Audrey Millet, historian, researcher at the Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet) and the Labor Anthropology Laboratory at the University of Bologna, is an expert in the fashion ecosystem. In his latest book, Abdoul’s Odyssey. Organized crime investigation (Les Pérégrines, 272 pages, 20 euros), deciphers the mechanisms of human trafficking between sub-Saharan Africa and Italy, recounting the journey of an Ivorian tailor, Abdoul, who confided his story to him after settling in Prato (Tuscany). , a textile city prey to the influence of mafias.
Instead of a global academic approach, you tell the story of organized crime and smuggling networks following one character, Abdoul, as a common thread. Why did you make this decision?
To write this book, I didn’t really choose. It was Abdoul who made his decision by trusting me with his story, giving me all the information about his trajectory, an unlimited trajectory, which leads us to continue. I myself had to break the boundaries of my profession as a historian. Normally, the starting point is a fact, a date, an action. There, based on my conversations with Abdoul as the first source, I had to carry out complex verification work, methodologically very exposed. This work also exploits the historical essay, since Abdoul is not an archive. Some people thought it was a novel. But it is not a novel. On the other hand, it is as romantic as Abdoul’s life.
Throughout the work, the reader is transported from Abidjan to Prato, passing through Agadez, Niger and the fields of Libya. What do these places, with such different geographical realities, have in common?
What all of these places have in common is the exploitation and enslavement of people. In fact, the Camorra, the ‘Ndrangheta, the Cosa Nostra, the Nigerian “Cults” groups and the Chinese Wenzhou also share this common point: exploiting human beings for “business”, at the lowest cost. Throughout the book and Abdoul’s journey, all these mafias arrive little by little. But Abdoul did not realize that he was kidnapped. At that moment, perhaps it is simply a bad person who is in front of him and offers him a job, and not a more or less structured criminal group.
All these mafias are intertwined like a bicycle chain: if there is a link in the chain that jumps, you fall. The person who tells you: “I have a job for you” is the first link, the first operator. He offers a free job before the road to Agadez, the nerve center of traffic, begins. From there, everyone is connected and the criminals serve each other. Even in Prato, which is like a cake: there is a piece for Wenzhou, another for the Nigerian mafia, another for the Camorra, another for the ‘Ndrangheta. And the bell that covers all this is the multinationals.
You have 45.17% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
