This paper compares two trajectories of industrialization in the Mediterranean region, and they interplay with broader regional and global networks. It looks at the expansion of oil-based industries and fossil fuel infrastructures in the 20th century and their persistent legacies in Brindisi (Italy) and Sines (Portugal), two port cities overlooking (and exposed to), respectively, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Both areas were shaped by “development pole” policies in the 1960s and 1970s within different national frameworks and regional specificities, which account for differences in their historical path, despite strong similarities of infrastructures, environmental issues and concerns/expectations about the ongoing energy transition. The paper will address the ways social groups and local institutions have been dealing with polluting industries, corporate powers, and the role of the state, to examine differences and similarities in the making and remaking of places, livelihoods and environments. Whereas Brindisi can be approached as a “wholly Mediterranean” case-study, the area of Sines — with its Atlantic projection and intimate connection to colonial and post-colonial histories —allows to open the debate to the role and influence of broader networks and connections, their overlapping and combination in the making of “the Mediterranean”. I argue that such comparison can help think the global dimensions of the Mediterranean and the interplay between regional histories, state projects and global networks. Furthermore, examining the role of oil-industries and energy networks in shaping our socioenvironmental present can bring fruitful insights to discussing the tension between macro-regional boundaries, Mediterraneanist studies and global anthropological visions.

--