Hot links enable readers to access a rich array of additional resources.Ībstract This thesis explores the social, political and economic relations constituted in relation to agrarian cooperatives that work land confiscated by the state from mafiosi owners in the Alto Belice valley, Sicily. The victims’ lives and premature, traumatic deaths thus stand as strong evidence refuting the myths that the mafia does not harm women or children, or that the so-called old mafia protected them. Each life history seeks first of all to identify the victim with her own name, and draw out the uniqueness and individuality of her life and history, as documented by scattered traces left in interviews, diaries, testimonies, newspaper archives, and Italian antimafia web sites.While creating a space for their life stories in cultural memory, the resultant history of Italy documents the mafias’ systemic use of murder against women and young girls since the very beginnings of the criminal organizations. The first history of its kind in English, this work reconstructs the life stories of over two-hundred girls and women who lived throughout the regions of Italy from 1878 to 2018, and were killed by members of the Italian mafia organizations, which include the camorra, Cosa Nostra, ’ndrangheta, and the United Sacred Crown. It is interesting that Microsoft WORD automatically changed the lowercase 'm' that I just typed in the word 'mafiosi'. Out of these arches flow characters that likely represent people who are Mafiosi on the right and those engaged in the fight against such criminal behavior on the left. On the right, the statement reads in English MUM'S THE WORD above its rough Italian equivalent CHE NON SE NE PARLI, while on the left translations in the opposite order read, above, DICONO SIAMO MORTI, and below, THEY SAY WE'RE DEAD. On either side of this scene there are balanced two groups that are characterized by similar statements, which have been split into concentric arcs. Is this the same child that is lying on the slab, but in a happier circumstance? The green ring into which the slab seems to enter (like an MRI scan or a Kubrick-inspired cataclysm) carries the words IGORNANCE IS POWERFUL, ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES, a rather ironic exhortation, almost like a Pop Art advertisement. Above the slab-or should we call it a sacrificial table?-we see the outline of an adult, likely a mother, who looks down into the face of an infant that returns her gaze. His mouth is open with a black mark that almost suggests a vain attempt to speak. In front of the slab, hidden behind figures in the foreground we see a shrouded adult figure lying prostrate in what is likely a coffin. Hidden within the patchwork are crosses that underscore the central, essentially a funereal scene of an infant on lying on a slab amidst fruit that celebrates life and candles that mark death. The contrast between hot and cold color is balanced by the symbolic meaning of blood or flame and quenching rain. Overall there is a patchwork of rectangles and squares in various shades of red, which seem to emit licks of flame into a smaller but equally patchwork sky. The painting by Tom DiSalvo is teeming with symbols composed with a post-Modern sensibility.
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