MATERIAL CULTURE. AN ESSENTIAL SUBJECT OF THE ITALIAN DIASPORA

The contemporary folklore appears in everyday life taking many free and unofficial forms across the vitality and diversity of social practices that call for renewed approaches, in Europe and Italy and abroad, following the path of European diaspora. Evaluating the multiplicity of folklore meanings and its capacity to integrate interactions between traditional and contemporary expressions and appropriations in specific contexts, the author explores the practicality of a new idea of folklore as sustainable, popular and
domestic creativity on material and immaterial goods. Following the precious path indicated in 2005 by the American anthropologist Luc Eric Lassiter, the author is turning from “participant observation” to the “collaborative ethnography”. Collaboration between ethnographers and subjects has long been a product of the close, intimate relationships that define ethnographic research. Collaboration also preconditions and shapes research design as well as its dissemination. As a result, ethnographic subjects are shifting from being informants to being consultants. The emergence of collaborative ethnography highlights this relationship between consultant and ethnographer, moving it to centre stage as a calculated part not only of fieldwork but also of the writing process itself, as Lassiter suggests in The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography.