From «Popular» to «Populism»:
The Rise and Fall of Demological Studies in Italy
In this paper, I discuss three major paradigm-shifts in Italian folklore
studies of the second half of XX century. The first shift follows the
publication of «Observations on folklore» in A. Gramsci’s Prison
Notebooks. Gramsci proposed to connect cultural differences with
social differences, treating folklore as the distinctive culture of subaltern
classes. Scholars like E. De Martino and G. Bosio followed this approach,
producing a radical break from previous positivist traditions. The second
shiftis the birth of «demology», a new discipline which tried to reconcile
the Gramscian theory with a continuity of folkloric studies and the
centrality of their classical object (the peasant oral traditions). I argue
that there is a crucial contradiction in demology: the refuse to investigate
mass consumption and culture, that is the culture of present subaltern
classes. The result is the decline of the hegemonic-subaltern topic and
the third shift towards a «patrimonial» paradigm, influenced by Unesco
«Convention for the Safaguarding of Cultural Intangible Heritage».
The paradox is that scientific interest for the «popular» was abandoned
in the same years of the great populist strategies of «berlusconismo»,
leaving scholars unable to understand the cultural bases of this political
movement.