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Contribution short abstract:

Based on fieldwork with the movement opposing the construction of a bridge between mainland Italy and the island of Sicily, in this paper I explore the risks and potentialities of mobilising the notion of "defence of the territory" in political struggle.

Contribution long abstract:

In 2023, the right-wing government of Italy announced it would once again take up the plan of constructing a bridge between mainland Italy and the island of Sicily. In response, the struggle against the bridge of Messina “No Ponte” was revived, having laid dormant since the project was halted in 2012. I joined the No Ponte demonstration in August 2023, and in my roundtable contribution I will share some reflections on the political project of the movement against the bridge.

Beyond opposing the construction of the physical bridge, the movement challenges the kind of nation- and region-building the infrastructural project represents (Ben-Yehoyada, 2014). The bridge is promoted by the Italian government and the contracted company as not only creating jobs and facilitating the movement of goods and people between Sicily and mainland Italy, but also “connecting Italy to Europe”. The protesters, who demand small-scale infrastructures and the conservation of the strait of Messina’s ecology instead, articulate their refusal of the bridge as “difesa del territorio”, defence of the territory.

In this paper I analyse how "difesa del territorio" brings together a variety of political actors, ranging from environmental movements, rank-and-file unionist, feminists, to anti-militarists and independentists. What can the way the movement against the bridge mobilises the notion of territorio tell us about our anthropological categories, such as the national or the regional? And how can anthropology help us recognise the potentialities and risks of territorio as a site of political struggle?