Il potere delle donne nella mafia siciliana tra dinamiche organizzative e processi di soggettivazione-assoggettamento = Women’s Power in the Sicilian Mafia between Organizational Dynamics and Processes of Subjectivation-Subjection

The essay analyses the features of women’s power in the Cosa Nostra’s criminal sphere, starting from the tradition of studies arguing against the adoption of an emancipatory paradigm in interpreting the changes in women’s positions within the Mafia. In the first part the contribution reconstructs two case studies concerning the involvement of women at top levels within two important Palermo districts of Cosa Nostra. In the second part, by engaging organizational studies and feminist thought on women’s rights and subjectivity, it reads the involvement of women in leadership positions as the result of the criminal groups’ organizational response to the turbulence of the environment, due to the State’s investigative activities, rather than as the result of a full recognition of women’s power.