Contribution short abstract:

This paper examines the evolving concept of “grassroots” within the history of the antimafia movement and investigates how contemporary antimafia activists in Palermo define and practice a struggle “from below.”

Contribution long abstract:

From its beginnings in the early revolts against the landholding notables and their armed gangs to today’s urban civil society combating drug trafficking and racketeering, the antimafia movement in Sicily has seen a great transformation in its social composition and political expression. This paper traces the changing meaning of grassroots in the history of the antimafia movement and explores how contemporary antimafia activists in Palermo understand and enact an antimafia struggle from below.

In 2003 Jane and John Schneider pointed at a shift in governance form “social democracy” to “civil democracy” unfolding in the 1990s and 2000s in Sicily. Tracing the mafia-antimafia dialectic as it unfolded in the post-War years, against the backdrop of the Cold War and post-Cold War developments up until the beginning of the 21st century, they described the promotion of civil society increasingly emphasising individual citizen rights and responsibilities, as opposed to class struggle. Propelled by post-Cold War triumphalist narratives of the liberal state, the movement increasingly called for a purified, clean state, free from mafia collusion, while simultaneously promoting a law-abiding culture.

Situating antimafia struggles within historical and political transformations this paper asks what it means to fight the mafia from below and how and when antimafia becomes activism. Activists differentiate between antimafia from below and institutional antimafia. How does fighting the mafia from below differ from a fight from above? In analysing activists strategies and narratives I also explore how they reaffirm or unsettle liberal ideologies of legality and citizenship.