Antonio Sorge, <em>Legacies of Violence: History, Society and the State in Sardinia</em>, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 194
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2262
Recensione di Antonio Sorge, Legacies of Violence: History, Society and the State in Sardinia, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 194.
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Tracey Heatherington
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Antonio Sorge, <em>Legacies of Violence: History, Society and the State in Sardinia</em>, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 194
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2016-08-06
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Tracey Heatherington
2016/08/06
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2262
349
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Stati Uniti
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Antonio Sorge, <em>Legacies of Violence: History, Society and the State in Sardinia</em>, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 194
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                                             2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 349-351




                                                                             RECENSIONI

Antonio SORGE ⎸Legacies of Violence: History, Society and the State in Sardi-
nia, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2015, pp. 194.


    English-speaking anthropologists will be delighted to find that a range of new ethno-
graphic contributions has made Italy particularly «good to think with» (as Claude Lévi-
Strauss so memorably put it) in the last few years. From Naples to Turin, from Sicilian
villages to the Alps, there are many fresh opportunities to look at the changing contem-
porary world from European perspectives. As we consider current events, regional
comparisons are both a worthy challenge and a problematic temptation. Migrants suffer
perilous journeys and ambivalent welcomes, whether they travel through the deserts of
the US-Mexico borderlands, or across the waters of the Mediterranean. Global markets
and economic crises have affected ordinary people around the world, while the recent
dismantling of highly-developed social systems for education has been in as shocking in
Milan as it is in Milwaukee, Manchester or Montreal. At least one popular candidate in
the 2016 race for the White House might suggest striking similarities to Italy’s Silvio
Berlusconi. These are extraordinary times for the anthropological imagination, and
Italy is clearly a rich resource for projects of comparative analysis.
    One such project might begin by engaging Legacies of Violence, Antonio Sorge’s
(2015) very accessible monograph about the evolution of herding traditions and iden-
tity practices in central Sardinia. Based on a conscientious review of important historic-
al and social science sources, as well as fourteen months of solid ethnographic experi-
ence in 2002-2003, Sorge’s scholarship presents a very readable account of the unique
«dissident history» (Sorge 2015: 5) of highland central Sardinia. The author contextu-
alizes Sardinian banditry within the intellectual framework of «honour and shame» in
the Mediterranean, and he covers the extensive materials from both Sardinian histori-
ography and British social anthropology extremely well. For those who know about
Italian criminology primarily through literature about the mafia, the Sardinian context
makes for a distinct and provocative case study. It will also be intriguing to those who
study “legacies of violence” in very different places, such as urban, «inner-city» spaces
where other histories of marginality and understandings of masculinity collide in the
social reproduction of ambivalent identities.


This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Tracey Heatherington
2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 349-351.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2262
350                                                   ANTONIO SORGE ⎸LEGACIES OF VIOLENCE


    Central Sardinia is, of course, a place that continues to garner notoriety in Italian
media as a setting for simmering blood feuds and criminality. Sorge examines some re-
lated historical and recent events as resources for alternative cultural constructions
across different occupational groups and socio-economic categories in Orgosolo, a
mountain town located in the interior, nearby the provincial capital, Nuoro. He focuses
particularly on male identity as seen through the “traditionalist” interpretation of balen-
tia, an ideological construct that he indicates to be challenged by the forces of globaliz-
ation and social change. Sorge reports that young, underemployed shepherds are often
subject to critical reproaches by some women, elders and more educated peers, who
fear the reproduction of social distress associated with ongoing violence. Despite a re-
jection of “postmodern” reflexivity, he shares with readers his own deep sense of dis-
comfort with long hours spent on fieldwork in the taverns, where many local men pass
spare time. The dominant style of Sorge’s narrative is one that shoulders ethnographic
authority, yet a handful of ethnographic interludes are tinged with a latent sense of
danger. The author’s critique of identity constructions based on an ideology of pastoral-
ism is largely consistent with the arguments of Gino Satta in his earlier ethnography,
Turisti a Orgosolo (2001).
    Orgosolo itself is a town that has perhaps had more than its share of anthropologists
and other friends; a variety of analytical perspectives can therefore offer rich opportun-
ities for students to explore different interpretations. A town of over 4,000 residents
suggests some social complexity, and no ethnography can be holistic; Sorge undertakes
an honest account of fieldwork among a limited range of informants, mostly male, in
particular social spaces. This is not a work of political economy, and it does not bear
extensive witness to either the work or the structural conditions of herding. For this
component of analysis, it relies upon Sardinian ethnography from Giulio Angioni and
others. This is certainly helpful to English-speaking readers looking for a good synopsis
of the literature, and historical perspectives are as much at the heart of this book as
contemporary ethnography. The author demonstrates a definite sympathy for British
structuralist approaches, and this is reflected in sketches of social opposition between
“localist” and “cosmopolitan” orientations among Orgosolo residents, as well as his dis-
cussion of hospitality as an instrument of social cohesion and reproduction of symbolic
community.
    Sorge’s cultural reading will resonate with much of the existing scholarship and pub-
lic discourses in Italian. There is, however, a risk of misreading the ethnography as a
simplistic account of how traditions fall apart as a result of global forces, which are not
well nuanced in themselves. The book does not undertake to explore much about the
cross-cutting ties across occupational groups and family networks, or the complex role
of institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church, government agencies, political
groups or other organizations. Only a few voices are directly reported in the text, and
given the selections made by the author, a reader might too easily conclude that all the
herders in Orgosolo must necessarily be «culturally dislocated» barflies. The author


2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 349-351
ANTONIO SORGE ⎸LEGACIES OF VIOLENCE                                                   351


could go further to explore identity constructions that produce novel, often genuine and
creative interpretations of the pastoral activities and traditions associated with central
Sardinian towns. But portrayals of individual subjectivity are limited. Instead, the ana-
lysis leverages a particular type of critical commentary that comes from within the
community, favouring the concerns of older shepherds, as well as those residents who
have enjoyed access to greater social mobility. It represents these concerns fairly, and
gives them the significance they deserve. In doing so, however, it offers little agency or
credit to either “localists/traditionalists” broadly speaking, or anyone involved with
either herding or ecotourism activities today. Yet the rootedness of pastoral identities
continues to be important in Orgosolo and throughout central Sardinia, in generating
sincere ethical and moral discourses that stand against and limit “legacies of violence”,
while also challenging the presumed divide between tradition and modernity. This
paradox invites further scholarly debate, and perhaps future contributions from the au-
thor of this provocative book, which will clearly make an impact on Sardinian ethno-
graphy.




                                                              Tracey HEATHERINGTON
                                                    University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
                                                                   pistoccu@uwm.edu




                                         2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 1, GIUGNO 2016: 349-351
