Rethinking the origins of the Sicilian Mafia. A new interpretation

This article seeks to ground the study of the origins of the mafia in the context of nineteenth-century Italian politics. The approach taken is to link changes in discourse with the processes by which criminal figures were identified, controlled, classified, represented and (eventually) made part of folklore. Such an approach involves linking the literary imagination of the nineteenth century with political context and with the theory and practice of the criminal justice system as they combined to define crime in public discourse.