“When a breach arises”: Good burocratic action and informal scrap metal collection in Northern Italy
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3084
In questo articolo analizzo i provvedimenti amministrativi rivolti a legalizzare le pratiche informali di raccolta di ferro vecchio. Prendo in esame un momento particolare, che ha visto l’affermarsi di procedure amministrative in favore dei Sinti di una provincia del Nord Italia. Per contestualizzare gli eventi analizzati è necessario distinguere le logiche istituzionali, il modo in cui vengono fatte proprie dai dirigenti pubblici così come il loro lealismo. Per l’amministrazione gli “zingari” sono soggetti sconcertanti, che suscitano immagini contrastanti di povertà ed eccessi. Rappresentazioni culturali che entrano in contrasto con quello che dovrebbe essere il prototipo della persona presa in carico dai servizi sociali. Per questo i dirigenti pubblici che agiscono in favore dei Sinti si trovano spesso in un limbo deontologico e morale capace di stimolare percorsi creativi attraverso remore istituzionali, strutture verticistiche e incarichi politici. L’articolo si prefigge di riequilibrare il dibattito sulle discriminazioni istituzionali nei confronti di Roma e Sinti in Italia e in Europa. Anche se non è possibile invertire queste tristi realtà, propongo di prendere in considerazione le azioni positive del sistema amministrativo almeno come stimolo significativo per una riflessione antropologica sulle istituzioni.
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“When a breach arises”: Good burocratic action and informal scrap metal collection in Northern Italy
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“When a breach arises”: Good burocratic action and informal scrap metal collection in Northern Italy
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                                               2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2017: 155-173




“When a breach arises”
Good burocratic action and informal scrap metal collection in
Northern Italy
Elisabeth TAUBER
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano




ABSTRACT: This paper analyses affirmative bureaucratic intervention into the informal
commercial practices of scrap-metal collection among the Sinti in a North-Italian prov-
ince. To contextualize these events it is vital to examine institutional logics, and how
they resonate with public officials’ sense of self as well as political loyalties. In everyday
bureaucracy Gypsies are considered to be perplexing subjects, provoking contrasting
images of poverty and excess. These cultural representations are the opposite of the
idea of a decent social-work client. Hence, bureaucratic intervention on behalf of the
Sinti put the former in a deontological and moral limbo, one which stimulates them to
navigate the political and organisational structures of their organisations in a creative
way. This paper aims to bring a positive example of where the social and institutional
discrimination against Roma and Sinti in Italy and Europe can be broken. Even if it is
not possible to reverse this discrimination, it at least introduces affirmative bureau-
cratic action as an enlightening direction for anthropological study.

KEYWORDS: BUREAUCRATIC SELF, INSTITUTIONAL MORALS, RESISTANCE, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, MARGINALITY.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Elisabeth Tauber
“When a breach arises”: Good burocratic action and informal scrap metal collection in Northern Italy.
2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2017: 155-173.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3084
156                                                                            ELISABETH TAUBER



      When a breach arises and there are people at the top who use it more as… a
      strategy, not to honour their promises, but to get power or bring the interests of
      the powerful to the fore, then it becomes frustrating 1. You are under no obliga-
      tion to raise basic questions, but then I found out by doing precisely that, that I
      was no longer part of it. And that is a reason why I stepped down. Aside from
      age and the fact that you don’t want to carry on with the same routine, the
      most important reasons are being under pressure from people’s demands and
      the feeling that you have to make a concrete contribution (Carlo, 28/01/2013).

   Carlo resigned from his position after 25 years as the highest civil servant
in an north-Italian department for social security. Throughout his time there
he had been known and respected by his colleagues as a rational member of
the administrative elite, carrying out his job with modesty and values-based
professionalism. As such he is representative of middle-class individuals in
modern, capitalist societies, holding onto ideas of positive social transforma-
tion and the promises and duties of the social contract. His professional be-
haviour and motivation can be described, following Bellah (1985), as a mix of
freedom from external influence and nonagency (Weiss 2015: 251). Carlo’s
decision to help a Sinti2 community – who might be described as the oppo-
site to Carlos (Tauber forthcoming) – needs to be seen as a response to the
neoliberalisation of social policies. The previous deal – in which the actions
were aligned with the good of society – collapsed and a new deal introduced
which focused on immediate gains and political marketing. This collapse is
why Carlo feels betrayed. Before resigning, he decided to help a community
which, for many reasons, exists outside capitalist and neoliberal realities.

