ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Camorra groups and families as an emergent phenomenon that takes place within social and economic spaces and is related to the violent regulation of legal and illegal markets. Camorra groups act as extended family businesses, through large kinship networks, intertwined with economic activities and often connected, through marriage strategies, to other violent families. Clans are mostly based on open entrepreneurial-type networks which operate in several economic sectors, while a widespread violence in social relations and above all in economic transactions is the condition for the birth of this type of mafia. For these reasons, the characteristics of Camorra clans are strictly connected to the territorial context in which they emerge. The chapter thus focuses on the characteristics, strategies and dynamics of Camorra clans operating in four areas: 1. Naples city centre; 2. the outskirts of Naples; 3. the province of Naples; and 4. the province of Caserta falling under the control of the Casalesi cartel. Finally, the chapter analyses the ways through which the use of violence shapes and affects the entrepreneurial model Camorra clans adopt in managing various economic sectors.
