“This is a book by a scholar enormously well-read in anthropological thought, capable of achieving a critical distance from normative readings that other disciplines have afforded the mafia by adopting an ethnographic approach to the utmost. Thanks to this Palumbian anthropology, we come to a profound understanding of the specific influences of the mafia on religion.” • Giovanni Pizza, ANUAC 9 (2) (2020): 183-185.
Where Saints Show Respect reveals the penetration of mafia values in Sicilian society. Instead of focusing on sensational criminality, this study considers rituals through which local society learns deep respect – sometimes fearful, but often playful or pious – for those values and their enforcers. State and Church misconstrue these values as vestiges of a society morally damned and left behind in a pagan past. This study draws on three decades of ethnographic research to explore a strikingly different Sicily from the self-congratulatory version of government and religious leaders, where a seemingly obscure set of rural practices offers a critical perspective on modernity itself.
Berardino Palumbo is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Messina. In addition to co-editing two series of anthropological monographs, he is the author of several books and articles on the anthropology of Italy, and Sicily in particular.
LC: GN17.3.I8 P35 2026
BISAC: SOC026010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Sociology/Marriage & Family; SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; REL084000 RELIGION/Religion, Politics & State
