Culture ultime dentro culture ultime. Note dalla Calabria dei paesi = Outermost cultures inside outermost cultures. Notes from Calabrian villages

Abstract

Outermost cultures inside outermost cultures. Notes from Calabrian villages Calabria is one of the poorest regions in Europe. Because of its history, marked by a massive emigration, its geographical position and is geological situation, it also became an internal frontier, faraway from the rest of the continent. From the last decade of the XX century it is one of the most important landing place of the Mediterranean sea for migrants, refugees, exiles coming from Africa and Middle East. At the same time Calabria is a land of emigration and abandonment. Most of its villages risk of remaining empity. Using the Cesare Pavese’s novel Il carcere, set in a Calabrian village called Brancaleone during the fascist regime as a fictional example of the contradictory role of the stranger inside an outermost and closed culture, the article focus on two opposite models of interaction between migrants and inhabitants applied in two close and almost empty villages, Rosarno and Riace.