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‘Undesirable Italians’: prolegomena for a history of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta in Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2016

Stephen Bennetts
Stephen Bennetts*
Affiliation:
Australian ’Ndrangheta Research Group, University College London
*
*Email: s.bennetts@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Although Italian mafia scholars have recently been turning their attention to the Calabrian mafia (known as the ’Ndrangheta) diaspora in Australia, their efforts have been limited by conducting research remotely from Italy without the benefit of local knowledge. Australian journalists and crime writers have long played an important role in documenting ’Ndrangheta activities, but have in turn been limited by a lack of expertise in Italian language and culture, and knowledge of the Italian scholarly literature. As previously in the US, Australian scholarly discussion of the phenomenon has been inhibited, especially since the 1970s, by a ‘liberal progressive’ ‘negationist’ discourse, which has led to a virtual silence within the local scholarly literature. This paper seeks to break this silence by bringing the Italian scholarly and Australian journalistic and archival sources into dialogue, and summarising the clear evidence for the presence in Australia since the early 1920s of criminal actors associated with a well-organised criminal secret society structured along lines familiar from the literature on the ’Ndrangheta.

Italian summary

Sebbene gli studiosi italiani del fenomeno mafioso abbiano recentemente rivolto la loro attenzione verso la diaspora della mafia calabrese (’Ndrangheta) in Australia, i loro sforzi sono stati limitati dal fatto di condurre le loro ricerche lontano dall’Australia, senza poter beneficiare della conoscenza del luogo. I giornalisti australiani, al contrario, hanno per lungo tempo giocato un ruolo importante nel documentare le attività della ’Ndrangheta, ma sono stati in questo limitati dalla loro scarsa conoscenza del linguaggio, della cultura e della letteratura italiana scientifica. Come avvenuto in precedenza negli USA, la discussione degli studiosi australiani su tale fenomeno è stata inibita, specialmente dagli anni ’70, dal discorso ‘negazionista’ e ‘liberal progressista’, che ha generato un silenzio sostanziale all’interno della letteratura scientifica. Questo testo cerca di spezzare tale silenzio instaurando un dialogo fra le fonti di studio italiane e quelle giornalistiche e d’archivio australiane, riepilogando, attraverso la letteratura riguardante la ’Ndrangheta, la chiara presenza in Australia sin dai primi anni ’20 di figure criminali legate ad un’associazione a delinquere segreta altamente organizzata, e strutturata su linee familiari dall’Italia.

Keywords

Australian’NdranghetaItalian organised crime in AustraliaItalian mafias in Australiamafia migration’Ndrangheta
Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 83 - 99
Copyright
© 2016 Association for the Study of Modern Italy 

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