The APLA board regrets to announce the resignation of President June Nash. In making this decision June cited her many new research commitments in Mexico and Guatemala, and her increasing involvement with the new section on indigenous peoples in the Latin American Studies Association. APLA thanks June for her good work for the association during her time as president and wishes her the best of luck with these new endeavors. President-elect John Bowen will be stepping in as the new president of APLA.

Legal Anthropology in Italy

By Barbara Faedda (US Orsola Benincasa of Napoli, Italy)

Historically, legal anthropology in Italy has not received much attention. There have been several reasons for this: the Roman legal tradition has always been very strong and deeply rooted in academic curricula, and its looming presence has probably overshadowed the development of socio-anthropological studies that are not considered “strongly classical.” Since at least the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church resisted and fought scientific theories and methods. During the 19th century, the church exerted a firm opposition to Charles Darwin’s theories and to Edward B Tylor’s studies. Benedetto Croce, whose philosophy was very influential in Italy, considered sociological approaches to knowledge as merely positivist classificatory forms that were peripheral to any deeper understanding. For a long time, positivist and historicist camps held forth on opposite sides in Italy, sometimes fighting and sometimes ignoring each other. The fascist regime used ethnology and folklore to exalt Italian traditions and physical anthropology to demonstrate “scientifically” the inferiority of savages and superiority of Aryans. Nevertheless, in the first decades of the 20th century, some Italian scholars were interested in using an ethno-anthropological perspective to analyze state systems, folk law, institutions and juridical categories. Yet, this fertile moment was short lived.

Through my research, I have come to know many Italian judges and practicing lawyers who think that laws from non-western countries are primitive, or that a real legal system cannot exist in what they consider primitive social groups. Only recently Italian universities have begun to offer legal anthropology courses, most of which focus on immigration issues. During the last three decades, Italy has experienced the arrival of increasing numbers of immigrants and—as the US, Australia and other old immigration-target countries discovered in time—the increasing heterogeneity produced by international migration suggests the utility of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, tools and analyses for understanding this newly emerging reality within the transformed nation. Many people are discovering that the Italian education system has not equipped them to deal with these new issues.

Italian laws on immigration, refugees and asylum are quite recent. Today public institutions are faced with the arrival of immigrants from North African countries, South and Central American countries, Albania, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Sri Lanka, China, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Russia, and Ukraine. Italian law practitioners are realizing that it is necessary to become familiar with immigrants’ cultural traditions, legal practices and religious beliefs; to study similar experiences in other countries that have already faced similar influxes of immigrants; and to attend to cross-cultural issues. Today schools, universities and the media are addressing issues like racism, ethnicity and nationalism. While some Italians are discovering a new patriotic spirit, others are constructing Italian nationalism for the very first time; while some are turning to racism, the country as a whole is coming to terms with what it means to be a multicultural society.

Because of these new issues, legal anthropology and anthropology in general are gaining new positions in the eyes of Italian society. Many lawyers who deal with immigration issues are recognizing the need for new tools and skills in their jobs. I believe that legal anthropology might have a new life in Italy, thanks to the immigration issue.

Please send comments and items of interest to Michelle Bigenho at mbigenho@hampshire.edu or Daniel Goldstein at dgoldstein@holycross.edu. 

Copyright: American Anthropological Association