in the recent feral expansion of the Atlantic blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), whose predatory dynamics have disrupted the local production system and triggered deep-seated identity anxieties. This article examines this moment of crisis through an analysis of the political, scientific, and popular narratives surrounding the so-called blue crab invasion, exploring how the biological discourse on invasive species is renegotiated within the cultural framework of an extractive ecology, which has redefined notions of native, allochtonous, and invasive species around the Manila clam. The ethnographic analysis thus highlights the social construction of the crisis and its militarized articulation, exposing the contradictory taxonomic orders that, within the ecological regime of the Capitalocene, are mobilized according to logics that bypass the categories of systematic biology.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Francesco Danesi della Sala
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 53
ending page: 68
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp53-68

Companions and Antagonists in the Anthropocene Ethnography of the Biocontrol of Glycaspis brimblecombei and Beekeeping in Sardinia
type: item
description: This article examines how the spread of Glycaspis brimblecombei (an eucalyptus parasite) in Sardinia has led to a reconfiguration of the concepts of “native” and “non-native” among beekeepers, researchers, and institutions, reshaping narratives about biodiversity and the control of biological invasions. Through a lengthy negotiation process with researchers and policymakers, beekeepers secured a monitoring plan for eucalyptus parasites in 2012. Then, in 2020, they obtained the creation of a Sentinel Garden for monitoring invasive species. Using field data and archival material, the study analyzes the landscape “patchwork” created by the coexistence of “invasive” and “native” species, highlighting the role of technical-scientific discourse in determining which species to save and which to eliminate. It offers a critical perspective on conservation and protection practices in the Anthropocene.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Greca N Meloni
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 35
ending page: 52
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp35-52

Native, Invasive or Native Invasive? Ixodes Ricinus Ticks in the Belluno Mountains, between Memories, Perceptions and Encounters
type: item
description: As part of a study on the social perception of ticks in Italy (Belluno) and Slovenia (Gorenjska), this contribution focuses on the doubt of the residents of the Belluno province about the origin of the presence of ticks in the area. Absent from collective memory until the 1970s, today these parasites, and the associated risk of disease, are described as an invasion. This contribution first examines the debate within invasion biology about whether a native species can become invasive. It then traces the past of Ixodes ricinus ticks, Lyme borreliosis, and red deer through three historical moments: their presence in the Copper Age, when Ötzi, the man who lived in the Tyrolean Alps, became the first person to date known to have contracted this disease; the five thousand years in which traces of the ticks were lost; and their reappearance, population expansion, and geographic spread in the last fifty years. Matching the biological history of ticks with the memories, experiences, and reflections of the people of Belluno, these animals seem to qualify as both native and invasive. Beyond the labels that can be used to describe this phenomenon, it highlights the profound complexity of ecological relationships and the challenge – scientific, social, political, and economic – involved in what to do of ticks, and with ticks, in the current era of rapid and uncertain socio-ecological change.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Nadal Nadal
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 17
ending page: 33
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp17-33

Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions: Ethnographies of Conflict and Coexistence between Human and Animals
type: item
description: Biological invasions are regarded by major international scientific institutions as among the most impactful and contentious ecological phenomena of the Anthropocene. Accelerated by globalisation, climate crisis, and ecosystem instability, the introduction and proliferation of “invasive alien species” – or those labelled as such – raise crucial questions about biodiversity loss, human responsibility, and the models of environmental governance at stake. In parallel, social sciences, and cultural anthropology in particular, have reframed biological invasions as multispecies, situated, and relational phenomena, challenging established categories such as nativeness, non-nativeness, and invasiveness. This special issue offers, for the first time in the Italian context, a comparative ethnographic perspective through six case studies, examining how different animal organisms become focal points of conflict, practices of coexistence, and ecological imaginaries, revealing the profoundly political nature of contemporary ecologies.
subject: Special Focus. Anthropological Perspectives on Biological Invasions
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Francesco Danesi della Sala
creator: Massimiliano Fantò
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-12-19
publication date: 2025-12-19
starting page: 9
ending page: 16
doi: 10.14672/ada20252pp9-16

The Authors
type: item
description: The Authors
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Various Authors
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 125
ending page: 131
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp125-131

