mediterranean modernity? 113
be illuminated by reference to the effects of mobility and change on the social pressures
on patrilines to abide by what was otherwise taken to be an ancient code. The main
contribution of works like these stems from their replacing of the tradition-modernity
dichotomy with a more complex model of action in context. At the heart of the wider
“practice debate” in anthropology and sociology, such works showed how between
(Mediterranean) code and (modern) context there could be postulated an operator of
action that did not just enact a code or emerge from a context but rather, structured
by the former, informed action in the latter.
It is instructive that one of the leading figures in the development of practice the-
ory and in importing its nascent conceptions from anthropology to sociology was
Pierre Bourdieu, whose early work on Kabylia contributed to two of the pivotal vol-
umes in Mediterraneanist debate (Pitt-Rivers, 1963; Péristiany, 1966). Yet once cul-
ture turned from code (or values, or norms) to logics of practice, it stopped being
fixable as either modern or Mediterranean. This holds for network theory and its
pursuit of methodological ways to analyze social relations in “complex societies”
(Boissevain and Mitchell, 1973). Social science in the Mediterranean disowned the
theoretical advances it had begotten, because they replaced the bone of contention
with tools of analysis that were no longer useful in declaring whether people, places,
or relations were Mediterranean or modern.
Patronage and corruptionCultural traits are not the only realm of social action for which the Mediterranean has
been famously defined as opposed to an image of European modernity. A similar
distinction appeared regarding issues like local-patriotism (campanilismo), tribalism,
patronage/clientelism, and “amoral familism.” In the latter case, Edward Banfield
attributed southern Italian poverty and “backwardness” to a cultural ethos of maxi-
mizing short-run advantages of the nuclear family and assuming that all others do the
same (Schneider, 2012). More generally, the social structure of political action around
the Mediterranean has been examined (as is the case with traits) as an ancient obstacle
in modernity’s path, in this case the ubiquitous effect of state institutions and national
hegemony, or as reactions to these trends, which subject groups might experience as
external infringement on their local autonomies. Yet, unlike the honor and shame
debate, here the opposition between Mediterranean and modern politics was explicitly
phrased at the outset:
The kind of patronage which does concern us is a form of power. In part, it intrigues us
because we disapprove of it. Why? It offends both our egalitarianism and our universal-
ism. Patrons and clients are generally unequal. Patronage relations are highly specific.
They fail to illustrate the principle that like cases should be treated alike. (Gellner, 1977:
1; original italics)Moreover, major contributions have shown how terms and accusations like tribal-
ism, mafiosity, and local-patriotism not only exposed both sides of the stereotypes:
self-affirmation of authenticity and accusation of backwardness (Cohen, 1965;
Rabinowitz, 2002). These accusations and the social institutions they denote have
also shaped the meaning and unfolding of modernity, which they were assumed to