1. A first draft of this paper was presented at the second meeting of the Biannual Symposium
“Anthropological Talks in South Tyrol”, Bolzano 2015. I would like to thank Vincent Dubois,
Ester Gallo, Chris Shore, Francesco Zanotelli who commented on a first draft during the
symposium. I would also like to thank Dorothy Zinn, with whom I co-organized the event.
Almut Schneider, Marilyn Strathern, Catalina Tesar, Paola Trevisan and Monika
Weissensteiner read previous drafts; I am very grateful for their critical feedback. I would
like to thank Maria Lord for her careful language revision and I am indebted to the three
anonymous reviewers who gave valuable input and suggestions. I would especially like to
thank my main interlocutors whose names are anonymized. Without their readiness to be
proactive, their humour and professional passion it would have been much more difficult to
do research within their departments.
2. In this text, I refer to the Sinti when I deal with a specific research context in northern
Italy, as the interaction with the civil servants here took place exclusively with an Italian
community of Sinti (Tauber 2014). I use Roma as a general category as in the terminology of
European policymaking this term has gone through several transformations (cf. Matras
2013). I use Gypsies, when referring to everyday conversations with civil servants.


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                            157



Change of inner-institutional and political relationships
    This paper draws on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with bureaucrats
in Italy and the Council of Europe. I describe an unusual situation in which
Sinti were helped and also the practical day-to-day work of bureaucrats with
Sinti, something which historical (Lucassen 1993) and ethnographic research
(Tauber 2003) has ignored.
    This engagement shows the complexity of how different levels of adminis-
tration and social relationships interact when moving towards a positive so-
lution to a problem. It also includes social relationships between bureaucrats
and social-security clients, as well as the value of the welfare system for citi-
zens. In addition, this study reveals the social relationships between elite of-
ficials and politicians (Nader 1972). While all these relationships matter, I
mainly focus on how a change in policy impacts on senior civil servants and,
in consequence, this transforms the relationships between junior and senior
officials.
    As will be seen, Carlo’s help for the Sinti is a bureaucratic response to po-
litical indifference and against the market and EU-regulations, which favour
large recycling companies. However, this action starts with a political breach
which results in him stepping down and leaving the administrative elite.
    The main question is, whether these social and political changes lead to
new values or simply allow civil servants to act how they wish, something
which had not been allowed before. In order to understand how the civil ser-
vants see themselves, it is important to look at how morality and compe-
tence are combined within the administration. To do this it is important to
see how the self and state are combined (Lea 2008: 234), and here I look at
people who both control and represent the state (Bourdieu 1999) but who
also want to do «sensible things».
    Anthropology interested in bureaucratic resistance had difficulties in see-
ing people who «buck the system» (cf. Feldmann 2013: 149). Doing sensible
things and being resistant are not automatically the same thing, and this ar-
ticle will seek to discover whether the help for the Sinti was bureaucrats do-
ing sensible things, bureaucrats bucking the system or the administration
swimming against the neoliberal stream. In other words, do these civil ser-
vants show that the (Italian) state is constructed on the idea of the «other»
(see Piasere 2009, 2012, 2015) or that neoliberal policies have regional ef-
fects on institutional actions which help the Roma?


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158                                                                              ELISABETH TAUBER


   By looking at a provincial context and a period which saw unusually pro-
Sinti action – seen as a lively and exciting time by public officials – this arti-
cle moves towards an anthropology of the «good» (Robbins 2013); my inter-
locutors saw allowing a sector of society which suffers discrimination access
to resources as good. Robbins writes:
      If you look around anthropology today, it is hard to miss the importance of
      work on suffering. But it is also possible to spot a number of lines of inquiry
      that, while each still somewhat small or even marginal in themselves, may be
      poised to come together in a new focus on how people living in different soci-
      eties strive to create the good in their lives. The point of this kind of work is not
      to define what might universally count as good, and its practitioners are neither
      so panglossian as to claim that any given society has in fact achieved the capi-
      tal G Good, nor so Pollyannaish as to imagine that societies might achieve it on
      a regular basis if only we could identify what it is. Their more modest aim is to
      explore the different ways people organize their personal and collective lives in
      order to foster what they think of as good, and to study what it is like to live at
      least some of the time in light of such a project (Robbins 2013: 457).


