Beyond the territory: Local mobilizations in Northern Italy against the HSRL in Val di Susa and the US base in Vicenza

Conflicts related to locally unwanted land use (LULU) are usually labelled by politicians, media mainstream and some scholars as affected by Nimby (Not In My Back Yard) syndrome, associated with a conservative behaviour, defence of localist interests and egotistical resistance to social change. Anyway, recent research highlighted as this image does not always reflect the real nature of these phenomena. The two Lulu mobilizations I analyse and compare in my contribution, locally originate, although triggered by public decisions of national and global authorities, but then go beyond their territories, because the networked organization of the conflict include many non-local actors, the local frames become global ones, and the reach of protest involves multiple territorial level of governance. The popular mobilizations against the construction of a new High Speed Railway Line in Val di Susa in Piedmont (No Tav) and the extension of an US military base in Vicenza (No Dal Molin) provide a different picture of the Northern Italy society, usually portrayed as dominate by the racist, selfish and closed to outsiders culture of Lega Nord. Claiming the willing to decide by themselves the use of their territories, No Tav and No dal Molin are able non only to intertwine their mobilizations, but to build networks and alliances with other Lulu struggles in the rest of Italy and especially in the South: the twinning No Tav – No Ponte with Sicilians and Calabrians opposing the construction of the Bridge on the Messina Straits, and the close link between No Dal Molin and the Neapolitans struggling against a new dump, are the most known examples. Furthermore, they claim for universal values, democracy from below, an alternative model of development and the refusal of war.