The Art of Making Do in Naples

The Art of Making Do in Naples Description

u201cIn Naples, there are more singers than there are unemployed people.u201d 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 regionu2019s 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 u201cart of making dou201d 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 u201cmaking do,u201d 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 anthropologistu2019s sense of autonomy. Making his way through Naplesu2019s 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.Pineu2019s trenchant observations and his own improvised attempts at u201cmaking dou201d provide a fascinating look into the lives of people in the gray zones where organized crime blends into ordinary life.