Indifference and Political Parties

Abstract

The way people create and justify indifference to other humans could be seen as cultural phenomenon resulting from social processes. In this paper I will argue that the study of the way this phenomenon is lived and constructed reflects not only agents' experiences through socialization but also the construction and interpretation of these experiences, which occur through agents' interaction with different social structures. In other words, one's indifference depends on the diverse relationships in which the agents are involved. I will argue that the study of political parties could shed some light not only on the social production of difference that leads to indifference, but also on how this indifference is lived and experienced. To do so, I will focus my reflection on an Italian party, the Northern League which is stereotypically known for its aggressive political rhetoric. Indifference is an interesting challenge for both anthropology as a science, which is concerned both with social change and human cross-cultural understanding, and ethnography as science which is interested in the description of the `real'.