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Fighting for Spaces, Fighting for our lives: Squatting Movements Today
Squatting everywhere kollective (SqEK) aims with this book to move beyond the conventional understandings of squatting, investigating its history in different places over the past four decades.
While waves of repression against squatters seem to spread across many places, attacking and shutting down its remaining squatting strongholds and its historical spaces of rebellion, some squatted social centres manage to persist and new occupied zones arise – successfully defended through public mobilization and widespread solidarity, alongside militant action. At the same time, squatting has seen a rebirth as a tool of radical praxis in movements fighting against the rising number of evictions and foreclosures during the financial crisis, facing the policies of racism and creating open spaces for refugees, migrants and people of colour. The collected essays, first-hand accounts and photographs in this book do not intend to offer an over-arching narrative of where the squatters movement is heading. Instead the book provides glimpses into a diverse and multi-faceted movement, with accounts from local struggles, experiences of repression and stories of collective forms of life which have grown out of squatted spaces in various cities and countries throughout the world, including accounts from Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Seattle and Australia.
While waves of repression against squatters seem to spread across many places, attacking and shutting down its remaining squatting strongholds and its historical spaces of rebellion, some squatted social centres manage to persist and new occupied zones arise – successfully defended through public mobilization and widespread solidarity, alongside militant action. At the same time, squatting has seen a rebirth as a tool of radical praxis in movements fighting against the rising number of evictions and foreclosures during the financial crisis, facing the policies of racism and creating open spaces for refugees, migrants and people of colour. The collected essays, first-hand accounts and photographs in this book do not intend to offer an over-arching narrative of where the squatters movement is heading. Instead the book provides glimpses into a diverse and multi-faceted movement, with accounts from local struggles, experiences of repression and stories of collective forms of life which have grown out of squatted spaces in various cities and countries throughout the world, including accounts from Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Seattle and Australia.
364 pages, ebook
Published October 1, 2018
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September 30, 2020
A brilliant collection of essays on the history, the theory, and the practice of squatting. I found a lot to interest me in there, from a day to day account of the defense of Notre Dame des Landes to articles on self-managed refugee squats, a bit of legal background, and some inspiring stories of successful and unsuccessful resistance. You can tell the authors of the essays know what they're talking about, and a lot of the texts include first-person accounts which I found made them come to life a lot more. Definitely not dry or overly theoretical, I'd highly recommend it!
Displaying 1 of 1 review