Reform, Rupture or Re-Imagination: Understanding the Purpose of an Occupation

Abstract

Despite a resurgence in the use of occupations as a political tactic in the UK, there is little agreement on how they contribute to the realisation of a movement's goals. Drawing on the author's experience of occupations at University College London (UCL), this profile argues for an understanding of occupation according to a threefold model of transformational social change: symbiotic, ruptural and interstitial. As the occupations progressed, UCL activists' understanding of the collective action they had undertaken was expanded and transformed, with increasing emphasis placed on the ruptural and interstitial visions. These both reflected and reinforced a broader process of politicisation and radicalisation amongst the student body. The profile concludes by suggesting that no conception of the purpose of an occupation should be regarded as universally valid since an accommodation between competing strategic visions is both required and necessary.Over the course of the 2010-2011 academic year, students and their supporters at University College London (UCL) carried out three occupations in protest at cuts to higher education and the government's wider austerity measures. The first of these, which took place in the Jeremy Bentham Room (JBR) between 24 November and 10 December, was one of the most prominent of over 50 school and university occupations taking place at that time, attracting significant media attention and serving as a focal point for the national campaign of resistance to the government's legislation on tuition fees. In February, a second occupation took place in another conference room, the Old Refectory. This occupation lasted several days and fed into the occupation of an entire building in Bloomsbury owned by another London university, Royal Holloway. It served as a radical organising space-the Anti-Cuts Space-before being raided by bailiffs. A third occupation at UCL in support of a lecturers' strike took place between 22 and 24 March in the university registry.It is striking how, during the winter of 2010, the act of occupation as a political tactic enjoyed a huge resurgence amongst the student population of the UK at a time when the majority had only a vague idea of what an occupation is and what it was expected to achieve. The over-arching goal of stopping the government's legislation on tuition fees going through parliament was, presumably, shared by all who took part in the first

Networks of Non-Participation: Comparing ‘Supportive’, ‘Unsupportive’ and ‘Undecided’ Non-Participants in the UK Student Protests against Fees and Cuts

“…At the same time, however, 62.5 per cent disapproved of the tactics used by students. As we have seen, the autumn protests featured a number of controversial events, and at UCL – where Louise studied – disputes arose out of student societies’ claim to use of the space that activists had occupied (see Aitchison, 2011). As an English student and sports society member, Louise belonged to two contrasting networks on campus – one broadly supportive of the occupation, the other broadly opposed.…”

Student organizations in Canada and Quebec's ‘Maple Spring’

“…This strategy was ineffective in mobilizing students, but it became effective when it was time to work directly with government to negotiate a path forward following the strike. CLASSE, in sharp contrast, was an issue-oriented pressure group that was far more interested in changing the system than working within it, and its ruptural metamorphosis strategy (Aitchison 2011), referred to as an 'escalation of tactics,' was designed to mobilize enough students and citizens to shift the balance of power. CLASSE took a series of strategic steps designed to facilitate mobilization and gradually intensify the protest, beginning with petitions that encouraged students to commit themselves to political action, organizing symbolic actions (for example, flashmobs) designed to attract the attention of media, the population and other students, and then holding a one-day strike as a symbolic ultimatum to the government and provided students with a sense that they were part of a broader political movement (Poirier St-Pierre and Éthier 2013).…”

Retrofitting, repurposing and re-placing

“…The valorisation of occupations as a political project (as opposed to purely technical or instrumental responses to unmet housing needs), allows for nuanced and relational analyses of occupations to be developed (Aitchinson, 2011;Bhan, 2019). Several scholars have nuanced the concept of occupations, and facilitated the reframing of occupations as a series of different practices, with multiple urban outcomes, undertaken by various and power-laden actors.…”