Reviews
type: item
description: Lorenzo Alunni, 2025, Le cicatrici di Ulisse. Corpi e frontiere nel Mediterraneo, Milano, Meltemi (by Paolo Grassi) S. Postar, N. E. Behzadi, N. N. Doering, 2024, Extraction/Exclusion: Beyond Binaries of Exclusion and Inclusion in Natural Resource Extraction, London, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (by Gioia Rudilosso Consolo) Agnès De Féo, 2024, The Niqab in France: Between Piety and Subversion, New York, Fordham University Press (by Stefania Spyropoulou) Chiara Cacciotti, 2024, Qui è tutto abitato. L’occupazione romana di Santa Croce/ Spin Time Labs come esperienza abitativa liminale, Verona, Ombre Corte (by Benedetta Tarsi)
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Various Authors
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 109
ending page: 124
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp109-124

Afterword. Anthropology and the interdisciplinary research
type: item
description: Since the mid-nineteenth century, anthropology has focused on the “totality” of human experience in different societies, covering areas such as technology, thought, values and rituals. In doing so, anthropology has generated comparisons and exchanges with other sector-specific disciplines that deal with particular areas of human experience. In more recent years, however, comparisons between different disciplines have sometimes given rise to opposition and misunderstandings over methods of data collection and analysis, as well as over quantitative versus qualitative approaches and whether to focus on normative or diverse values. The most successful approach has been “bi-disciplinary collaboration and exchange”, creating areas of dual expertise such as medical anthropology, legal anthropology, environmental anthropology and urban anthropology. International literature on the subject has also focused on the organisation of multidisciplinary university departments and international projects, which are now almost exclusively of this type. This has sometimes generated innovative and creative conceptions of a new “trans-disciplinarity”. The essays in this special issue mainly deal with cases of relationships between anthropological research and various natural sciences, ranging from eco-biology to medical and environmental sciences. They also carefully document the significant challenges in achieving equal and non-hierarchical exchanges between disciplines for mutual enrichment.
subject: Special Focus. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Antonino Colajanni
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 97
ending page: 108
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp97-108

Knowledge and power in a “disputed forest” : participatory research in French Guiana Amazonian Park
type: item
description: This paper analyses conflicts and alliances between knowledges in the largest national park in the European Union, the Guiana Amazonian Park, in a peculiar overseas indigenous context. On the one hand, the international objectives of nature protection are realised against the colonial backdrop of the expropriation of land from the Amerindian peoples. On the other hand, the valorisation of cultural heritages, of which anthropological knowledge is an important ally, clashes with decades of assimilationist policies, which have weakened the reproduction of local knowledge. In this “disputed forest” the common objective of preserving biological and cultural diversity is conditioned and affects the fragile local balances, generating conflicts, misunderstandings and unprecedented alliances.
subject: Special Focus. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Diego Renzi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 79
ending page: 96
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp79-96

About paperclips (and anthropology). Interstices, traces and interdisciplinary connections
type: item
description: Through an object, the paperclips, the essay reflects on interdisciplinary connections that these human traces found in the interstices of the city have made possible, giving rise to a complex conceptual map. The use of an object like the paperclip, which unites and connects, is a useful pretext, but also an opportunity to talk about relationships, bodies, places, but also anthropology as an exercise in attention, freedom, and humanity in the making.
subject: Special Focus. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Valentina Porcellana
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 61
ending page: 77
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp61-77

Anthropology among plants, data, and scientists : in search of context in data-driven interdisciplinary collaboration
type: item
description: In this article we explore interdisciplinarity as a context for doing ethnography both in terms of research techniques and theoretical elaboration. The article presents an account of research conducted by the authors within a team composed of plant pathologists and data scientists. The reflection fits within the theoretical framework of data-driven science, analyzing how anthropology, with its involvement in scientific collaboration processes, can contribute to making interdisciplinarity among contemporary sciences more incisive. We examine how reflection on the ethnographic context can help us understand the concrete role of anthropology in interdisciplinary projects. Context is the result of the intersubjective research process, which leads to diverse and sometimes unexpected forms of knowledge and social relations, as well as the coordination of the roles of co-researcher, observer and writer, along with related responsibilities, ethical dilemmas and challenges. Context reveals itself to be an intrinsically interdisciplinary and political project, involving both the knowledge produced and the research process itself.
subject: Special Focus. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Lucilla Barchetta
creator: Roberta Raffaetà
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 37
ending page: 59
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp37-59

