Evicted from Eternity
The Restructuring of Modern Rome
Modern Rome is a city rife with contradictions. Once the seat of ancient glory, it is now often the object of national contempt. It plays a significant part on the world stage, but the concerns of its residents are often deeply parochial. And while they live in the seat of a world religion, Romans can be vehemently anticlerical. These tensions between the past and the present, the global and the local, make Rome fertile ground to study urban social life, the construction of the past, the role of religion in daily life, and how a capital city relates to the rest of the nation.
Michael Herzfeld focuses on Rome’s historic Monti district and the wrenching dislocation caused by rapid economical, political, and social change. Evicted from Eternity tells the story of the gentrification of Monti—once the architecturally stunning home of a community of artisans and shopkeepers now displaced by an invasion of rapacious real estate speculators, corrupt officials, dithering politicians, deceptive clerics, and shady thugs. As Herzfeld picks apart the messy story of Monti’s transformation, he ranges widely over many aspects of life there and in the rest of the city, richly depicting the uniquely local landscape of globalization in Rome.
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“A wonderful book—very exciting to read. Herzfeld has selected the extraordinary historic city of Rome to portray a riveting drama of eviction, class identity, neighborhood solidarity, and place attachment in the face of escalating gentrification. Housing shortages and the allure of neoliberal market logic have corrupted city officials and owners alike, resulting in a politics of fear of newcomers, the church, and the state. This ethnographer’s acute grasp of language use and Roman forms of civility produces a rarely seen glimpse of how cultural heritage, real estate interests, and nationalism collide to destroy local residents’ lives and homes. Both scholars in the social sciences and practitioners in historic preservation and urban planning will enjoy this look into the consequences of neoliberal land use practices.”
“Evicted from Eternity demonstrates the distinctive promise of Europeanist anthropology and its relevance for the discipline more generally. Herzfeld’s resolute commitment to a refined local ethnographic purview yields a text that is decisively about ‘Europe.’ It is not merely a superb analysis of the famous Monti district of Rome or a contribution to the ethnographic literature on Italy, but the finest ethnography I know of to examine rigorously how the abstract processes of European integration are manifest in the daily lives of its citizens and, in this particular case, discernible in the transformation of virtually every aspect of their emblematic urban landscape. The text succeeds as a documentary account of contemporary human predicaments, as a moral inquiry into the nature of justice and injustice, and as a passionate narrative imbued with feeling and pathos. Herzfeld has drawn on his formidable scholarly acumen and his vast ethnographic experience to craft an analysis that is truly distinguished. Evicted from Eternity deserves to be acknowledged for what it is: a masterpiece.”
Overture: Encountering the Eternal City
Chapter One: Sin and the City
Genealogies of Imperfection
Monti: Paradoxes of Poverty
Sociable Spaces
Meeting the People
The Village in the City
Agonies and Agonistics
The Cadences of a Cultural Preserve
Chapter Two: Popolo and Population
The Artisans
The Shopkeepers
Intellectuals and Politicians
Chapter Three: The Wages of Sin
Accountability and Accommodation: Introducing Original Sin
Original Sinners or Elder Brothers?
The Dialectics of Casuistry and Tolerance
A Passion for the Past
Chapter Four: Refractions of Social Life
Segmentation and Subsidiarity
The Civic and the Civil
Association Life
The Premises of Conflict
Theaters of Piety and Peculation
A Clergy Scorned
Chapter Five: Life and Law in a Flawed State
Laws and Regulations
The Limits of Law
The (Disreputable) Origins of Legal Loopholes
Indulgent Complicities
Forgiveness and Calculation
Sacred Images and Sinful Spaces
Chapter Six: Scandals of Sociability
Friends Who Strangle
The Cultivation of Fear
Restitution and Redemption
Friends Best Avoided
A Family Friend?
Local Narratives: Swaggering Victims
Credit and Default
Banking on Fear
Tactful Silences
Chapter Seven: Extortionate Civilities
Accommodations Civil and Civic
Discommoding Complicities
Uncivil Pleasantries, Unpleasant Civilities
Culture and Custom
Peaceful Politics
Condominial Civilities
Lessons in Civic Civility
Spatial and Stylistic Violence
Chapter Eight: The Fine Art of Denunciation
The Logic of Denunciation
Performances of Policing
Fractured Authority: The Multiplicity of Policing
Extorting Coffee and Campari
Chapter Nine: Tearing the Social Fabric
Renters and Owners
Lawyers and Illegalities
Eviction and Evasion: The High Stakes of Time and Place
Gentrification and the Last Frontier
Endgame
Epilogue: The Future of Eternity
Notes
References
Index
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology | General Anthropology
History: European History
Sociology: Individual, State and Society
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