The Squatters’ Movement in Europe: Commons and Autonomy as Alternatives to Capitalism (original) (raw)

2015

This book owes a debt, first, to all the SqEK members who participated in the meetings and online debates. Most of our ideas became more fruitful thanks to this collective way of combining our local and personal work, with the critical sharing of our perspectives. Second, nonactive SqEK members but activists within the different squatting scenes of the cities where we met, who attended some of our meetings or hosted us, or guided our visits to particular squats, also contributed to our reflections with their valuable insights and experiences. Also, in different stages of the production of this book the editors have been helped, specially regarding the language supervision, by some SqEK participants beyond or independently from their individual contributions to the chapters and boxes. Above all, E. T. C. Dee was in charge of the final style overview, but we are also very grateful to

The Squatters’ Movement in Europe: A Durable Struggle for Social Autonomy in Urban Politics

Squatting empty properties for living or to develop public activities has lasted in European cities for more than three decades. Although local and national contexts differ significantly, there are also some general trends and patterns that deserve careful attention. When squatting occasionally appears in public debates, controversy is generated and many gaps open between academic, social and political perceptions. In this article I use evidence from several European cities to argue that the squatters' movement has produced an original impact in urban politics. The main feature of this impact has been to generate a relatively wide autonomous and mainly non-institutional mode of citizen participation, protest and self-management. How has this been possible? Which are the specific contributions made by this urban movement? These are questions that both scholars and activists continuously claim to be relevant, so that this research attempts to offer some general answers based on detailed comparisons and experiences.

Squatting, commons and conflict: a discussion of squatting's challenges to the commons

Participazione & Conflitto, 2020

This piece aims to provide critical distance to the notion of the commons, increasingly used in academia to depict social movements. Squatting shows particularly useful to expose the blind spots of neo-institutionalist approaches but also confronts the unitary and homogenizing Marxist "urban commons" narratives. A circumstantial history of squatting in Barcelona is provided to contextualize the internal conflict examined in this paper. Then, an introduction to the case study, Espai Social Magdalenes (ESM), is provided. ESM was the stage of an intense conflict opposing different sectors of Barcelona's squatters' movement. I use interviews made with activists close to the squatter's movement to reinforce the theoretical claims of this piece with their assessments. Arguably, untamed and open conflict is at the heart of squatting, leading to movements that are far from the pacified and orderly framework of a significant part of the commons literature.

The Squatters' Movement in Europe: A Durable Strategy for Social Autonomy in Urban Politics

The Autonomy of Struggles and the self-management of squats: legacies of intertwined movements

Interface, 2019

How do squatters' movements make a difference in urban politics? Their singularity in European cities has often been interpreted according to the major notion of 'autonomy'. However, despite the recent upsurge of studies about squatting (Cattaneo et al. 2014, Katsiaficas 2006, Martínez et al. 2018, Van der Steen et al. 2014), there has not been much clarification of its theoretical, historical and political significance. Autonomism has also been identified as one of the main ideological sources of the recent global justice and anti-austerity movements (Flesher 2014) after being widely diffused among European squatters for more than four decades, which prompts a question about the meaning of its legacy. In this article, I first examine the political background of autonomism as a distinct identity among radical movements in Europe in general (Flesher et al. 2013, Wennerhag et al. 2018), and the squatters in particular-though not often explicitly defined. Secondly, I stress the social, feminist and anti-capitalist dimensions of autonomy that stem from the multiple and specific struggles in which squatters were involved over different historical periods. These aspects have been overlooked or not sufficiently examined by the literature on squatting movements. By revisiting relevant events and discourses of the autonomist tradition linked to squatting in Italy, Germany and Spain, its main traits and some contradictions are presented. Although political contexts indicate different emphases in each case, some common origins and transnational exchanges justify an underlying convergence and its legacies over time. I contend that autonomism is better understood by focusing on the social nature of the separate struggles by the oppressed in terms of self-management, collective reproduction and political aggregation rather than highlighting the individualistic view in which personal desires and independence prevail. This interpretation also implies that autonomy for squatters consists of practices of collective micro-resistance to systemic forms of domination which politicise private spheres of everyday life instead of retreating to them.

European squatters’ movements and the right to the city.

Cristina Flesher and Ramón A. Feenstra (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Contemporary European Social Movements Protest in Turbulent Times. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 155-167., 2020

Squatters’ movement evolved unevenly across European cities over the last four decades, although there are recent attempts to understand their patterns and commonalities as well as their relations with other social movements. A very much discussed topic within these studies is the autonomous political identity of many of the squatters’ movements, but less attention has been paid to frame their demands, practices and achievements according to Lefebvre’s notion of ‘the right to the city’. I argue that there are both strengths and weaknesses in that association. On the one hand, squatters’ claims countered the exclusion of many social groups from the urban core and provided them with non-commercial and self-managed services, dwellings, social encounters, and opportunities for political mobilisation. This centrally engages with Lefebvre’s main concerns on struggles to inhabit, appropriate, and recreate the city. However, the occupation of buildings was ignored in Lefebvre’s agenda. Additionally, squatters have seldom adhered to urban coalitions united under the umbrella of ‘the right to the city’. Instead, most squatters aimed at challenging either the capitalist state broadly or specific speculative dynamics.

Squatting in Europe Kollective (Ed.): Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles

2013

"Squatting offers a radical but simple solution to the crises of housing, homelessness, and the lack of social space that mark contemporary society: occupying empty buildings and rebuilding lives and communities in the process. Squatting has a long and complex history, interwoven with the changing and contested nature of urban politics over the last forty years. Squatting can be an individual strategy for shelter or a collective experiment in communal living. Squatted and self-managed social centres have contributed to the renewal of urban struggles across Europe and intersect with larger political projects. However, not all squatters share the same goals, resources, backgrounds or desire for visibility. Squatting in Europe aims to move beyond the conventional understandings of squatting, investigating its history in Europe over the past four decades. Historical comparisons and analysis blend together in these inquiries into squatting in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and England. In it members of SqEK (Squatting Europe Kollective) explore the diverse, radical, and often controversial nature of squatting as a form of militant research and self-managed knowledge production. Essays by Miguel Martínez, Gianni Piazza, Hans Pruijt, Pierpaolo Mudu, Claudio Cattaneo, Andre Holm, Armin Kuhn, Linus Owens, Florence Bouillon, Thomas Aguilera, and ETC Dee."

The Squatters’ Movement in Europe: Commons and Autonomy as Alternatives to Capitalism (original) (raw)

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