Squatting and Urban Culture

Vesa Peipinen

Kaupunkikulttuuri ja uudet toimijat University of Helsinki 26.9.2014

Squatting Europe Kollective

research and activist network focusing on the squatters’ movement in European cities

urban squatting

SqEK Research Agenda

legal, urban, socio-cultural and political contexts

different cycles of mobilisation

interactions between squatters, authorities, owners and other social organizations

database, seminars, publications

The Logic of Urban Squatting

1 Deprivation-based squatting: homelessness, 1945-48

2 Squatting as an alternative housing strategy

3 Entrepreneurial squatting: social and cultural centres, free spaces, breeding places

4 Conservational squatting: tactic used in the preservation of a cityscape or landscape

5 Political squatting: anti-systemic politics and who identify themselves with revolutionary or ‘autonomous’ ideas

Hans Pruijt (2013) The Logic of Urban Squatting.

Whose city? Whose culture?Manuel Castells (1983): The City and the Grassroots

”if we are able to understand how people build cities, we are able to build cities for people”

Lewis Mumford (1938): The Culture of the City

Henri Lefebvre The Production of Space (1991): city as an ”ouevre”, ”right to the city”

Hille Koskela (2012): Pelkokerroin, ”whose city?”

Istandsetzen (renovate)

Besetzen (occupy)

= instandbesetzen

(constructive squatting)

Friedrichshain Berlin

Rote Flora Hamburg

Rote Fabrik Zürich

Rote Fabrik

Rote Fabrik

L´Ateneu Popular Nou Barris

Zürich

Readings

Nussbaumer, Martina & Schwarz, Werner Michael 2012. Besetzt! - Kampf um Freiräume seit den 70ern. Wien Museum. Czernin Verlag

Pruijt, Hans 2013. The Logic of Urban Squatting. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Volume 37.1 January 2013, 19-45.

Squatting Europe Kollektive 2013. Squatting in Europe. Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. Minor Compositions.

Cattaneo, Claudio & Martinez, Miquel A. 2013. The Squatters Movement in Europe. Commons and Autonomy as Alternatives to Capitalism. Squatting Europe Kollektive. PlutoPress.

Van der Steen, Bart & Katzeff, Ask & Van Hoogenhuizje, Leendert 2013. The City is Ours. Squatting and Autonomous Movements in Europe from 1970s to the Present. PM Press.