17

Between the 1950s and the early 1970s, the international socio-anthropological literature conveyed a stereotypical representation of the Italian family. It especially focused on the southern regions of the country, where a number of scholars from the United States, England, and other European countries came to do fieldwork. They eventually distributed the image of a family closed in on itself, characterized by familism, male dominance, jealous possessiveness, the affirmation of honor, and the legitimation of revenge. This essay meticulously outlines such studies, among which it is worth highlighting Edward C. Banfield’s research in Chiaromonte, Basilicata: the renowned notion of amoral familism he derived from it contributed substantially towards turning the southern Italian family into a stereotype and assigning it a prototypically ethnic character.