Constructing ‘Nodes’ for the Future? Belonging and Return Mobility in Sardinia

This presentation seeks to discuss varieties of belongings flourishing in the Italian island of Sardinia. Standing in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, Sardinia has a long tradition of emigration due to economic difficulties, which contraposes itself to a strong touristic vocation. In this context, young people have seen mobility as a way to imagine their future (Cuzzocrea and Mandich 2016). In this presentation, we discuss what it happens when the desire to return after having had some experience abroad – which is itself based on articulated dynamics of belonging - starts to arise (a), and the possibilities of accumulation of capital that may accompany this process (b).

To explore this theme, this presentation delves into the rich material generated by NODI (Home - NODI (nodi-itaca.com), an experiment of community creation initiated by a Sardinian returnee, which is flourishing around the objective to create a system of transferable resources travelling across continents, but having Sardinia as an elected hub to support human and social capital. This example of community creation is explicitly based on the appreciation of potentialities found in loco, but also on a peculiar relation with the island that could be connoted, again, as belonging. Looking at the activities organised by NODI, and reflecting on the postcast material gathered through ITACA (a section of NODI) with the involvement of returnees and/or Sardinians abroad, the presentation also touches on the concept of aspirational justice and on an emotionality that is not encapsulated in itself but rather used to explicitly inspire and support future generations of Sardinian youth to engage with the territory, attempting to design new possibilities and scenarios of justice.

Reference:

Cuzzocrea V, Mandich G (2016). Students’ narratives of the future: imagined mobilities as forms of youth agency?. Journal of Youth studies, vol. 19, p. 552-567.