Increasing awareness about mafia and corruption: a case study

The increasing of cultural production focused on mafias and corruption (dalla Chiesa; Santoro) has led scholars to investigate how the public discourse and social representation influence the civic engagement. In particular, studies about perception (Rispoli) underline the importance of generating contents easy to share, through new dissemination methods and tools, aimed to empower citizens on these issues. An important tool to generate civic engagement is the storytelling about innocent victims, stories that generate awareness about impact of nowadays mafialike crimes (Libera). Libera (the largest anti-mafia network, dalla Chiesa), since 1995 has collected hundreds of stories, thanks to the direct contribution of family members involved in the network. Starting from these stories, the association try to generate active citizenship, transforming personal memories in social commitments. In this perspective, the paper aims to analyze an innovative case study; the ongoing experience of ideation and implementation of “ExtraLibera (XL)”, promoted by Libera. XL is the first international documentation center on mafias, corruption, and social and cultural strategies to counteract them. Placed in a confiscated asset in the center of Rome, XL is also a physical and multimedia factory, incubator of memories, a space for in-depth study and research. XL will be an immersive path, structured in three steps, to give visitors an experience that generates knowledge, awareness and, finally, engagement. This paper investigates how the storytelling about mafialike crimes can influence perception on these phenomena and stimulate active citizenship, particularly trough the study of XL center.