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Sq u a r e S, pu B l i c
See Piazza
Sq u a t t e r Mo v e M e n t S
Squatters are unauthorized occupants of private
or governmental land. Squatting, a global phenomenon,
is often initiated by immigrants in contexts
of rural depression, opportunities in urban
areas by exclusionary urban real estate prices driving
the urban poor into squats, or the desire for an
alternative lifestyle. Squatting is particularly pronounced
in the global South. As urbanization
continues apace across large swaths of Africa,
Asia, and South America, squatter settlements
continue to urbanize at a faster rate than cities.
The overwhelming majority of urbanites in countries
as distinct as Afghanistan, Chad, Ethiopia,
and India live within varying kinds of squatter
settlements. Whereas the extent of squatter settlements
has been well documented in urban studies,
there is less known about the nature and extent of
squatter movements.
As Porta and Diani argue, literature on squatter
movements tends to track three successive stages.
First, core groups are formed that provide a critique
of existing institutions and produce a sense
of collective identity. Second, these identities are
reinforced by confrontations with opponents.
Squatter Movements
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Through this, movements seek to frame the debate
on urban social (in)justice, and seek—as the work
of Manuel Castells so powerfully demonstrated in
the early 1980s—to influence the collective urban
political and cultural environment. Third, the
movement then typically adapts to its institutional
environment, which can act to limit or deepen conflict
with the state. In addition to being a struggle
for urban space and housing, squatter movements—especially
in cities in the global North—are
often struggles for the right to live alternative lifestyles.
For example, squatter movements in Berlin
or Copenhagen, often constituted largely by youth
groups, have been made up of subcultures as diverse
as punks, hippies, bohemians, skinheads, and various
kinds of artists. This diversity acts as a reminder
that, as with debates on social movements more
generally, there is a tendency in accounts of squatter
movements to portray squatters as unitary
actors with coherent demands or as movements
that necessarily emerge from desperate poverty. In
Amsterdam, for instance, where there is a long history
of squatter movements that have had some
success in securing housing and infrastructure, the
movement, according to Uitermark, is “extremely
heterogeneous and decentred, which means that
different segments pursue divergent goals with differing
strategies and tactics.”
Equally, literature on squatter movements has
traced the role of various social differentials in the
nature of movements, including gender, class, race,
religion, age, sexuality, and so on, demonstrating
the often exclusive politics of identity at play in collectivist
movements. For example, there is a literature
on the role of gender within squatter movements,
which has shown that in South American or South
Asian cities, for instance, women often participate
more than men—for example, in struggles for housing
or community infrastructure—but that this
takes place often at the price of gender division,
where men frequently assume leadership roles.
Other research has shown how the territorialization
of ethnic or racial divides within squatter settlements
can splinter or inhibit squatter movements.
Legal and Political Rights
One key source of agitation for squatter movements
is around the issue of title deeds. The focus of
debates on squatter movements in the global South