Intervista a Clara Gallini

Abstract

This interview with Clara Gallini explores the most significant traits of her life and studies. Starting with her exchanges with Ernesto de Martino and her first fieldworks in Sardinia, Clara Gallini takes us through some key moments in the history of Italian anthropology between the 1950s and 1970s, discussing issues of dense epistemological, political and ethical significance with respect to fieldwork and ethnographic writing. The scholar looks back at the years spent studying rituals in the Argia region, the Novenari and the relationship between the economic and the symbolic (Dono e malocchio [Gift and Jinx]), trying to investigate and describe a world – that of rural Sardinia – in transition. A phase culminating with the publication of Intervista a Maria (Interview with Maria) and the decision to move to the University of Naples. Clara Gallini’s accounts also reveal how these new perspectives were connected to a need to rethink Marxist language and theories, also in light of an increasing interest in historical perspectives and methodologies – leading to her studies on Lourdes and on magnetism. From a perspective that combines the biographic with the scholarly dimension, the interview concludes by commenting on Clara Gallini’s most recent works – such as her studies on racism and crosses – that continue to pay particular attention to the issue of the effectiveness of symbols.