Felia Allum’s book makes a valuable and innovative contribution to the literature on gender and organised crime. Her in-depth research on women in the Neapolitan Camorra brings to light new evidence to argue that women play a role within the mafia system, both in the private and the public sphere. Moreover, the book confirms the differing extent to which mafia associations engage with ‘gender equality’, which seems to characterise the Camorra more than Cosa Nostra and ‘Ndrangheta.
The volume is organised into eight chapters. The first is a fascinating reconstruction of the author’s methodological approach, which merges perspectives, concepts and research tools from various disciplines including history, criminology and sociology. Interestingly, Allum defines herself as a ‘detective’ and ‘artist’ at the same time. In her words:
I became a detective by trying to map out the presence of Camorra women in different clans across Campania over time and space using my previous knowledge and understanding of the context. I became a kind of artist because I used the ‘bricolage’ approach. By ‘bricolage’, I used whatever materials I could access because I wanted to move beyond the obvious and analyze the multifaced reality in front of me. (p. 35)
This approach allowed Allum to immerse herself in a field of enquiry that poses many challenges, given its hidden and criminal features.
The richness of sources – both written and oral – Allum has collected is impressive. They include a great number of judicial files from different contemporary and historical archives, and six astonishing interviews with former Camorra women. The latter were especially crucial for the analysis, since women’s words offered the author an internal account, enabling her to move beyond stereotypical representations of women passed down by male mafiosi and reinforced by public opinion as ‘agencyless’ (p. 74).
In the second chapter, Allum thus attempts to retrace historically the agency of Camorra women. Despite the limited sources at her disposal, Allum analyses stories of women from the 1950s to the 1980s, concluding that ‘women have always been part of emerging Camorra clans in the postwar period, not as male dependants but both as leaders and foot soldiers’ (p. 45).
In Chapters 5, 6 and 7, the author shows the continuity between past and present, taking into consideration women’s active roles in the contemporary Camorra, at all levels. She deals with the lives of women who play a role as associates, enablers or facilitators (outside the clan), foot soldiers who undertake criminal activities, and managers who co-ordinate individuals and leadership groups.
By exploring this range of women’s participation, she rightly highlights that the involvement of women in mafia structures varies depending on geographical and economic contexts. Distinctions can be observed between women affiliated with city-based clans, those in provincial areas, and those within the Caserta region. Additionally, differences emerge between clans primarily engaged in drug trafficking and those focused on money laundering and investment in legal enterprises. Women from lower socio-economic backgrounds seem to gain access to power more easily within urban clans, whereas in more entrepreneurial provincial groups, their participation is often limited to serving as figureheads for businesses and properties. The author insists that, despite these contextual variations, the distribution of roles remains consistent: women perform the same functions as men and hold respected positions within the Camorra system.
Allum demonstrates that the range of women’s participation can be captured only if the researcher examines not only mafia organisations but also the socio-economic context in which they operate and the cultural value system in which they are embedded, as she illustrates in Chapters 3 and 4. Approaching women’s participation from this perspective encourages more comprehensive analysis and sheds light on the relationship between mafia and society, providing policymakers with the tools to overcome a mere repressive approach by building anti-mafia preventive strategies.
In the last chapter, the author stresses the central thesis developed – a little repetitively – throughout the book, emphasising the relevance of agency in understanding women’s engagement with Camorra clans. Indeed, there is no doubt that acknowledging the active side of female participation is essential, but we risk taking women’s emancipation for granted, which should be interrogated instead. As I argued in my work on women involved in Cosa Nostra and ‘Ndrangheta,Footnote 1 the inclusion of women in the criminal sphere has not brought about discontinuity with the past in terms of gender relations – unsurprising, given the violent and patriarchal environment that characterises the mafia context. In other words, female participation – even at a high level – has preserved and perpetuated the male system without significant advantages for women themselves, except for some material benefits. To grasp the complexity of this theoretical node, we must understand mafia women’s condition by drawing inspiration from the paradigm proposed by feminist Nina Powell when she refers to the ‘one-dimensional woman’.Footnote 2 According to her interpretative model, female empowerment in society is superficial, since it is strictly linked to consumerism and does not challenge the economic and cultural systems that hinder authentic liberation. As shown by women’s experiences in Cosa Nostra and in the ‘Ndrangheta, women assume power in these organisations, showing an attitude that reveals a desire for an existential leap (qualitatively speaking), but they end up managing a complicated clan structure with their autonomy always entangled with the will of the men they replace. That is why it is always necessary to consider that in a violent context like organised crime, the condition of women tends to be characterised by ambiguities and ambivalences in relation to equality and the process of emancipation. Acknowledging this does not mean neglecting the agency of women’s engagement, but it encourages us to wonder about the direction of their agency (towards themselves, or towards the clans’ male interests?). While it is essential to deconstruct the stereotypes according to which women are not active participants in mafia organisations, it is necessary to avoid the emergence of a new cliché – the ‘lady boss’ – which might be grounded in an exaggerated representation of autonomy and the active engagement of women in the mafia.
Grounded in first-hand accounts, Allum’s work offers fresh insights on questions relating to women’s agency and female emancipation within mafia organisations, which are crucial if we want to reinvigorate the debate on mafia women, and – most importantly – to remind readers that ‘women’s participation in the Camorra can be subtle, flexible and complex, not set in stone and overt’ (p. 17).