Approaching the social security department and the Sinti scrap metal col-
lectors
   The social security department looked at here is in an autonomous prov-
ince of northern Italy. It is part of the administrative apparatus of an au-
tonomously governed province, which is subdivided into thirteen areas of re-
sponsibility and is governed by eight politicians. The department, part of the
broader area of healthcare, social welfare and sport, was set up in the early
1980s when a debate about social welfare was prompted by a broader aware-
ness of these issues on the international stage. The main purpose of the de-
partment was to promote social policies in a region that had, until the early
1970s, experienced emigration because of poverty. It is now among the rich-
est provinces of Italy and considered to have one of the best functioning ad-
ministrative systems in the country.
   At first the department had no office dealing exclusively with the Roma,
refugees or migrants. An office for these was only established at the begin-
ning of the 1990s. At the same time Italy experienced its first immigration
from eastern Europe and Africa, and the Council of Europe began to debate
the human rights of the Roma. The Sinti have been present in this region for
several generations (Tauber 2014; Iori 2015) and are Italian citizens. Their
administrative allocation to the social security office of migrants, refugees
and «nomadi», something common to most Italian provinces, has been con-
tested and is a focus of criticism.


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                                     159


   Although Sinti are only around 0,04 % of the population of the province,
the social and economic issues associated with them provoke vigorous dis-
cussion. Housing is an ongoing issue as most Sinti families still prefer to live
in their caravans on small sites, and, according to officials, once they have
moved into social housing «they do not respect our rules». Another con-
tentious issue is that of schooling (especially absenteeism and leaving school
at an early age). A third issue is that of their precarious economic position,
linked to their work of selling and begging. Scrap metal collection is prac-
tised mainly by Sinti men, who are keen to emphasise that they work au-
tonomously and only within their own family. These men would not accept
an employer or any other kind of working hierarchy. They have no experience
of wage labour and reject the need to pay taxes on their income (Ferrari
2012). Their approach to work, from a capitalist standpoint, differs radically
from the surrounding societies of the Italian Eastern Alps (Tauber forthcom-
ing), as well as from the Romanian and Xoraxanè Roma who practise infor-
mal scrap-metal collection in Rome. This organisation of work’ has been de-
scribed as a representation of their difference from surrounding cultures and
their forms of dependence (Solimene 2016). In summary, it is possible to say
that Sinti family networks form a non-capitalist social and economic model
within a capitalist world (Brazzabeni, Cunha, Fotta 2016). This also includes
their rejection of economic models promoted by the administration, e.g. so-
cial-economic cooperatives for disadvantaged groups. Lucassen and Willems
write that «these groups [Roma] were regarded as a threat to a well-ordered
society; from a socioeconomic point of view they did not fit in the poor relief
system» (2003: 304). As such they are a problem for social security aimed at
motivating and controlling people dependent on welfare (Dubois 2015). This
paper not only aims to tackle what is claimed to be a form of institutional vi-
olence against Roma family systems (cf. Saletti Salza 2010; Tosi Cambini
2011)3, but also deals with administrators who are sensitive to diversity and
culture and sense the dilemma between having doubts about their clients
and resisting the economic reform of welfare.

3. So far the debate on European and national policies for Roma has seen ambitious inclu-
sionary projects produce new forms of exclusion, poverty and marginalization (Grill et al.
2013). It underlines the re- or new production of ethnic categories through the analysis of
segregation (Gay y Blasco 2016), discourse analysis (Jovanović 2015; Simhandl 2007) and the
ethnisation of politics (van Baar 2014, 2015). In Italy, social anthropologists have dealt with
the question of the official state categorisation of «nomadi» or «zingari» and «antitsigan-
ism» in great detail (Piasere 2009, 2012, 2015) and institutional violence against the Roma.

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160                                                                           ELISABETH TAUBER


