Squatting is a unique form of protest activity that holds a potential of unfurling energies; it focuses action in a way that is prefigurative of another mode of organizing society and challenging a paramount institution of capitalist society: private property.[1]
It is easy to be blinded by the 15-M movement when discussing contemporary social movements in Spain. The financial crisis in 2008 was followed by an explosion of diverse social movements in Spain and globally, including but not exclusively movements of anti-globalization, anti-Iraq war and the Arab Spring, which in 2011 contributed to the 15-M protests and occupations in cities around Spain. It can be difficult to view contemporary social movements, particularly those of okupados in Spain, as part of a much longer history of social action. In this respect I have found the book, ‘Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles’ edited by the Squatting Europe Kollective (SqEK), to be really helpful.[2] It has given me a broader understanding of how contemporary occupations in Madrid (El Patio Maravillas and La Ingobernable in particular) fit into a longer and politically diverse history of squatting in Europe. The ‘potential of unfurling energies’ that squatting can create had been established and activated years before 15-M.
The book is a collection of essays about different squatting practices in Europe. It was published in 2013 by SqEK on Minor Compositions and is available for free. Although published after 2011, most of the essays write exclusively about earlier movements. The SqEK expressly state their aims: ‘to develop a thorough, systematic and critical knowledge about this so frequently forgotten social movement’.[3] The collective sits across both activism and research. Furthermore, they believe that ‘there is a political responsibility of social scientists in a context of the incremental repression of squatting in European countries.’[4] The essays were clearly chosen for their ability to illuminate and advocate for squatting as a political and social activity, however, that should not diminish their contribution. Of particular assistance to me are the essays ‘Squatting in Europe’ by Hans Pruijt, which offers a typology of squatting practices and ‘The Squatters’ Movement in Spain’, written by Miguel A. Martínez López, the foremost academic writing about squatting in Spain today.[5][6]
Pruijt offers a broad typology of squatting in Europe. The essay is particularly helpful in separating types of squatting which have varying goals, for example those advocating for affordable housing and those squatting out of necessity, similarly those squatting for political motivations and those who are setting up an establishment or social centre. Pruijt defines five ‘configurations’ of squatting:
- Deprivation-based squatting
- Squatting as an alternative housing strategy
- Entrepreneurial squatting
- Conservational squatting
- Political squatting.[7]
Pruijt includes a helpful table which illustrates the differences in goals, demands, and outcomes between his categorisations.[8] The squatting which El Patio Maravillas and La Ingobernable engage in is broadly ‘Entrepreneurial’ by this classification, because their main focus is the setting up a social centre, which groups can use and engage in, but not a living space. Both El Patio and La Ingobernable occupy buildings with a political purpose, for example, to combat the sale to a development firm, yet they are open and their political motivations do not prevent a wide range of people from being welcomed.
Martínez López writes about the history of squatting movements in Spain from 1980 – 2006. The essay aims to identify consistent aspects of the squatters’ movement in Spain and its contribution to global movements, particularly ‘alter-globalization’. I have found it useful in understanding the development of squatting in Spain prior to the 2008 crisis, and how the movement has always had a strong global-local outlook: developing services for their local communities and campaigning for affordable housing, whilst also actively engaging in global issues, for example campaigning against the World Bank’s conference in Madrid in 1994.[9] Martínez López shows that groups like El Patio, and the issues they are involved in, are part of a continuum and development of squatting in Spain since the 1980s.
[1] Margit Mayer, ‘Preface’, Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles, edited by Squatting Europe Kollective, Minor Compositions, 2013, Wivenhoe / New York / Port Watson, pp. 1 – 10, p. 2.
[2] Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles, edited by Squatting Europe Kollective, Minor Compositions 2013, Wivenhoe / New York / Port Watson. Available here: http://www.minorcompositions.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/squattingineurope-web.pdf
[3] ‘About the Squatting Europe Kollective’, Squatting in Europe, p. 273.
[4] ‘About the Squatting Europe Kollective’, Squatting in Europe, p. 273.
[5] Hans Pruijt, ‘Squatting in Europe’, Squatting in Europe, pp. 17 – 60.
[6] Miguel A. Martínez López, ‘The Squatters’ Movement in Spain’, Squatting in Europe, pp. 113 – 138.
[7] Pruijt, ‘Squatting in Europe’, Squatting in Europe, pp. 17 – 60, p. 21.
[8] Pruijt, ‘Squatting in Europe’, Squatting in Europe, pp. 17 – 60, pp. 52 – 53.
[9] Martínez López, ‘The Squatters’ Movement in Spain’, Squatting in Europe, pp. 113 – 138, p. 128.
I’d love to hear more about the Spanish case as Martinez Lopez understands it. Given the people you and I have encountered in Madrid, it’s not all that surprising that everyone knows about El Patio. But what about non-academics and non-activists? How did they understand El Patio and how do they now perceive of La Ingobernable? Do you think people have a more familiar language of anticapitalism and/or anti-private property in Spain than they do in the UK or US?