Legal and Illegal Bounderies in the Socio-Econonomical Southern Italy Development

In Italy, the organized crime of mafia-style, which is mainly prevalent in the various southern regions and is expanding to those of the north, has in the course of time evolved showing great adaptability to the changes in local development policies. Among the models of interpretation, the model of the networks and the theorization of the so-called “gray area”(Sciarrone, 2011) has played a significant role to make synchronic processes intelligibile and highlighting elements of hybridization with society and the market in the last decade. The “gray area”is a complex system of relationships that mafia groups build around themselves, composed of entrepreneurs, politicians and professionals of various levels, in order to penetrate the economic and political territories, acquire useful expertise pursuing their goals and creating the basis for control, not only military but based on trust and reciprocity. The paper has a dual purpose: the first, theoretical, oriented to the study of the relational dynamic mutations of the mafia with the outside world of the organization, which have evolved in parallel with a new definition of modernity; the second, empirical-methodological, consisting in the analysis of the operative “cosche” on the territory of Catania - adopting the network approach and applying the techniques of social network analysis – which highlighted the delicate balance of relationships that define the area gray.