Growing in Mafia Territories

As a theoretical extension of other previous studies, this work represents an improvementof the notions about the relationship between adolescence and Mafia.The research has been aiming at exploring teenagers’ universe within specific socialcontexts where the presence of criminal organizations is significant, focusingthe attention on the modalities through which evolutionary tasks are coped within contexts with high Mafia density and often characterized by a perception ofsocial space that makes personal, financial, and political development problematic.The research has involved 93 teenagers who live in southern regions wherethe presence of Mafia organizations (Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, and Cosa Nostra)is significant. Six focus groups have been carried out, recorded, and transcribed.Verbalizations were analyzed through appropriate qualitative templates, whichallowed detecting of three thematic macro-areas: representations of Mafia, emotionsconnected to it, and planning skills. The qualitative analysis of transcriptionspoints out that the presence of Mafia organizations, the contiguity between legaland illegal symbolic–cultural codes, the commonality of belonging matrices, andsharing the same symbolic and social spaces are all elements that violently enterthese teenagers’ identification and release paths, deeply influencing them.