Representations and occupations : shepherds' choices in Sardinia

In Telemula, a highland village of Sardinia, Italy, the concept of 'modernity' has been assigned a positive moral meaning which is used in opposition to the concept of 'tradition'. This dissertation examines the phenomenological dimension of strategic repositionings deployed by local people, as they strive to represent themselves as persone brave (good persons). Alternative representations of shepherds carry different moral connotations. Villagers who have to decide whether or not to become, or to continue to be shepherds, also wish to represent themselves positively. Thus, they manipulate the meanings which had been originally ascribed by national and supranational agencies, but that currently form part of the locals' world-views. In consequence, individuals participate in the multiplication of life-worlds and codes of meaning that they use in organising their own perceptions of life events and reflexive experience of self