Unexpected allies : the conservation of amazonian stingless bees between biological sciences and cultural anthropology
type: item
description: The accelerating loss of biodiversity is causing significant environmental damage and disproportionately affecting Indigenous and marginalized communities. This underscores the need for an interdisciplinary approach to conservation biology. Based on our collaborative work on a stingless bee conservation project in the Amazon, this article explores the role of cultural anthropology in interdisciplinary research, emphasizing its challenges and contributions. We examine the epistemological tensions and methodological obstacles that arise when integrating academic and Indigenous forms of knowledge, and reflect on the cultural and political dimensions of such initiatives, as well as the importance of effectively communicating research outcomes. This case study demonstrates how a critical reassessment of disciplinary boundaries can foster collaboration between diverse research paradigms, enabling the development of multi-epistemic knowledge systems. In doing so, it contributes not only to more effective conservation practices but also to a rethinking of the conceptual divisions between “nature” and “culture.”
subject: Special Focus. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Laura Volpi
creator: Marilena Marconi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 21
ending page: 36
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp21-36

Introduction. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
type: item
description: In the national and international anthropological scene, there seems to be a tacit consensus on the need to integrate and collaborate between the natural sciences and the social sciences within research projects and programs that respond concretely to the many contemporary social challenges. The aim of this special issue is to initiate a critical reflection on “interdisciplinarity” by going beyond the conventional rhetoric that celebrates the coming together of different scientific knowledges. In an endeavor to provide substance to the frequently empty notion of interdisciplinarity, this special issue has been established with the express intention of giving space to concrete experiences of anthropologists who perceive interdisciplinarity to be a catalyst for both intellectual innovation and political potential. These scholars, often operating beyond the confines of academia, have established collaborative networks with the aim of addressing the pressing challenges of the contemporary era. This issue thus prompts an exploration of the forms of knowledge that emerge beyond the established boundaries, within the enclaves where contaminated and rebellious alliances become possibilities for shared thought and action.
subject: Special Focus. Beyond Collaboration: Toward a Politics of Alliances
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Marta Gentilucci
creator: Georgeta Stoica
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-07-24
publication date: 2025-07-24
starting page: 9
ending page: 20
doi: 10.14672/ada20251pp9-20

About the Authors
type: item
description: About the Authors
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Various Authors
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 111
ending page: 113
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp111-113

Reviews
type: item
description: Dario Nardini, 2022, Surfers Paradise. Un’Etnografia del Surf sulla Gold Coast Australiana (Andrea Buchetti) David Nemer, 2022, Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil(Annalisa Molgora) Laura Menin, 2024, Quest for Love in Central Morocco: Young Women and the Dynamics of Intimate Lives (Chiara Pilotto) Sabrina Tosi Cambini, 2023 (2021), Other Borders. History, Mobility and Migration of Rudari Families between Romania and Italy (Francesco Vietti)
subject: Book Reviews
  topic: section
creator: Various Authors
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 101
ending page: 109
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp101-109

Dancing Power in Porto-Novo: the Adjògàn between Royal Court and Catholic Church
type: item
description: Considered the “traditional” dance par excellence of the royal court of Porto-Novo, the adjògàn owes much of its political and identity relevance to its performance nature and celebratory function. Assuming the role of promoter of the new instances which swept through Porto-Novian society during the 20th century, the dance engaged itself between continuity and change. In continuous and open dialogue with new players in the political, social and religious spheres, the adjògàn finally involved also the Catholic Church. Based on fieldwork materials, the article analyses the changes in rhythm over time, noting its constant expansion towards spaces dedicated to the celebration of power. Thus, the adjògàn emerges as an aggregator and negotiator of meanings capable of coexisting within a socio-political context full of tensions.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Federica My
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 91
ending page: 100
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp91-100

