Squatting In Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles

Description

Squatting offers a radical but simple solution to the crises of housing,

homelessness, and the lack of social space that mark contemporary society:

occupying empty buildings and rebuilding lives and communities in the

process. Squatting has a long and complex history, interwoven with the

changing and contested nature of urban politics over the last forty years.

Squatting can be an individual strategy for shelter or a collective

experiment in communal living. Squatted and self-managed social centres

have contributed to the renewal of urban struggles across Europe and

intersect with larger political projects. However, not all squatters share

the same goals, resources, backgrounds or desire for visibility. Squatting

in Europe aims to move beyond the conventional understandings of squatting,

investigating its history in Europe over the past four decades. Historical

comparisons and analysis blend together in these inquiries into squatting

in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and England. In it

members of SqEK (Squatting Europe Kollective) explore the diverse, radical,

and often controversial nature of squatting as a form of militant research

and self-managed knowledge production. Essays by Miguel Martínez, Gianni

Piazza, Hans Pruijt, Pierpaolo Mudu, Claudio Cattaneo, Andre Holm, Armin

Kuhn, Linus Owens, Florence Boullon, and Thomas Aguilera.