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‘Con il volere di Dio’: Bernardo Provenzano and religious symbolic ritual

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Rossella Merlino
Rossella Merlino*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
*
∗Email: rossella.merlino@strath.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to analyse the symbolic religious language utilised by mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano in his social interactions with the lower echelons of the Sicilian mafia. When Provenzano assumed control of Cosa Nostra in the 1990s, he inherited an organisation severely diminished by a decade of internal conflicts, violence and the arrest of numerous leaders. The article argues that religious performative behaviour and language were used by the mafia boss to establish his leadership over Cosa Nostra, reshape its internal structure, and thereby revitalise an organisation in apparent terminal decline.

Keywords

Bernardo ProvenzanomafiaCosa Nostrareligionpizzini (messages)performanceritualsymbolssocial dramasocial interaction
Type
Articles
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 17 , Issue 3 , August 2012 , pp. 365 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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