Affects, Transgressions and Resistance among Girls, Boys and Families in Times of Crisis (Gallura, Sardinia)
type: item
description: In an altered human environment, childhood and youth can be marked by forms of mental distress and inappropriate social behaviors that enhance the climate of social anxiety. From an economically depressed but socially cohesive area, Gallura has quickly transformed into an exclusive tourist destination for rich continentals and foreigners. The Gallura people have not benefited from so much imported opulence, on the contrary, they have suffered from the perverse socio-cultural alteration that has torn the traditional fabric of relationality leaving behind a desolate social scenario. Following the narrative of boys, girls, and families in times of crisis, this contribution tries to illustrate and discuss their efforts to position themselves on the social scene as political subjects who build the future, facing guilt-inducing categorizations and claiming recognition for their suffering and daily affective labor.
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Rossana Di Silvio
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 81
ending page: 90
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp81-90

“NO PFAS Moms”: Understandings Parenting and Reproduction in a Context of Life Altered by Chemical Contamination
type: item
description: The NO PFAS Mothers’ movement in the Italian province of Vicenza originated when it was found that their children’s blood contained perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that were produced by the Miteni plant in Trissino and were causing the pollution of groundwater. Confronted by the serious health damages these chemical compounds can induce, they have taken a stance where the care of their children and the remediation of the territory intertwine in a worldview that combines issues of reproductive and environmental justice. Their “resistance” actions against contamination rest on networks of consolidated relations and a shared feeling that mothers have a moral responsibility towards future generations, in a process of rethinking reproduction and kinship that appears to be the women’s burden. My contribution explores these questions in an intrafamilial and intergenerational frame, with the aim of capturing the imaginaries, the asymmetries and the forms of relationality that emerge.
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Sacchi Sacchi
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 73
ending page: 80
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp73-80

Embryos, Pregnancies, and Transgressions: a Comparative Analysis of Social Representations of Surrogacy and Embryo Donation in Italy
type: item
description: Every year the number of people who use assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) to have children is growing. Among the most complex techniques are in vitro fertilization (IVF), which includes donation of gametes, embryos (embryo donation), and surrogacy. This article presents ethnographic cases collected in California (2014-2017; 2017-2020) and Italy (2020-2023) and examines embryo donation and surrogacy, practices that involve social, legal, and moral transgressions. My findings show how social representations of surrogacy and embryo donation influence the perceptions and experiences of those involved, revealing a complex framework of social, moral, and legal norms that are renegotiated within ARTs’ processes.
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Guerzoni Guerzoni
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 63
ending page: 72
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp63-72

“But where is your Husband?”.“Matrifocalizing” Connections among the Meshes of the Somali Diaspora
type: item
description: In this paper I propose a reflection on the experiences of single mothers in the Somali diaspora, a very common and socially accepted experience within the diaspora, which illuminates interesting processes related to experiences of mobility and transnationalism. Intersecting the theoretical frameworks of diaspora studies and those of matrifocality, I propose to reflect on the connections that can be detected between the experience of single motherhood and the more profound and enduring familial and social changes among people who identify as Somalis in diaspora around the world.
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Francesca Scarselli
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 41
ending page: 61
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp41-61

Relatedness and Non-Heteronormative Subjectivities. Insights from Fa'afafine Experiences
type: item
description: Gender transgressions in non-Western contexts show the role of non-conforming subjectivities, both in the domestic and family sphere, as in the public sphere. For the purpose of this essay, I would like to assume a lateral perspective to focus on several re-arrangements of parental configurations engendered among Samoan fa'afafine. Basing my arguments on data collected during the fieldwork I conducted in Samoa between 2014 and 2015, I would like to show how fa'afafine retain toward their siblings the obligations and responsibilities prescribed by their assigned sex, while they take upon themselves the burden of caring as for their gender. In another respect, incorporating non-related fa'afafine in their household can rebalance the weight of certain social obligations while exacerbating others, and producing different forms of personal dependence.
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: M. Carolina Vesce
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 25
ending page: 40
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp25-40

