A tale of reverse deviance: non-compliant spatial practices in the land of Gomorrah

Being territoriality a distinctive feature of mafia groups, the purpose of this paper is to study how the production of space contributes to the reproduction of such organisations by reinforcing their norms and values.

The paper provides an ethnographic account of the regeneration of space for the establishment of legal worker cooperatives in previous mafia territories. It aims to illuminate, by contrast, how space reflects the social construction of the mafia governance.

The account of non-compliant spatial practices of legal worker cooperatives in the area of Caserta (aka Gomorrah) elucidates how mafia groups set great value on space, making sense of the societal dimension of territoriality for Italian organised crime.

Compared to the current literature, this paper explores the link between space and organised crime not only in ecological terms but also in cultural ones. Furthermore, it suggests an alternative methodology for accessing the unspoken of the mafia phenomenon.

The account of the reterritorialisation process provided in this paper raises several policy implications for the fight against the mafia.

The paper focuses on territoriality for a more comprehensive understanding of the mafia phenomenon, attempting to conciliate the idiosyncratic aspects of Italian criminal networks with a more general framework of analysis for the study of organised crime. It also bridges between the organised crime topic and the sociology of space.