   In 2007 I got in contact with Norma, a public official who dealt with Gyp-
sies. My research inside her department was only possible because of her
readiness to allow me access4. She became my main interlocutor and tutor,
explaining administrative practices, procedures and rules of behavior. Before
I moved up the administrative hierarchy to begin my participation and inter-
views, Norma taught me on how to act in an institutional context. My desire
to study up (Nader 1972) was helped by being taught how to act by a junior
official. I learned about the existence of what Norma described as «those at
the top, [and to deal with them] you need to know how hierarchy works», as
well as the usefulness of informal social relationships within the institution.
I was also able to understand Norma’s idea of herself within what she called
«this hierarchy»5.
   In 2008, after 10 months of participant observation, I left this institution
but we continued to keep in touch after my fieldwork. In 2010 Norma con-
tacted me because of a problem outlined by local Sinti families who were be-
ing obstructed by the police from collecting and selling scrap metal because
of new European and national regulations on waste management. We met in
Norma’s office, discussing possible strategies and puzzled about how to take
this up the hierarchy. As the scrap metal problem called for broad coopera-
tion, she judged the situation as follows:
      Without the director’s support I cannot do anything. If I call the legal office of
      the province, they will tell me to come next year. However, if Carlo [the director
      of her department] calls them he will get an appointment tomorrow. Carlo gives
      me the greatest possible freedom of movement and action but for this request it
      is not enough (Norma, 10/11/2010).

   In this meeting we drafted the proposal which began the second phase of
my research. Through becoming involved in a two-and-a-half-year process to
legalize scrap-metal collection for Sinti (and other scrap-metal collectors), I
became a semi-insider, involved emotionally and interested in ending the
project positively. In my previous research with the Sinti I had found the ad-
ministration unpredictable and so, for a while, I kept a «skeptical and critical

4. The formal admission for my research was given by her director, but it was her who ac -
cepted me.
5. Understanding the concept of «hierarchy» after my long-term ethnographic work with the
non-hierarchical, egalitarian Sinti (Tauber 2014) was a culture shock. While with Sinti I had
to learn how to be a gendered person within an egalitarian logic, constantly negotiating new
and egalitarian relationships with other women, and men. Here – inside the institution – I
had to learn about the impossibility of thinking and moving without the consent of «those at
the top».


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                           161


distance» (Gingrich 2004: 161). The more I learnt from the public officials
about what it means to be a person inside the institution, the more my dis-
tance reduced. I had to learn about institutional conceptions of time and the
communication and working structures, which regulate meetings and proce-
dures. I became part of the complex institutional dynamics. I was in regular
contact with different levels and different departments. I did not merely ob-
serve meetings but participated actively in them and also went out for lunch,
coffee and cigarette breaks with public officials. I was brought in, on Norma’s
request, as an «expert» on the Sinti. This led to ethnographic insights but I
also had to face ethical dilemmas, e.g. how much could I negotiate between
the Sinti informal economies and a state institution. As the project asked for
in-house institutional creativity and pragmatism, I also faced moments in
which I, as well as public officials, hit a brick wall. In this second phase I
clashed several times with Norma, which highlights the degree of my partici-
pation.

Between the top and the territory: Mediators and isolated individuals
   The purpose of this paper is not to analyse Sinti economies but the diffi-
culty in governing them: something which is difficult for the state and is
present in the thoughts of civil servants. This is the point at which the moral
concerns of civil servants meet the informal economy of the Sinti, which, im-
portantly, operates alongside the total bureaucracy of the capitalist market
economy (see Graeber 2015). As a result, we need to see this mix of worlds as
embedded within a system based on the social contract and an idea of what
is socially and politically good.
   Therefore, the work of public officials should be perceived as part of being
a «correct» civil servant, and their engagement with the Sinti and the new
forms of departmental interaction described here seen as a sense of resis-
tance and good. This is present in the political outrage of Carlo against indif-
ference, superficiality and a short-sighted policy motivated by economic con-
siderations. It is also a response to his own unease and general scepticism
concerning the «economization of social responsibilities». This can only take
place during a specific and exceptional time, as ordinarily Carlo would not
have dedicated his time to the immediate needs of a small marginal commu -
nity, but delegated the task to junior officials.
   In my conversations with civil servants it quickly became clear that, de-
spite many years of experience of working with Gypsies, they found them-
selves in a quandary. Norma spoke of her own long period of thought on this,
moving between ideas of «Porsches in the Gypsy camps» and «Gypsy children

