This paper analyses the conventions of production within the agrifood sector in Italy, with a case study on Buffalo Mozzarella in southern Italy, to argue that legality and illegality are not universal values, but social constructs which are the product of institutional selection. By analysing three driving forces – territory, entrepreneurship and institutions – the authors argue that the practices of production may be positioned along a legal-illegal continuum, in that producers perceive acts not as opposite to each other, but as possible behaviours along the spectrum of legal or illegal defined practices. This chapter proposes the Evil Trinity, comprised of the three elements of territories, entrepreneurship and institutions, as a model for understanding the process of institutionalisation of (il)legal behaviors, within areas characterised by the endemic presence of organised crime, such as southern Italy.
Visualizing the social and geographical embeddedness of local food systems