An Island for Everyone: Poveglia as contested public space in the Venetian Lagoon

Abstract

This article focuses on the story of the proposed privatisation of Poveglia, a small uninhabited island in the Venetian Lagoon. In March 2014 the Italian State Property Office announced that a 99-year lease on Poveglia would be offered for sale in an online auction. The reaction of some citizens led to the formation of the association Poveglia per Tutti (Poveglia for Everyone), whose activists and supporters wanted the island to be preserved as a public space and blocked the acquisition. The article firstly frames Poveglia in the processes that are particular to the small islands of the Venetian Lagoon, from abandonment to tourism-related ‘land grabbing’, and then contextualises the story of this minor island in a more general discussion regarding broader ‘right to the island’ narratives and practices with reference to some other European cases. Finally, the article presents the results of a an ethnographically informed analysis of the association Poveglia per Tutti to discuss the capacity and potentialities of some small islands - as separate, limited, and identifiable spaces - to be part of territorialisation processes dealing with active citizenship, resistance to tourist monoculture and the usability of public space. In this way, Poveglia becomes a synecdoche for the whole of Venice and its lagoon, ‘condensing’, at the same time, local and global dynamics.