Discorsive transformations and social identities: the «lazzari» case
Foreign visitors to Naples in the 18th Century gave accounts
of a certain kind of destitute homeless population
termed as «lazzari». Originally portrayed as the unruly and
dangerous scum of the city’s lowlife, the lazzari undergo a
transformation and are subsequently viewed as the prototype
for a particular Mediterranean identity: folk who get
along with little yet get the best out of life. In reviewing the
various changes of outlook that in time led to the crystallisation
of the «lazzaro» stereotype, the author attempts to
demonstrate how the lazzari or lazzaroni cannot be taken as
representing a specific social class that was twice seen to
play a political role (in 1647-48 and in 1789), but are rather
an expression of a political tradition that is responsible for a
number of «social» arguments and representations that finally
end up creating representations and «social» subjects.