The Art of Making Do in Naples

Synopsis

&“In Naples, there are more singers than there are unemployed people.&” These words echo through the neomelodica music scene, a vast undocumented economy animated by wedding singers, pirate TV, and tens of thousands of fans throughout southern Italy and beyond. In a city with chronic unemployment, this setting has attracted hundreds of aspiring singers trying to make a living—or even a fortune. In the process, they brush up against affiliates of the region&’s violent organized crime networks, the camorra. In The Art of Making Do in Naples, Jason Pine explores the murky neomelodica music scene and finds himself on uncertain ground.The &“art of making do&” refers to the informal and sometimes illicit entrepreneurial tactics of some Neapolitans who are pursuing a better life for themselves and their families. In the neomelodica music scene, the art of making do involves operating do-it-yourself recording studios and performing at the private parties of crime bosses. It can also require associating with crime boss-impresarios who guarantee their success by underwriting it with extortion, drug trafficking, and territorial influence. Pine, likewise &“making do,&” gradually realized that the completion of his ethnographic work also depended on the aid of forbidding figures.The Art of Making Do in Naples offers a riveting ethnography of the lives of men who seek personal sovereignty in a shadow economy dominated, in incalculable ways, by the camorra. Pine navigates situations suffused with secrecy, moral ambiguity, and fears of ruin that undermine the anthropologist&’s sense of autonomy. Making his way through Naples&’s spectacular historic center and outer slums, on the trail of charmingly evasive neomelodici singers and unsettlingly elusive camorristi, Pine himself becomes a music video director and falls into the orbit of a shadowy music promoter who may or may not be a camorra affiliate.Pine&’s trenchant observations and his own improvised attempts at &“making do&” provide a fascinating look into the lives of people in the gray zones where organized crime blends into ordinary life.

Copyright:

2012

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781452933658

Related ISBNs:

9780816636310

Publisher:

University of Minnesota Press

Date of Addition:

03/18/25

Copyrighted By:

the Regents of the University of Minnesota

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Social Studies, Music

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.