Violating Statutory Bans: an Ethnography of “Forbidden” Marriages in the Highlands of Madagascar
type: item
description: The academic literature on the legacies of slavery in Madagascar (as in other African contexts) has stressed how marriage interdictions between people of free origin and slave descendants still characterize, in often silent but pervasive ways, the reproduction of local kin networks and contribute to reaffirm the stigma associated to slave origin. This article focuses instead on the stories, difficulties, and experiences of those who have - knowingly or unknowingly - violated these interdictions, creating – often at the risk of being excluded from their respective families – new bonds of kinship and intergenerational care that laboriously attempt to transcend the constraints of local statutory distinctions. Generally not formalized, these “forbidden” unions not only contribute to produce tensions, conflicts, and profound reformulations of local forms of relationality, but also reveal the contradictions that emerge between the need to keep “family purity and honour” intact and the principles of inclusiveness and extended kinship linked to the local concept of ﬁhavanana (lit. “to act like a relative”).
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Marco Gardini
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 10
ending page: 24
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp10-24

Introduction. Contemporary Relatedness: Between Normativity and Transgressions
type: item
description: In the 21st century, anthropological studies have witnessed new research on kinship understood as relatedness. The authors of the articles included in this issue of Anthropologia show the richness and diversity of contemporary kinship studies. They underscore the vitality of kinship as an ideal model for broader relations of solidarity. Recall the situated relevance that specific relationships – marital, parental, reproductive, among siblings – have within different local contexts. Describe the tension between norms, normality, and transgressions, questioning the processes that give relations meaning and produce hierarchies, marginality, and exclusion. Finally, they highlight the enduring relevance that the analysis of kinship and reproduction continues to have in social and cultural anthropology as a privileged field for understanding the texture of social life and questioning what would otherwise be taken for granted.
subject: Special Focus. Contemporary relationalities: Between normativity and transgressi
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Mattalucci Mattalucci
creator: Simonetta Grilli
rights: Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2025-02-05
publication date: 2025-02-05
starting page: 5
ending page: 8
doi: 10.14672/ada20242pp5-8

Training practices, dietary choices, and resistance strategies in the gym
type: item
description: In this paper I analyse the different ways in which sport and diet are put together in the context of fitness in order to construct a concept of physical ‘fitness’ that also takes on moral connotations. Drawing on the results of an ethnographic study in a Northern Italian gym, I will show how gym-goers elaborate social codes and meanings through training and specific dietary plans that are not exclusively normative – results of notions forged elsewhere: market, neoliberal ethics, common sense, impersonal power embedded by acting subjects – but as spaces of reappropriation of the body that enable processes of subjectivation and meaning attribution that sometimes resist dominant ones. In particular, I will analyse the processes of re-subjectification of certain rhetorics and practices that shape gym culture in order to achieve a state of ‘wellbeing’ that comes from learning the ability to ‘feel the body’.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Silvia Barberani
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-09-02
publication date: 2024-09-02
starting page: 219
ending page: 240
doi: 10.14672/ada20241pp219-240

Apology of Ethnography: methodological reflections from Marc Bloch's The Historian's Craft
type: item
description: In the last years of his life, the French historian Marc Bloch was living in clandestinity as a partisan against the Nazi invaders and, at the same time, feverishly pursuing the work of writing a book on the profession of the historian and the defense of historiography as a fundamental science. But the writing of those pages was interrupted by the tragic fate that history itself reserved for its author: Bloch was captured by the Nazis and executed in June 1944. That interrupted manuscript, however, has reached us: The Historian’s Craft (In the original French: Apologie pour l’histoire ou Métier d’historien). The influence of that book went beyond the circles of those who practice historiography. Precisely because of its interdisciplinary character, and through the experience of translating a new and augmented edition of the book in question, this article explores some suggestions and directions that can be drawn from it for the practice of ethnography. What reflections and lessons might ethnographers reading The Historian’s Craft draw for their own fieldwork? This is the fundamental question of this contribution, which focuses on three of those possible suggestions and parallels: observation, transmission, and the defense of ethnography.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
subject: Array
  topic: keywords
creator: Lorenzo Alunni
rights: Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
date: 2024-09-02
publication date: 2024-09-02
starting page: 203
ending page: 217
doi: 10.14672/ada20241pp203-217