The Italian Small Islands in the PNRR Missions. A vision of the future

The paper aims to understand the possible effects of the PNRR on the Italian Small Islands. The relationship between insiders and external actors, as well as the relationship of interdependence with the mainland, highlight the Italian Small Islands as a promising "laboratory" for investigation, not only as case studies but also as a complex and articulated spatial and territorial context in which some of the general dynamics tend to be emphasised. The peripheral dimension of the Italian Small Islands (Turco, 1980) has meant that since the Second World War they have been included among the "underdeveloped areas" and subject to the interventions of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. Within this scenario, the smaller islands were the subject of specific funding or actions, in some cases emphasising their dependence on the mainland. This dependence has also been recorded in the policies of the National Strategy for Internal Areas (SNAI), which classifies island municipalities as peripheral or ultraperipheral, without however taking into account deeper local dynamics that effectively cancel out these conditions of peripheralisation. The PNRR proposes some missions explicitly addressed to small island territories, such as the achievement of a circular economy, forms of development that dialogue between tourism and sustainability, but also more general actions aimed, for example, at the mitigation of territorial gaps. The paper seeks to connect PNRR, tourism development and the challenge of Small Islands' seasonal geographies.