Second nature: on Gramsci's anthropology

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to convey the relevance of a Gramscian perspective in medical anthropology, stressing his anti-essentialist way of reasoning about ‘nature’. The author claims that Gramsci's understandings of the bodily life of the state can deconstruct naturalized realities in ways that are helpful for the ethnographer engaged in the political anthropology of embodiment and the management of health, persons, and life itself. The paper is presented in three parts. An attempt is made, first, to frame the relevance of Gramsci for Italian medical anthropology and second, to explore the components of the Gramscian concept of ‘second nature’ within the perspective that he himself calls ‘an anthropology’. Third, an example is given of how the proposed Gramscian insights could inform an ethnography on the biopolitical aspects for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease, which is currently being carried out in Perugia.

Keywords:

• Gramsci
• second nature
• hegemony
• biopolitics
• Alzheimer's disease
• embodiment
• state
• Italy
• medical anthropology

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, Elisa Pasquarelli and Andrea F. Ravenda for their collaboration in the ethnographic research, which was funded by Regione Umbria: Direzione Regionale Sanità e Servizi Sociali, and Paul Dominici for his help with the English translation. The author followed the ethical guidelines for ethnography of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. Finally, the author acknowledges his debt of gratitude to Tullio Seppilli, and in particular his constant readiness for dialogue.

The paper was presented at the conference ‘Medical Anthropology in Europe’ funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Anthropological Institute.

Conflict of interest: none

Notes

1. For comparison between Gramsci and Foucault in the Italian debate on the philosophy of language, see Lo Piparo (1979, 122n); on the notion of the person, see Gerratana (1997 [1990]); regarding the international debate, see Said (2002) and Ives (2004, 141–4). For an interesting recent comparison between Gramsci's ‘common sense’ and Bourdieu's ‘habitus’, see Crehan (2011). For a critique on the rigidity of ‘habitus’, see Farnell (1999). On the possibility of combining or not combining these critical perspectives for an analysis of relationships between bodies and power, see also Pizza (2004, 2005), Pandolfi (2007), Palumbo (2011 [2008]), and Minelli (2011).

2. On Gramsci's ‘living theory’, see Pizza (2004 [2003]). In a re-definition of the Italian philosophical tradition known as the ‘Italian theory’ (and characterised as ‘living thought’), the philosopher Roberto Esposito (2010, 178–91) delves into Gramsci's contribution on the question of what we today call ‘biopolitics’.

3. Political philosophy has reflected on the notion of nature in Gramsci and on its importance for understanding ‘hegemony’. Among the more interesting contributions are Benedetto Fontana's (1996, 2002).

4. The secondary literature on hegemony is extremely rich and multi-disciplinary. Within anthropology, Deias, Boninelli, and Testa (2008) outline a recent debate in Italy; see also the English-language work of Comaroff and Comaroff (1991) and Crehan (2002). For a genealogy of sources on this question, see Boothman (2008), Fontana (1993, 2002).

5. The author's translation. SPN: 286 translates it as ‘a new type of man’.

6. Giovanni Pizza (co-ordinator), Elisa Pasquarelli and Andrea F. Ravenda make up the team of anthropologists.

7. Over the last 30 years the anthropology of Alzheimer's has taken on various approaches (Leibing and Cohen 2006). Initially it centred on the concept of the ‘person’ with the phenomenological-cultural approach. More recently, another interpretation of Alzheimer's is beginning to break ground, which places greater attention on the policy-making and power relations inscribed in the scientific and laboratorial procedures (Moser 2008; Behuniak 2010). The latter is closer to the perspective proposed in the present study.

8. This is a rather controversial recent diagnostic. See among others Moreira and Palladino (2008), Whitehouse and Moody (2009).