Occupy! Historical geographies of property, protest and the commons, 1500–1850

Abstract

This paper examines issues surrounding protest, trespass and occupation -brought to the fore as a result both of recent social movements including the global Occupy movement and of emerging critical discourses about so-called 'new enclosures' -through a historical lens. Wary of histories of property and protest that rely heavily on the notion of the 'closing of the commons', the authors present a different story about the solidification of property rights, the securitisation of space and the gradual emergence of the legal framework through which protest is now disciplined. They do so via an exploration of three episodes in the making of property in land and three associated moments of resistance, each enacted via the physical occupation of common land. The first examines strategies for opposing enclosure in early sixteenth-century England; the second considers the Diggers' reimagining of property and the commons in the mid seventeenth century; and the third analyses the challenge to property rights offered by squatting and small-scale encroachments in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In so doing, the paper begins to rethink the relations between past and contemporary protest, considering how a more nuanced account of the history of common rights, enclosure and property relations might nevertheless leave space for new solidarities which have the potential to challenge the exercise of arbitrary power.Suddenly, in 2011 occupations were everywhere. Student sit-ins, the symbolic gathering and occupying of prominent 'public' spaces during the so-called Arab Spring, the Indignados of Spain, the Direct Democracy Now movement in Greece, and the Occupy movement, all united by their shared use of the physical occupation of prominent and symbolic spaces by way of protest.If ultimately their aims were different, the technique of gathering together and occupying tied the protests together. The act of occupation is not a new one, though rarely has the physical and spatial act been given such symbolic prominence as in the Occupy movement. The practical and symbolic actand thus public performanceof occupying public space was not just rooted in political symbolism but also a direct critique of the 'privatization' of public space. Occupy thus reclaims and remakes space for the public against the interests of those who seek to exclude and delimit the use of space supposedly once of the public. 1 Central to this assertion is the mobilization of the idea of the 'commons' to historically and conceptually underpin its actions. Indeed, central to Occupy's declared intent is the belief in the importance of, and a desire to return to, the 'commons', to throw off private property in land and, simply put, return the land to the people. In this oft-repeated narrative, before the demonic act of enclosureon which more belowthe land was of the people, unrestricted and unregulated for all to use. Enclosure closed the commons down, the hedges and fences erected forcing the poor from their land and gifting it to the wealthy ruler...

Historicising geographies of solidarity

“…Such an approach is often understood in terms of “usable pasts” (P. Griffin, ). McDonagh and Griffin's () work on enclosures, for instance, engages with contemporary campaigns around the commons, suggesting that they often mobilise a misleading historical narrative. This is not merely a myth‐busting exercise however; they hope that a more nuanced history “can open up spaces for new solidarities in the contemporary world.…”

“…This is not merely a myth‐busting exercise however; they hope that a more nuanced history “can open up spaces for new solidarities in the contemporary world. That the commons never did belong to the people, does not mean they should not” (McDonagh & Griffin, , p. 10). Bressey (, p. 102) sees her research and engagement work on the black presence in Britain as “part of a broader anti‐racist project that feeds into traditions of developing radical ‘histories from below’.” There are important lessons to be learned here from earlier incarnations of “history from below,” notably the History Workshop movement, which had some success in developing collaborative relationships between university‐based historians and a range of activists.…”

‘The murderous civilisation’: anarchist geographies, ethnography and cultural differences in the works of Élie Reclus

“…104 According to Briony McDonagh and Carl J. Griffin, the concept of land enclosure as the withdrawal of former common rights is a modern one, starting in England between the 16th and the 17th century. 105 This phenomenon is linked to histories of resistance, including the experience of the Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley, whom authors like Jim Mac Laughlin consider as one of the forerunners of anarchism. 106 Reclus' arguments against Australian enclosures recall what David Featherstone defines as the complex field of 'subaltern political ecologies' or 'subaltern interventions which have contested the unequal production of relations between heterogeneous associations of humans and non-humans'.…”

New protest history: Exploring the historical geographies and geographical histories of resistance through gender, practice, and materiality

“…Since 2000, a number of scholars such as Griffin (, , , , , , ), McDonagh (, , see also Griffin and McDonagh, and McDonagh and Griffin, ) Navickas (, , ), and Robertson (, , ) have brought the study of historical protest up‐to‐date by employing critical research methodologies and foregrounding both geographical analysis and the experiences of people traditionally overlooked within historical geography, such as women, ethic minorities, and the poor. This subdiscipline is often termed “new protest history,” although the geographical background and approach of many of the scholars active in the field means that “new protest historical geography” would be a more accurate, if less eloquent, descriptor.…”