Goldsmiths - University of London

Giovanni Orlando

Based on fieldwork in Palermo and its rural province (Sicily, Italy), my research addresses a central question of economic anthropology: how are economic forms embedded in the culture and society of particular locales? To answer this question I look at Sicilians active in organic farming, fairtrade retailing and ethical shopping, and at how they negotiate daily – both materially and symbolically – these livelihood and consumer practices. I suggest this negotiation exhibits a dialectic between classic political economy and old and new moral economy that points to a contemporary plurality in existing economic forms, and to the human possibilities found therein.

Selected publications

(forthcoming) 2010. Critical consumption in Palermo: imagined society, class and fractured locality. In Ethical consumption: social value and economic practice (eds) James G. Carrier and Peter Luetchford.

Presentations and exhibitions

‘Sustainable food, unsustainable politics in the city of Palermo’. American Anthropological Association’s annual meeting 2009, invited session ‘Sustainability as myth & practice in the global city’ (co-sponsored by the Society for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology and the Anthropology and Environment Section).

‘Fairtrade retail cooperatives in Palermo: a worker moral economy of ideals and necessity’. Departmental seminar series, Department of Anthropology, Sussex University.