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A Day Among the Diehard Terrorists: The Psychological Costs of Doing Ethnographic Research

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2013.763601

1521-0731

Alessandro Orsini,

Migration, Health and Trauma

Abstract This article describes the experience of a sociologist who made contact with a group of diehard terrorists responsible for multiple murders in order to conduct an ethnographic study. After outlining the sociological profile of the diehard terrorists, the author—making reference to the ethnographic studies of Jack Douglas, Martin Sanchez Jankowski, and Laud Humphreys—describes how he followed their traces. The aim of the article is to analyze the psychological costs that the sociologist must pay when he interacts with men and women who, in addition to proudly claiming credit for the homicides they have committed, affirm the importance of continuing to kill in order to salvage humanity's future. Notes 1. On the concept of "terrorist by vocation," see Alessandro Orsini, "Poverty, Ideology and Terrorism: The STAM Bond," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 35(10) (2012), 665–692. 2. "BR, Morandi scrive dal carcere: onore al compagno Galesi," la Repubblica, May 14, 2012, http://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/05/14/news/br_morandi_scrive_dal_carcere_onore_al_compagno_galesi-35117358/ 3. "Appello alla violenza del brigatista rosso Davanzo," la Repubblica, May 15, 2012, http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2012/05/15/news/bersani_allarme_terrorismo-35168224/ 4. These are the words of a Red Brigades murderer who was recently freed after spending 32 years and 6 months in prison. This Red Brigades member was interviewed by the author between 4 and 7 p.m., somewhere in Italy in September 2011. Before beginning the interview he asked that his voice not be recorded and that his name not be revealed, but did, however, allow the author to use a notebook to write down what he said. He had graduated from high school, and he entered the Roman column of the Red Brigades in 1977, abandoning his wife and daughter: he was part of the Brigades's leadership during the most violent years of Italian terrorism (Aldo Moro was kidnapped in Rome 16 March 1978). 5. Orsini, "Poverty, Ideology and Terrorism," p. 671. 6. "Nuove BR, al processo insulti a Ichino," la Repubblica, January 23, 2009, http://www.repubblica.it/2009/01/sezioni/cronaca/brigate-rosse/brigate-rosse/brigate-rosse.html. The phrase "massacratore di operai" was shouted at Ichino by a group of Red Brigades members during an audience in the trial regarding the attempt to reconstruct the Red Brigades, which was held on 23 January 2009 in Milan. 7. "Nuove Brigate rosse, minacce a Pietro Ichino", la Repubblica, May 28, 2012, http://milano.corriere.it/milano/notizie/cronaca/12_maggio_28/processo-nuove-br-davanzo-ichino-brigate-rosse-terrorismo-201362475728.shtml 8. This diehard Red Brigades member, sentenced to 22 years in prison for involvement in a murder, resentfully replied thus to the following reflection of the author: "Excuse me, I'm a sociologist. I've listened carefully to the discussion about the book and I would like to say something. I have the impression that in reconstructing the history of the Red Brigades, you have forgotten to say something fundamental: the Red Brigades were a terrorist group who killed people to achieve political objectives. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I do not believe it is possible to write the history of the Red Brigades without explaining the principal activity of its militants who, in fact, killed people to terrorize many others and impose upon all, through the strategic use of political assassinations, the communist vision of the world. If there was a young person in this hall who had never heard of the Red Brigades, they would go away from this meeting without understanding what the Red Brigades actually did." The meeting was held in a public library located in the outskirts of Rome [date omitted]. 9. On the use of torture against the Red Brigades, see Nicola Rao, Colpo al cuore. Dai pentiti ai metodi speciali: come lo Stato uccise le Br (Milan: Sperling & Kupfer, 2011); Marco Clementi, Storia delle Brigate rosse (Rome: Odradek, 2007), pp. 318–321; see also Progetto Memoria, Le torture affiorate (Dogliani: Sensibili alle Foglie, 1998), which collects the testimonies of Red Brigades's members who were tortured. 10. See note 4. 11. Xavier Raufer, "The Red Brigades: Farewell to Arms," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 16(4) (1993), p. 325. 12. Martin Sanchez Jankowski, Island in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991). 13. Ulf Hannerz, Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980). 14. Jack D. Douglas, Paul K. Rasmussen, Carol Ann Flanagan, The Nude Beach (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1977). 15. John Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1971). 16. Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places (Chicago: Aldine, 1970). 17. Jack D. Douglas, Investigative Social Research: Individual and Team Field Research (Beverly Hills, CA and London: Sage, 1976), p. 136: "If one does like someone, he usually gives that person a chance to establish trust and he finds reasons to trust the person, in spite of contrary evidence. Friendly, feeling, affection, feeling for, sympathy, intimacy-such are the emotional stuff on which human relations are built." 18. In order to protect Antonio's real identity, I will supply no details regarding his prison sentence. 19. Douglas, Investigative Social Research, p. 33. 20. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1959), p. 5. 21. Among the examples of covert observation in deviant contexts, we will, of course, recall the aforementioned Laud Humphreys study into sexual relations rapidly consumated by homosexual men in public toilets, with no emotional involvement ("instant sex"). To conduct his study, Humphreys, who was a Protestant minister, pretended to be a "voyeur" who was excited by watching homosexuals while they were having sex (see Humphreys, Tearoom Trade). A similar research was conducted more recently by an Italian scholar who hid his identity as an ethnographer to observe occasional encounters between homosexual men in a public park and a sauna. See Stefano Ramello, "Le regole del gioco. Il parco e la sauna: la struttura degli incontri occasionali fra uomini," Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia LI(1) (January–March 2010), pp. 61–93. 22. Goffman, The Presentation of Sels in Everyday Life, p. 141. In Goffman's words: "Given the fragility and the required expressive coherence of the reality that is dramatized by a performance, there are usually facts which, if attention is drawn to them during the performance, would discredit, disrupt, or make useless the impression that the performance fosters. These facts may be said to provide 'destructive information'. A basic problem for many performances, then, is that of information control; the audience must not acquire destructive information about the situation that is being defined for them." 23. Orsini, Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorirsts (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011), p. 259. 24. "Nuove Brigate rosse. La Cassazione conferma la riduzione delle pene," Corriere della Sera, 11 September 2012. 25. Lofland, Analyzing Social Settings. 26. Mario Cardano, La ricerca qualitativa (Bologna: il Mulino, 2011), p. 105. 27. Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. xvi. 28. Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962). 29. Ibid., p. 2. 30. Ibid. 31. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 51. In Geertz's word: "Men … every last of them, are cultural artifacts." 32. Rosaline S. Barbour, Introducing Qualitative Research: A Student's Guide to the Craft of Doing Qualitative Research (London: Sage, 2007), p. 78. 33. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (London: Tavistock, 1974). 34. David Rosenham, "On Being Sane in Insane Places," Science 179(4070) (1973), pp. 250–258. 35. Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (London: Rider, 2009). 36. Sergio Lenci, Colpo alla nuca. Memorie di una vittima del terrorismo (Bologna: il Mulino, 2009). 37. Gérard Chaliand and Arnaud Blin, "From 1968 to Radical Islam," in Gérard Chaliand and A. Blin Berkeley, eds., History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to al Qaeda (Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2007), p. 236. 38. Stern, Terror in the Name of God, p. xxix. 39. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).