ABSTRACT
International media and popular culture have perpetuated the presumption that criminals of Calabrian origins around the world must belong to, and replicate the structure of, the mafia-type Calabrian ‘ndrangheta clans. This presumption has been largely confirmed by Italian authorities and recently been considered in Australia. However, a mere importation of foreign policing models, from Europe or the USA, is in danger of replicating the flawed conceptualisation of organised crime as always hierarchical and monolithic existing in many other countries while risking to miss the true nature of the Calabrian mafia phenomenon in Australia.
In preparation for a research project in Australia and in Canada that run between 2016 and 2018, and drawing from previous research on the topic, this chapter will reflect on the author’s personal journey that led to researching the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta, as in Italy as abroad. In so doing, this chapter will present personal memories and track the evolution of the author’s theoretical framework across these memories. This exercise will support a clearer presentation of the arguments at the backbone of current questions on researching the ‘ndrangheta in Australia. It will explain how it is possible to understand the ‘ndrangheta as a set of behaviours (‘ndranghetism) that can migrate and/or root abroad also thanks to exploitation of cultural traits from the territory of origin. National approaches, however, often mistake cultural differences for cultural biases, struggle to recognise culture and behaviours as relevant for investigations and oppose cultural approaches in fear of ethnic discrimination. In so doing, the very core of this reflection will be a re-definition of the concepts of culture and of mafias.
