Securitization of Property Squatting in Europe

Manjikian, Mary

doi:10.4324/9780203103180

Cited by 25 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…Yet these questions have not been properly addressed by the literature on squatting. In particular, I have noticed a lack of distinction between 'homogenisation' and 'polarisation' narratives in the main works dealing with dominant discourses on squatting (Aguilera 2018, Bouillon 2013, Dee 2013, Dee & Debelle 2015, Manjikian 2013, Middleton 2015, Fox-O'Mahony et al 2015, Pruijt 2013. While the split between 'good' and 'bad' squatters has been carefully disclosed, the accounts differ substantially.…”

Section: Culture Unboundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good and Bad Squatters? Challenging Hegemonic Narratives and Advancing Anti-Capitalist Views of Squatting in Western European Cities

Martínez

2019

Cult. Unbound

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Mainstream mass media and politicians tend to portray squatters as civic evils. Breaking in and trespassing on private property is clumsily equated with the occupation of empty premises. Squatting is often represented as a serious criminal offence even before any legal verdict has been determined. The social diversity of squatters and the circumstances around this practice are usually omitted. Dominant narratives in Western European cities were effective in terms of criminalisation of squatting and the social groups that occupied vacant properties-homeless people in need of a shelter, those who cannot afford to buy or rent convenient venues for performing social activities, activists who squat as a means of protest against real estate speculation, etc. This article reviews the available evidence of those narratives and disentangles the main categories at play. I first examine homogenisation stereotypes of squatters as a whole. Next, I distinguish the divides created by the conventional polarisation between 'good' and 'bad' squatters. It is argued that both dynamics foster the stigma of squatting and facilitate its repression, although these discursive struggles engage squatters as well. As a consequence, I discuss the implications of 'reversive' and 'subversive' narratives performed by squatters to legitimise their practices and movements. In particular, the anti-capitalist features of these counter-hegemonic responses are identified and elaborated, which adds to the topic's literature.

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Section: Culture Unboundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good and Bad Squatters? Challenging Hegemonic Narratives and Advancing Anti-Capitalist Views of Squatting in Western European Cities

Martínez

2019

Cult. Unbound

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“…Because of its alternative lifestyle and resistance to authorities, the area has appeared as a welcoming environment for criminals. The members of the community have not caused much of the violence, but the community has hosted the violence (Manjikian, 2013).…”

Section: Tactics and Strategies Of Negotiating Public Spacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal diversity and the strategies of negotiating public spaces in Christiania

Rannila

2018

Journal of Urban Affairs

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Although the conceptions of public spaces as open, equal, and democratic have proven to be problematic, they are even more complex in communities whose legal, moral, and political practices are unique. This article addresses the mundane strategies and tactics of negotiating publicity in the former Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen. By analyzing Christiania's current situation through interviews, documents, and participant observation, I argue that the possibilities of publicity are always reliant on the constitution of legal spaces: how laws and rules are spatially performed, what kinds of visible and invisible regulation are at work, and how the conceptions of publicity become inscribed in the material elements and bodies in space. Christiania's case exemplifies perfectly the relationality of law, the legal diversity, and the multiplicity of legal actors within a neighborhood. It also shows how public spaces are complex legal settings where certain events have lawmaking or law-transforming power.

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“…Closely linked to them, constructivist approaches aim at disclosing the discursive strategies that different actors (journalists, politicians, academics, think tanks, NGOs, squatters, etc.) perform and their effects in terms of 'cultural wars' and 'revanchist politics' (Pruijt 2013b), 'securitisation policies' (Manjikian 2013) and mass media criminalisation (Dee and Debelle 2015). Ethnographic insights from homeless migrants who squat (Bouillon 2009) and from squatters engaged in the politics of migration (Mudu and Chattopadhyay 2017), the cultural and ideological framings of political squatting (Moore and Smart 2015), and the squatters' 'legal wisdom' (Finchett-Maddock 2014) also crucially involve the dimensions of subjectivity, symbolic interactions and forms of representation (De Moor 2016).…”

Section: Articulations Between Agency and Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some researchers point to internal contradictions, cleavages and discriminatory behaviours among some groups of squatters (azozomox 2014; Kadir 2014). Corporate reactions to the spread of squatters can also reinvigorate the criminalisation of homelessness and the securitisation of property, which results, for example, in anti-squatting companies (Dadusc and Dee 2015;Manjikian 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Urban Politics of Squatters' Movements

2018

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Securitization of Property Squatting in Europe

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Good and Bad Squatters? Challenging Hegemonic Narratives and Advancing Anti-Capitalist Views of Squatting in Western European Cities

Good and Bad Squatters? Challenging Hegemonic Narratives and Advancing Anti-Capitalist Views of Squatting in Western European Cities

Legal diversity and the strategies of negotiating public spaces in Christiania

The Urban Politics of Squatters' Movements

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