Chapter 1

      The Governance of Endangered People

      As I walk with my friend Gianni in his natal village high in the mountains of area Grecanica, he suddenly starts speaking in Grecanico. He warns me that if we want to avoid being seen by other villagers who will definitely want to invite us into their homes, an offer we could not refuse, we should head down this dark alley. We are walking side by side with our heads down—thank God he is unable to see the astonishment written across my face. I keep walking and manage to respond in a calm voice that this indeed is a great idea.

      I have known this man of twenty-six from the very first days of my research in Reggio Calabria, on the toe of Italy. He and his family are some of the most welcoming people I have ever met. They opened their home and hearts to me and treated me with respect and honor that very few people are lucky to receive. On commencing my ethnographic journey with the Grecanici, the Greek linguistic minority of Reggio Calabria, I tactfully asked Gianni and his brothers whether they spoke Grecanico, a minority language officially recognized by the Italian state. A mumbled “ligo”^GO (“a little”) revealed his discomfort in further elaborating on issues of language and politics. Gradually, as I became convinced he did not speak Grecanico, I withdrew from posing such questions.

      Gianni had resisted my ethnographic inquiries for nearly ten months, but our relationship grew strong and transcended the realms of researcher/researched. He and his family provided invaluable ethnographic material along with friendship, but Gianni had always abstained from speaking in Grecanico despite the fact he knew it was the focus of my research. That overcast winter day in his village, hurrying along and shivering under our thick overcoats, our relationship took a sudden turn. He started speaking to me in Grecanico, and continued doing so intermittently whenever we subsequently met back in the city.

      When I first arrived in Reggio Calabria in April 2006, a considerable number of local civic actors, professors, politicians, and everyday people, each in their own way, tried to persuade me that working with the Grecanici was a utopian project. It was insisted that “these people no longer use the Grecanico language,” that “the language is dead” and that “the younger generations have no interest in it other than instrumentally seeking a job in the Provincia (provincial government)” through national and EU-sponsored courses. Conflating language with people, actors with multiple agendas and interests made it their personal goal to influence the ethnographer to denounce the existence of the language and declare to an Anglophone audience the fictional character of the minority. Echoing right-wing views akin to those of the Lega Nord and Alleanza Nationale,¹ these political positions were overwhelmingly influenced by the fear of a break-up of the Italian state provoked by the relatively recent recognition of minorities—ethnic and linguistic² (Prato 2009). Both the Silvio Berlusconi government and the more recent transitional government of Mario Monti demonstrated incredible indifference to minority policies, cumulating in the 2013 budget cuts that left the apparatuses of minority self-government bankrupt, with employees going months without pay. The present study is a powerful reminder that official recognition of a minority—linguistic or ethnic—does not, in practice, necessarily secure the lawful benefits promised to the people.

      I often felt pulled in different directions as local actors requested I take sides for or against minority politics. Every time I was invited to dinner I was instructed in what I should and should not record in my research. Very often I was asked as to the “progress of my work” and whether “I have found any Grecanici speaking the Grecanico language.” It was automatically assumed by all interested parties involved in the management of Grecanici affairs that research conducted by a scholar from a British university would have international impact, transcending the borders of Italy. They regularly spoke of the capacity of the English language to reach out and communicate local issues to wider audiences. Thus in their fervent efforts to convince me of their stance, actors uncovered complex and entangled pleats of local politics and histories, of which some feature in this book and some not. Apart from their heuristic