Italo Pardo has produced a thoughtful and original account of the moral life of Naples, a city in which the ethics of work, family and neighbourhood exist in complex relationship with the teachings of the church and, crucial to key processes of democracy, with the power and limitations of law, bureaucracy and government. Dr Pardo identifies the importance of strong continuous interaction between material and non-material aspects in the entrepreneurial strategies of the ordinary Neapolitan and shows the ways in which different ethical systems are negotiated in everyday life. Success is measured not only by material gain, but also by satisfying spiritual obligations and meeting the claims of intimate loyalties. This is one of the very few ethnographic studies of a European city; it questions old assumptions and raises fresh issues in the field of urban studies, demonstrating the significance of empirical analysis to mainstream debates in social theory.

This ethnographic study of a mixed-occupancy housing estate near the centre of London refocuses the scholarly conversation around social housing in the UK after the 1980 Housing Act. As well as examining the long-term consequences of ‘Right to Buy,’ such as shortages in local authority stock and neighbourhood gentrification, James Rosbrook-Thompson and Gary Armstrong investigate the changes wrought on the social fabric of the individual estate. Drawing on four years of ethnographic fieldwork, the authors explore the estate’s social mix and, more specifically, the consequences of owner-occupiers, council tenants and private renters sharing a cramped inner-city neighbourhood. Mixed-Occupancy Housing in London: A Living Tapestry humanizes the academic discussion of class, race, and gender in social housing through the occupants’ tales of getting by, getting along and getting out.

San Lorenzo neighborhood and its globalized market -- A mercantile neighborhood across time -- Lives and livelihoods on Silver Street -- Into the heart of Florence -- Saving San Lorenzo -- Fiorentinità in a post-Florentine market

These ethnographically-based studies of diverse urban experiences across the world present cutting edge research and stimulate an empirically-grounded theoretical reconceptualization. The essays identify ethnography as a powerful tool for making sense of life in our rapidly changing, complex cities. They stress the point that while there is no need to fetishize fieldwork—or to view it as an end in itself —its unique value cannot be overstated. These active, engaged researchers have produced essays that avoid abstractions and generalities while engaging with the analytical complexities of ethnographic evidence. Together, they prove the great value of knowledge produced by long-term fieldwork to mainstream academic debates and, more broadly, to society.

While the anthropological field initially shied away from the debate on multiculturalism, it has been widely discussed within the fields of political theory, social policy, cultural studies and law. Beyond Multiculturalism is the first volume of its kind to offer a comparative, worldwide view of multiculturalism, considering both traditional multicultural/multiethnic societies and those where cultural pluralism is relatively new. Its varied case studies focus on the intersections and relationships between cultural groups in everyday life using employment, identity, consumption, language, legislation and policy making to show the unique contribution anthropologists can bring to multiculturalism studies. Their work will be of great interest to scholars of race, ethnicity, migration, urban studies and social and cultural geography.

Introduction -- Problems with cooperatives -- The anthropology of co-ops, the Mafia and the Sicilian lens -- Cooperatives and the historical anti-Mafia movement -- Worldviews of labour: legality and food ideologies -- The limits of 'bad kinship': Sicilian anti-Mafia families -- The use of gossip: setting cooperative boundaries -- 'Wage is male-but land is a woman' -- Community troubles: cooperative conundrum -- Divided by land: Mafia and anti-Mafia proximity -- Conclusion. the private life of political cooperativism.

Against the background of unease at the increasingly loose and conflictual relationship between citizenship and governance, this book brings together rich, ethnographic studies from EU member states and post-Communist and Middle-Eastern countries in the Mediterranean Region to illustrate the crisis of legitimacy inherent in the weakening link between political responsibility and trust in the exercise of power. With close attention to the impact of the ambiguities and distortions of governance at the local level and their broader implications at the international level, where a state's legitimacy depends on its democratic credentials, Citizenship and the Legitimacy of Governance initiates a comparative discussion of the relationship between established moralities, politics, law and civil society in a highly diversified region with a strong history of cultural exchange. Demonstrating that a comparative anthropological analysis has much to offer to our understanding, this volume reveals that the city is a crucial arena for the renegotiation of citizenship, democracy and belonging.

Transnational organized crime crosses borders, challenges States, exploits individuals, pursues profit, wrecks economies, destroys civil society, and ultimately weakens global democracy. It is a phenomenon that is all too often misunderstood and misrepresented. This handbook attempts to redress the balance, by providing a fresh and interdisciplinary overview of the problems which transnational organized crime represents. The innovative aspect of this handbook is not only its interdisciplinary nature but also the dialogue between international academics and practitioners that it presents. The handbook seeks to provide the definitive overview of transnational organized crime, including contributions from leading international scholars as well as emerging researchers. The work starts by examining the origins, concepts, contagion and evolution of transnational organized crime and then moves on to discuss the impact, governance and reactions of governments and their agencies, before looking to the future of transnational organized crime, and how the State will seek to respond. Providing a cutting edge survey of the discipline, this work will be essential reading for all those with an interest in this dangerous phenomenon.

Modern Rome is a city rife with contradictions. Once the seat of ancient glory, it is now often the object of national contempt. It plays a significant part on the world stage, but the concerns of its residents are often deeply parochial. And while they live in the seat of a world religion, Romans can be vehemently anticlerical. These tensions between the past and the present, the global and the local, make Rome fertile ground to study urban social life, the construction of the past, the role of religion in daily life, and how a capital city relates to the rest of the nation. Michael Herzfeld focuses on Rome’s historic Monti district and the wrenching dislocation caused by rapid economical, political, and social change. Evicted from Eternity tells the story of the gentrification of Monti—once the architecturally stunning home of a community of artisans and shopkeepers now displaced by an invasion of rapacious real estate speculators, corrupt officials, dithering politicians, deceptive clerics, and shady thugs. As Herzfeld picks apart the messy story of Monti’s transformation, he ranges widely over many aspects of life there and in the rest of the city, richly depicting the uniquely local landscape of globalization in Rome.

With the growing fragmentation of western societies and disillusionment with the political process, the question of legitimacy has become one of the key issues of contemporary politics and is examined in this volume in depth for the first time. Drawing on ethnographic material from the U.S., Europe, India, Japan, and Africa, anthropologists and legal scholars investigate the morally diversified definitions of legitimacy that co-exist in any one society. Aware of the tensions between state morality and community morality, they offer reflections on the relationship between agency - individual and collective - and the legal and political systems. In a situation in which politics has only too often degenerated into vacuous rhetoric, this volume demonstrates how critical the relationship between trust and legitimacy is for the authoritative exercise of power in democratic societies.