Table Of ContentdellaPorta & Piazza text 4 7/7/08 18:42 Page i
Voices of the Valley,
Voices of the Straits
dellaPorta & Piazza text 4 7/7/08 18:42 Page ii
Protest, Culture and Society
Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Department of Communication and Media Studies,
University of Halle Wittenberg, Germany.
Martin Klimke, German Historical Institute, Washington, DC / Heidelberg
Center for American Studies (HCA), University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Joachim Scharloth, Department of German, University of Zurich,
Switzerland.
Protest movements have been recognized as significant contributors to
processes of political participation and transformations of culture and value
systems, as well as to the development of both a national and transnational
civil society.
This series brings together the various innovative approaches to phenomena of
social change, protest and dissent which have emerged in recent years from an
interdisciplinary perspective. It contextualizes social protest and cultures of
dissent in larger political processes and socio-cultural transformations by
examining the influence of historical trajectories and the response of various
segments of society, political and legal institutions on a national and
international level. In doing so, the series offers a more comprehensive and
multi-dimensional view of historical and cultural change in the twentieth and
twenty-first century.
Volume 1
Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits:
How Protest Creates Communities
Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza
Volume 2
Transformation and Crises:
The Left and Nation in Denmark and Sweden, 1956–1980
Thomas Ekman Jørgensen
dellaPorta & Piazza text 4 7/7/08 18:42 Page iii
Voices of the Valley,
Voices of the Straits
How Protest Creates Communities
Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
dellaPorta & Piazza text 4 7/7/08 18:42 Page iv
First published in 2008 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2008 Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Della Porta, Donatella, 1956-
Voices of the valley, voices of the straits : how protest creates
communities / Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza.
p. cm. -- (Protest, culture and society ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84545-515-6
1. Protest movements--Italy. 2. Communities--Italy. 3. Environmentalism-
-Italy. 4. High speed trains--Environmental aspects--Italy--Susa Valley.
5. Bridges--Environmental aspects--Italy--Messina, Strait of. I. Piazza,
Gianni, 1963- II. Title.
HN475.5.D457 2008
307.1'40945--dc22
2008026633
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper
ISBN 978-1-84545-515-6 hardback
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Chapter 1. Local Conflict between Interest and Identity: an Introduction 1
1. Nimbyism or Social Movements? How to Explain 2
Protest Campaigns
1.1. The Local Dimension 2
1.2. Social Movements and Environmentalism 4
1.3. Resources and Mobilisation 7
1.4. The Political Dimension of the Conflict 9
1.5. Our Research 11
2. Campaigns and Networks: Two Periodisations 13
2.1. The Protest Campaign in Val di Susa 13
2.2. The No Bridge Campaign 22
Chapter 2. Networks and Cross-fertilisation: the Resources of the Protest 31
1. Networks and Cross-fertilisation: an Introduction 31
2. The Role of Local Institutions 34
3. The Role of Environmental Associations 37
4. The Role of Citizens’ Committees and the Organisation from Below 40
5. Squatted Social Centres 43
6. Trade Unions and Workers 46
7. Deciding in the Network 49
8. Concluding Remarks 53
Chapter 3. Protest and Identity: the Symbolic Construction of Conflict 57
1. Protest and Identity: an Introduction 57
2. Framing the Identity: Between Localism and Community 58
3. Diagnosis and Prognosis: What Progress? 62
4. Motivational Frames: the Rights of the Community, 70
Mobilisation of the People
5. Concluding Remarks 76
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vi | Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits
Chapter 4. In Movement: the Repertoires of the Protest 79
1. Repertoires of Protest: an Introduction 79
2. The Construction of Knowledge 81
3. Protests and the Logic of Numbers 86
4. Direct Action and Solidarity 88
5. Protest as an Arena: Site Occupations and Camps 92
6. Multiform Action 96
7. Protest and Communication 99
8. Concluding Remarks 101
Chapter 5: Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits: a Conclusion 106
Bibliography 115
Index 126
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Acknowledgments
Many people helped us to write this book. First of all, we are grateful to the
activists on the No Tav and No Ponte protest campaigns, who trusted us with
their memories of highly intense experiences and their reasons for acting. We
hope this book can help them, among others, make their voices heard.
We are also grateful to those who helped us with the research on which this
volume is based. In particular, Massimiliano Andretta and Eugenio Pizzimenti who
carried out the interviews and collected documents on the protests in Val di Susa.
Different versions of chapters of this book have been presented at
conferences at the European University Institute in Fiesole, the Universitat
Autònoma de Barcelona, the ECPR joint sessions in Nicosia, and the annual
conference of the Società Italiana di Scienza Politica in Bologna. We learned
from comments and criticism made by colleagues on all these occasions.
We are finally grateful to our respective partners, Herbert and Egle, who
supported and tolerated us with love and patience during this long and hard work.
The geographical distance notwithstanding, the two authors cooperated
intensively during the research in the field, the analysis of the results, and the
writing of this book. Each chapter is in fact a comparative analysis of the two
cases, built upon Donatella della Porta’s knowledge of the Val di Susa campaign
and Gianni Piazza’s expertise on the No Ponte protest. Although sharing
responsibility for the complete book, the final drafting of the manuscript has
been divided as follows: Donatella della Porta has written chapter 1.1., chapter
3 and chapter 4 (excluding 4.6 to 4.8); Gianni Piazza chapter 1.2., chapter 2,
chapter 4.6 to 4.8, and chapter 5.
Florence – Catania, November 2007
D. d. P. – G. P.
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to Federica, Marcella, Stefano, Raffaele, Lorenzo and Till,
to their future
to Maria and Vincenzo,
in memoriam
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Chapter 1
Local Conflict between Interest
and Identity: an Introduction
For a twinning of No Tav–No Bridge
For the sovereignty of inhabitants from north to south there emerges a
single struggle: a moratorium on large-scale public works, cancellation of
the Objective law, and participatory planning for infrastructural
transport projects. We have affirmed and repeated that the pacific revolt
of the inhabitants and mayors of the Val Susa concerns all those who love
their territory and in particular those who in recent years have opposed
the realisation of damaging and useless large-scale public works, from the
Tav to the Mose to the Bridge on the Messina Straits … the peaceful
revolt of the inhabitants and mayors of Val di Susa has placed the issues
of democracy and justice at the centre of the political debate in our
country. What has been defined as a particularist interest, whether of the
community of Val di Susa or that of the Straits, is instead the expression
of sovereignty of the people that inhabit the territory, reclaiming their
legitimacy to decide their own future and that of their children … the
struggle in Val di Susa is the same as the struggle against the Messina
Bridge, against the incinerators, against nuclear generators; it is the same
commitment as those that want to slow down, who have begun to notice
the signals of crisis in the planet, who propose a sober future, who
consider the limited resources of the planet and think that all mankind
has the right to benefit from what the earth offers. (DME 17)
The flyer that promotes this alliance between the far north and far south of Italy
is signed by the Rete No Ponte (“No Bridge Network”) and the Rete
Meridionale del Nuovo Municipio (“Southern Network for a New
Municipalism”). While the former unites various committees and associations
from the area of the Messina Straits opposed to the construction of a bridge
between Calabria and Sicily, the latter seeks to involve both local politicians and
citizens in the practices of participatory democracy. The twinning is proposed
with the No Tav committees and Mayors of Val di Susa (on the border with
France), who oppose the construction of a 57 km tunnel as part of a new high-