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162                                                                             ELISABETH TAUBER


who would be sent to the back of the class by their teachers», and drawing on
her experience in other fields of diversity (LGBT). While the majority of the
civil servants who have direct contact with Roma or Sinti families, or have
applications for financial support for the families on their desks, continue to
be reluctant to engage with them, Norma is more proactive. She is aware of
the ethical dilemmas faced by civil servants: Gypsies do not correspond to
the «myth of the good client» who requires convincing that they have a right
to support from the state (Notdurfter et al. 2015). On the contrary, they are
keen on informing themselves about financial support but do not allow social
workers to intervene (cf. Tauber 2015). For the civil servants there is a sense
of guilt towards those «truly in poverty» and «the additional bureaucratic
and moral disquiet about the Gypsies, as no-one really knows what they do,
or do not, possess». In addition, civil servants working with the Roma often
move between positions and work in social isolation, both from their co-
workers and from the Gypsies, to whom they are merely Gağe (non-Gypsies)
and representatives of the state.
   This is also true for Norma in the social security department, working at a
low level in an area avoided by most of her colleagues. In her work she has
solved many problems without communicating with her colleagues. More-
over, in her relationships with the people on the ground, in particular with
Roma and Sinti families, she is only seen as someone from the local author-
ity despite years of close and dependable work. In this she experiences what
Lea describes as the state «within the self and the self within the state»
(2008: 235), a strong sense of social justice and the state’s foundation as a
place Gypsies do not belong (Piasere 2012, 2015).
   Norma’s description of her early years in the department helps up to ap-
preciate this sense of institutional isolation and loneliness:
      At the beginning, a lawyer worked with me. But he told me from the start, "look,
      forget it, of course I will not accompany you to a Gypsy camp, who knows what
      is happening there." And also, from a legal point of view, even if you studied
      law, it is not so easy to deal with the legal documentation, you must have al-
      ready read through the stuff. He and his colleagues were simply not interested,
      this area of work [Gypsies, refugees and migrants] is not seen very positively, or,
      rather, the role is difficult. You must take a mediating role and then you don’t
      please anybody. You please neither the clients nor the civil servants of the area.
      Nor the politicians, because officers want as few problems as possible. It is a
      relatively difficult role. Privately, friends and also my family suggested I look
      for another job, as being in contact with these groups is not a plus. Maybe it was
      like that also for my superiors: I don’t want anything to do with this [issue], just
      solve the problem, no matter how. Of course, keep me informed (Norma, 4/02/
      2013).


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                                   163


   One of Norma’s first questions in the reversed interview 6 which she con-
ducted with me in 2013, was: «Then [before you came to know the institu-
tion] you would have explained to a Sinta/Sinto that the province, municipal-
ity or social district are responsible for these issues. Today [after your re-
search in this department] what would you say?» I answered that I would
give Sinti the names of public officials, explaining which of the officials
would work for them. Norma agrees but simultaneously expresses her un-
ease:
      It depends on the individuals, but isn’t this the wrong way to go about it? Be-
      cause the administration should be self-contained and work independently; but
      I’d like to ask again, isn’t this the wrong way? It is important and clear to us
      who sits where and occupies which position, but, I need to ask you, isn’t this
      the wrong way? (Norma, 15/02/2013).

   This reveals the ambiguities and contradictions she experiences as a civil
servant: the sense of duty, the social contract and institutional morality
question her identity and sense of belonging. Official moralities move along
these contradictory lines: in the code of conduct public officials are expected
to be loyal to the institution; to follow the instructions of their superiors;
and, if they refuse to observe the rules and get a written request, they are
obliged to carry it out unless the request is illegal. Officials are told to not
share internal data externally, except in cases in which they are overtly al-
lowed to.
   Over the years I came to recognize how the hierarchy, professional compe-
tence and loyalty had been incorporated into, and continuously negotiated
during the work of civil servants. Norma, like other officials in the social se-
curity department, had a strong sense of the hierarchy and the dilemmas it
posed. They constantly referred to how superiors see things, how they make
decisions and what they need. Although Norma had gained broad freedom of
action because she dealt with marginalized subjects (who were not regarded
as politically important inside as well as outside the institution), she was
convinced that her autonomy was guaranteed by her superiors because she
had established respectful and trusting relationships with them. During our
conversations it became evident that there is an ambivalence about being a
civil servant with a public duty of loyalty and correctness. She credits civil
servants with having initiative and being active, seeing the single civil ser-
vant as significant, while describing herself as being outside the structure, as
a normal employee simply waiting for directions from above:
6. I introduced this methodological approach towards the end of my research, complement-
ing my analysis with what my interlocutors would find it important to reflect on.

                                          2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2017: 155-173
164                                                                              ELISABETH TAUBER

      I depend on them. I am a normal employee and I should give [laughs bitterly]
      advice to the directors. I can say, of course, be careful, this or that would be im -
      portant or interesting, that is my role, but the decisions… they decide which
      aims are to be pursued or taken into account. But they also deal with areas that
      are important, and of course also with what is overlooked by politicians. And
      you can imagine, the closer you get to an election year, the more you get priori-
      ties that are completely different from those concerns that are seen by society
      as largely negative (Norma, 17/11/2011).

