Diritti umani, tortura e violenza strutturale in Italia. Per un rinnovato impegno dell’antropologia applicata

In Italy, public authorities entrusted with the management of public conflict have to face the embarrassing fact that, at present, the State suspends its judgment on police exercising violence on defenseless citizens. The international system produces mutual commitments in order to avoid the use of terror and torture, and it is now accepted that the terrain of peace operations is directed not only toward physical issues, but also towards communities, which can be managed with the help of dialogic tools, recognizing to the military body the function of social change agent. The military corps must therefore follow paths which differ from the “traditional training”, finding an ally in the socioanthropological training. To rethink the role of armed forces and their ability to act in the complexity, in Italy the agents need to understand that their values and goals are not shared, so that they can dialogue with different cultural systems, instead of using coercive means. Italian anthropology has introduced a broad set of changing analytical perspectives requiring new theoretical and methodological instruments fit for the study of emergency and not only ordinary social and cultural contexts. Socio-anthropological science is public, therefore it could be operating in those new formats, acquiring the added value of applied anthropology.