Urbanities,
Vol. 4
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No 2
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November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
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contested during my ethnographic work at the market. The relationship between place and
smell and the disgust for strong smells are investigated in the light of the contemporary
tendency to sanitising public spaces and to removing death and decomposition from our daily
urban life. As far as touch is concerned, the introduction of packaging, perceived as a barrier
between buyers and food, speaks for the desire to move towards a more upmarket clientele,
bringing in the concepts of privacy, seclusion and democratisation into the relationship to
food. Noise is also addressed within this analysis. Practically and symbolically, it signifies
disobedience and resistance toward authority and toward an imposed new order.
Ethnography of a Well-ordered Chaos
At first, La Pescheria appeared chaotic and impenetrable, an indistinct knot of colours, voices,
smells; an overcrowded assemblage of stalls, foods, and people. Many ethnographers dealing
with markets have reported a similar initial sensation. Black (2012: 34) depicts markets as
‘contained chaos’ and De La Pradelle (2006: 17) recounts her first impression of the market as
an ‘inextricable chaos: a labyrinth of densely crowded, narrow streets and squares, the
pleasant jumble characterizing some stalls, products spread about in apparent disorder […]’.
Similarly Bestor (2004: 52) borrows Geertz’s expression of ‘grooved channels’ to delineate
the intricate and complex systems of relationships within the marketplace.
Undoubtedly, such a context poses a methodological challenge to the ethnographer. In
order to integrate the theoretical background and my methodology (Krase 2012), I chose to
combine traditional ethnography with some more innovative approaches. Following Le
Breton’s call (2007) for examining the senses in their totality, I embraced a phenomenological
perspective, in which the observation of space, movement and sensory interactions with the
surrounding environment became vital.
In tandem with participant observation and in-depth open-ended interviews with
buyers and traders, I also availed myself of techniques which could allow to broaden my
perspective on the marketplace and its social dynamics. To capture the marketplace’s visual
layout, I did not take pictures but asked others to do so. It was useful to see the place with
‘different eyes’, from different perspectives, and this allowed me to check whether I had
overlooked some aspects of the market organization.
8
I collaborated with architect Guido
Robazza to create ad-hoc maps that would help to achieve a more detailed geographical
representation of the market area
.
I also personally recorded the sound of the market; I strolled
through it with a recording device, seeking to capture the vendors’ hawks and cries and the
noises in the different parts of the market. A visual anthropologist and a film-maker worked
with me filming the marketplace and my interactions with vendors, buyers and fishermen. We
also filmed ten interviews with regular customers in the market and followed them through by
filming in their kitchens, whilst they were preparing and cooking the products bought at the
8
Three professional photographers agreed to shoot in the market: Athanasios Zacharopolous from
Greece, Giuseppe D’Alia and Andrea Nucifora from Catania. Other friends visiting the city were
encouraged to photograph La Pescheria while I was showing them around.