   She perceives herself as a civil servant who is assessed, observed and val-
ued by senior staff. However, not all managers were the same in junior offi-
cials’ eyes, they were judged according to their relationships with subordi-
nates and their competence; Norma expressed her scepticism and doubts
about top members of the institution delicately, after having praised the rea-
sons why certain people are in a higher position. Over the years, she came up
with a stronger and more pragmatic distinction in terms of value and respect
for the people ranked above her.
   Norma was convinced that «knowing how the system works and building
on trusting relationships permits you to work properly, also as a subordinate
official». In many situations, including politically delicate issues like moving
a Sinti family from a contaminated area to a safe place, she had permission
to accompany the families (in the very early morning in order not to cause a
public scandal) but was not accompanied by her superiors. One could say
that her relative autonomy is a consequence of the marginalization of the
Sinti, something which contributed to her own social isolation in the institu-
tion. Despite this, Norma maintained social relationships with civil servants
in other departments and also escaped total professional isolation by work-
ing on other issues.
   Trust of the department’s hierarchy was vital for those civil servants dis-
approved of a «socially indifferent leadership». To them it was essential to
rely on relationships whose basic values were rooted in a political and ad-
ministrative morality and sense of the social contract. Carlo described this
confidence as fundamental, «I would be lost without this framework and
could not do my work properly».

«When a breach arises»
  For subordinate civil servants the organisational hierarchy is essential.
These civil servants are aware of the political leaning of a legislative period
and of its effect on the institution, but their point of reference remains pri-
marily their superiors. It is different for managerial staff, who assume that


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                                       165


the civil service machinery does the preparatory work while they concentrate
on the demanding job of negotiating over the content with politicians. Carlo
puts it this way:
      The thing is, it is always about… about rights; let’s say, the possibility, the pos-
      sibility of accessing the resources of a community. And that has to do with the
      claim that today society and communities acknowledge the presence of social
      rights. It is an achievement both of contemporary society and organization.
      And when one agrees with that, let’s say, that there are groups, people and
      groups that depend on these resources. Yes? They are not people that ulti-
      mately have resources, property, that they can organize to support themselves,
      but they are people who need those resources to be able to satisfy their mate-
      rial and social needs. And those… who must take the responsibility for guaran-
      teeing these rights over the resources, for the claims, are civil servants. And in
      our case primarily [those of] the province. And the institution must function in
      a way that these claims can take place. These… these provide opportunity,
      means, resources, money and also information, support, governance for the
      groups. It is the function of a public authority, such as a province, and… I got
      into it in order to be able to take part and participate. That was my intention, to
      do that in my working life (Carlo, 8/11/2010).

    He identifies himself as a resource, basing his principles on the social con-
tract which promises to support people who do not have the resources to sat-
isfy their material and social needs. While his sphere of influence could be
restricted or widened by political guidelines, a lack of agreement with the
provincial government brought new alliances and unusual collaborations
into being. Carlo understood himself as someone who worked for «the people
that ultimately have [no] resources, property, [so] that they can organize to
support themselves».
    I interviewed Carlo several times during 2007-2008, and then from 2010
onwards. Now he is 63 years old and has a precious institutional memory. He,
who set up the department and was supported over many decades by his po-
litical superior. He is known as a competent jurist with a fine sense of social
sensitivity. When I met Carlo for our first conversations in 2007 he expressed
his commitment to working for the principles of the social contract, praising
it as a great achievement of modern society. Still, he had no feeling for what
was going on in his department and the Sinti were not seen as a priority.
    When I saw him three years later he expressed his disquiet about the new
political tendency to economise on social provision. He said that policymak-
ing had changed and he would now produce policy papers which ended up in
the wastepaper basket after a month. He spoke about «papers without souls»
(cf. «policy animism», Lea 2008). This contrasted with previous political ad-
ministrations when the politician responsible for social policy had invited

