Abstract

The study inquiries into the life of a radical formation that works on the right to housing in the city of Messina (Italy, Sicily). Communist militants and families in seek of a house, are here observed over the course of their collective life and interactions in an occupied place. The focus of the study is represented by the unexpected eruption of the ghosts in the life of the group, and the ways through which such entities are deployed by the members in order to challenge internal hierarchies, create new social orders, and find moral justifications for both collective and personal conducts. The study shows how of such ghosts are made tactic uses, which have the effect to produce the reality as well as forms of coherent conduct - so overcoming the dichotomy between «believers» and «non-believers», and showing the plausibility of «magic» as a ruling force in the contemporary urban environment.