Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EXTORT (Anthropologies of Extortion)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-07-01 al 2023-12-31
Over the last two decades there has been increasing concern about the spread of criminal political entanglements and a blurring between legitimate and illegal economies across the world. Against this backdrop extortion, the criminal offence of obtaining money, property, or services from an individual or institution through intimidation (or force), is said to be on the increase. Also referred as ‘protection rackets’, extortionists are typically the source of violence as well as the providers of protection from the violence they mete out. The so-called ‘offer one can’t refuse’ has come to occupy a quintessential position in the global imaginary of mafia-type-criminal organizations. But extortion also exists beyond clandestine criminal networks and it is becoming a profitable source of livelihood and governance and a key visible social relation in many parts of the world. Despite this observable trend, much of academic, policy and media attention still remain focused on extortion’s economic transactional nature rather than its lasting effects in shaping social and moral relations, effects that reach beyond the moment and place of the transaction, as well as its original rationale. As a result, systematic research on, and explanatory models for, the apparent normalisation of extortion relations (including cyber-extortion) in everyday life are currently lacking. Both the physical and the virtual anthropological terrains where extortion sociality is evolving remain poorly understood.
The project main objectives are to produce:
- the first ethnographic account of extortion in social life across South and East Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe and asks, why is extortion such a powerful cross-cultural statecraft, economic and social relation?
- analytical and theoretical development in the study of power, consent and organized crime
- methodological innovation by conducting a simultaneous cross-national ethnographic research and adding a South-to-South comparative angle in an area dominated by single case studies and a focus on the Global North
- capability by forging an international network of scholars in the emerging field of the anthropology of crime
- policy relevant research in the fields of violence and consent, organized crime, informal economy and development.
The project main objectives are to produce:
- the first ethnographic account of extortion in social life across South and East Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe and asks, why is extortion such a powerful cross-cultural statecraft, economic and social relation?
- analytical and theoretical development in the study of power, consent and organized crime
- methodological innovation by conducting a simultaneous cross-national ethnographic research and adding a South-to-South comparative angle in an area dominated by single case studies and a focus on the Global North
- capability by forging an international network of scholars in the emerging field of the anthropology of crime
- policy relevant research in the fields of violence and consent, organized crime, informal economy and development.
The main results achieved so far are the successful ongoing collection of 15 case studies on the sociality of extortion across South and East Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe.
This collaborative and comparative work is allowing the team to write thematically and comparatively across sites and further develop:
a) the field of the anthropology of relatedness, personhood and exchange
b) theories of power and authority, by asking why do people obey, comply and consent?
c) the concept of 'organize crime' both analytically and empirically
d) an international team and network of scholars and stake holders with shared interests in understanding the sociality of extortion.
This collaborative and comparative work is allowing the team to write thematically and comparatively across sites and further develop:
a) the field of the anthropology of relatedness, personhood and exchange
b) theories of power and authority, by asking why do people obey, comply and consent?
c) the concept of 'organize crime' both analytically and empirically
d) an international team and network of scholars and stake holders with shared interests in understanding the sociality of extortion.
In extortion typically two parts strike a bargain where the extorted consents (even if unwillingly) to cooperate. Such ‘consent’ sets extortion rackets apart from other predatory violent crimes. Studying extortion relational power across different domains of life is proving crucial to understand processes of consent and with it the nature of power and authority in the contemporary world. Expressions of freedom from coercive power relations is the mantra of today’s age of consent. From the #MeToo movement to contestations of election results, and from resistance to Covid-19 lockdowns to legislations for greater protection of privacy, processes of consent have emerged as a central issue in diverse realms of life. Paradoxically, violent and excessive forms of control and authoritarian forms of governance are only escalating. Intimidation, it appears, is authorised, legitimated, and ‘consented’. Thus developing rich theories of the agency of intimidation/racketeering in their specificity is crucial not only for enhancing the study of extortion: it allows us to have a more sensitive grasp of human and material agencies through which people may conduct their power relationships today, and help us understand challenges to democratic life and socio-economic justice.