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166                                                                              ELISABETH TAUBER


the entire administrative staff once a year for a round table to discuss issues.
Carlo, like other civil servants, reminisced about the old style of leadership.
Public officials would say that the old leadership made it easy for them to
identify with the department. Officials participating in the scrap-metal
project outlined above (five people from three different departments: waste
management, the legal office and social security), saw the political makeover
as being more concerned with economic management than concrete issues.
An official in the social security department commented on the new «politi-
cal atmosphere» within his department: «we are administering and that’s it.
[There is] no debate, no dialog no vision anymore. To administer social [pol-
icy] is not enough» (Riccardo, 12/06/2012).
   As a result, Carlo decided to take an active part in the low-budget scrap-
metal project, explaining that: «we are not working for the people anymore
but for the political elite». Having disdain for the new political style he was
keen to make clear his own views:
      How our institution develops is not about problem solving and talking to each
      other anymore. Instead… I mean problem solving for the people… it is problem
      solving, but very often for the political elite: I need this, I must go to this meet-
      ing, be present this at the press conference, I met with X or Y and they asked me,
      etc. This is how the job works now. It just does not deliver solutions for the peo-
      ple anymore. That also happens, but in a very roundabout way, so that the
      members of the government can say in their surgeries that we are solving the
      problem (Carlo, 4/06/2013).

   What follows Carlo’s moment of clarity was a collapse in the relationship
between himself and the political elite. He was thrown out of the political
and administrative network in which he had been embedded for more than
20 years. The result of this was a growing state of social isolation, cut off
from discussions over, as he said, «sustainable social policy… I was no longer
part of it».

How affirmative action is born
   The breach Carlo was experiencing was significant as this was the main
motivation for him to participate in the low-budget scrap-metal project. His
criticism was of the lack of socio-political content and the economic
neoliberalism of the political leadership. Over years of ethnographic research
I observed a process of change in civil servants, from discrete and loyal
towards the active defence of moral and political frameworks. Carlo moved
from looking to the political elite to looking into what was going on in his


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                           167


department and in the region. While for many years the department had
been characterised by its hierarchy, Carlo’s crisis and his growing scepticism
of the political elite allowed for new forms of “good” action. It was at this
point they could address the concerns of the Sinti. Carlo decided to become
an active participant in the project, and a link with other provincial legal and
waste management departments whose cooperation was needed, opening up
social relationships in an apparently inflexible institution.
   In 2013 the project reached a positive outcome, the Sinti had a provincial
decree in their hands permitting them to collect scrap metal. At this point I
found myself asking the civil servants how supporting an informal economy
with no tax payments, social insurance and working licenses was compatible
with their administrative duty? They said, this might not have happened in
calmer political times, but the issue required a solution and so intervention
on a social-policy level was justified: tax regulations were not their concern.
Although they expressed doubts, they found that it was worth being opposi-
tional in these «socially cold and politically empty periods» when the next
victims of the newly unleashed economic and political dynamics could be
themselves.
   At the beginning of the project there was a sense of conspiracy (cf.
Herzfeld 2005). The main question was how the director could convince the
civil servants of other departments of the need for a change in policy and,
alongside legal matters, it was the persuasive powers of the director and his
symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1984) that lay at the heart of the meetings. This
led to the legal and resource-management department making him person-
ally responsible for the «appropriateness of the project».
   Team meetings in his own department were no longer about providing a
«correct bureaucratic process for all citizens in our society», more and more
Carlo saw himself as the spokesperson for a group whose mere presence was
enough to prompt feelings of unease, disapproval, mistrust and a sense of
guilt in most civil servants. In normal bureaucratic procedures Gypsies are a
side issue which public institutions do not tackle unless they are forced to.
During this exceptional time, however, I could see civil servants interacting
with departments which were sceptical and lacked motivation, achieving
representation and social justice for their clients. They looked forward to the
meetings with excitement, finding these new forms of work inspiring and
motivating. They enjoyed being in the presence of the director and the Sinti
men who regularly joined the consultations, suddenly seeing them, «despite
their marginality, [as] dignified people» (Carlo, 18/05/2012).


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168                                                                       ELISABETH TAUBER


Concluding remarks: The finite era of good action
    Up until now, anthropologists have generally overlooked the moment
when civil servants are not in harmony with political representatives. Vari-
ous authors have pointed out that despite institutions violence against the
people it is tasked with protecting7 there are local contexts in which this can
break down. This can be ascribed to hard-working civil servants (Gupta 2012:
23), or even a conspiracy between civil servants and the people (cf. Herzfeld
2005: 372). Above is a description of hard-working civil servants and a con-
spiracy between civil servants and the people. However, as an ethnographer
it is not easy to identify informants who break with political power and insti-
tutions to help underprivileged clients (Feldmann 2013: 149). I see in Carlo
and his team, people who, for a limited period, resisted the neoliberalisation
of social policies by legalizing informal scrap metal collection for the Sinti.
The question remains, however, which structures allow or hinder bureaucrats
from acting according to their own values?
    The case described here reveals that it was necessary to create a new space
within the institution. This allowed officials to express unease with new poli-
cies and to act in a way which was in harmony with their values. These were
already present but had only been put into practice by junior officials. While
these values had been «inactive» (Weiss 2015: 243), they still remained part
of the organization of the department. This inactivity was also sustained by
the Gypsies not corresponding to the «myth of the good client» (Nothdurfter
et.al 2015). The power to create a new space for action was given to the civil
servant at the top of the hierarchy, but it could only be used if good action
were part of the self-perception of all civil servants.
    Despite civil servants feeling downhearted about the temporary nature of
this ability to behave in a different way, their actions led to an ethnographic
understanding of what was perceived as good values and behaviour. While
affirmative action might be rare – the Roma in Italy are relegated to the mar-
gins of society and the workings of institutions – it is also important to look
at situations that are positive, to avoid «suffering» (Robbins 2013) or «dark»
(Ortner 2016) research. I argue that we need to understand administrators
within state institutions by seeing these as systems of «public rule of action
and thought», and which have shared values and «ways of thinking in com-
mon, ways of acting in common» (Mauss 1968: 25). Understanding how insti-

7. This has been described as a «vertical topography of power» (Ferguson 2006: 108), as a
burgeoning bureaucracy (Gupta 2012) or as institutional indifference (Feldmann 2011).


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“WHEN A BREACH ARISES”                                                            169


tutions work and how civil servants navigate them makes it possible to see
how people can break with the institutions’ structural violence, and form
new ways of engaging with the public.
   This example of good action brings into question whether the (Italian)
state is still built on the territorial and social exclusion of «Gypsies» (Piasere
2009, 2012, 2015). The point is not that neoliberalisation places Roma out-
side the state, but that it can affect all of us. As Norma notes with discomfort,
«it depends on the individuals». There is a potential problem here for ethno-
graphers of Roma, we might lament the impact of neoliberalism but the pre-
vious regime excluded Roma as well (cf. Lucassen, Willelms 2003). Did a ne-
oliberal regime have the effect of pushing Roma to the fore, revealing what
the Sinti had suspected all along: you need to know who to speak to? The an-
swer to this will only become clear over time and through further research,
and whether the state retains spaces for both «antitziganisms» (Tosi Cam-
bini, Beluschi Fabeni 2017) and Roma-philia(s).
   The long-term relationships built up by a junior offical, Norma, with the
heads of Sinti families, the development of relationships within and between
institutions, and the indignation of a senior official all had their part to play
in masking the legalization of scrap-metal collection for the Sinti as success.
Political disenchantment pushed Carlo to undertake meaningful action,
opening doors for a team who used their creativity to negotiate between
their own beliefs and the state, as well as a seemingly paradoxical relation-
ship between administrators and the Sinti. In doing so, they brought about a
positive social transformation, engaged in ethical action and were true to
their institutional selves.




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170                                                                      ELISABETH TAUBER



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 Elisaberth TAUBER is a Lecturer in sociocultural anthropology at Free University of
 Bozen-Bolzano. She has conducted long-term fieldwork with a Sinti community,
 ethnographic research on sub-national action and on public institutions in Italy.
 Among her publications: Du wirst keinen Ehemann nehmen! Respekt, Bedeutung der
 Toten und Fluchtheirat bei den Sinti Estraixaria (2nd revised edition, LIT Verlag,
 2014); Quel visage aurait aujourd’hui la raison en Europe centrale si Kant avait
 prêté l’oreille à son collègue et s’avait laisser inspiré par les Sinti de Prusse? (in
 Tsiganes nomades un malentendu européen, C. Coquio, J.L.Poueyto, eds, Karthala,
 2014); The public value of anthropology: Engaging critical social issues through
 ethnography (co-editor with D. Zinn, Bozen-Bolzano University Press, 2015).
 elisabeth.tauber@unibz.it




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Elisabeth Tauber
“When a breach arises”: Good burocratic action and informal scrap metal collection in Northern Italy.
2017 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 6, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2017: 155-173.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3084
