Table Of ContentMigration, Squatting and
Radical Autonomy
This book offers a unique contribution, exploring how the intersections among
migrants and radical squatters’ movements have evolved over past decades. The
complexity and importance of squatting practices are analyzed from a bottom-up
perspective, to demonstrate how the spaces of squatting can be transformed by
migrants. With contributions from scholars, scholar-activists, and activists, this
book provides unique insights into how squatting has offered an alternative to
dominant anti-immigrant policies, and the implications of squatting on the social
acceptance of migrants. It illustrates the different mechanisms of protest followed
in solidarity by migrant squatters and Social Center activists, when discrimina-
tion comes from above or below, and explores how different spatialities can be
conceived and realized by radical practices.
Contributions adopt a variety of perspectives, from critical human geography,
social movement studies, political sociology, urban anthropology, autonomous
Marxism, feminism, open localism, anarchism and post-structuralism, to analyze
and contextualize migrants and squatters’ exclusion and social justice issues. This
book is a timely and original contribution through its exploration of migrations,
squatting and radical autonomy.
Pierpaolo Mudu is Professor in the Faculty of Urban Studies and Interdisciplinary
Arts & Sciences at the University of Washington – Tacoma, USA.
Sutapa Chattopadhyay is sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto-Munk
School (Canada) and affiliated Researcher at United Nations and Maastricht
Universities (Netherlands).
Routledge Research in Place, Space and Politics Series
Series Edited by Professor Clive Barnett, Professor of Geography
and Social Theory, University of Exeter, UK.
This series offers a forum for original and innovative research that explores the changing
geographies of political life. The series engages with a series of key debates about innova-
tive political forms and addresses key concepts of political analysis such as scale, territory
and public space. It brings into focus emerging interdisciplinary conversations about the
spaces through which power is exercised, legitimized and contested. Titles within the
series range from empirical investigations to theoretical engagements and authors
comprise of scholars working in overlapping fields including political geography, political
theory, development studies, political sociology, international relations and urban politics.
Urban Refugees: Challenges in Protection, Service and Policy
Edited by Koichi Koizumi and Gerhard Hoffstaedter
Space, Power and the Commons: The Struggle for Alternative Futures
Edited by Samuel Kirwan, Leila Dawney, and Julian Brigstocke
Externalizing Migration Management: Europe, North America and the Spread of
‘Remote Control’ Practices
Edited by Ruben Zaiotti
Architecture and Space Reimagined: Learning from the Difference, Multiplicity,
and Otherness of Development Practice
Richard Bower
Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy
Edited by Pierpaolo Mudu and Sutapa Chattopadhyay
Nation Branding and Popular Geopolitics in the Post-Soviet Realm
Robert A. Saunders
Political Street Art: Communication, Culture and Resistance in Latin America
Holly Ryan
Geographies of Worth: Rethinking Spaces of Critical Theory
Clive Barnet
Migration, Squatting and
Radical Autonomy
Edited by Pierpaolo Mudu and
Sutapa Chattopadhyay
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 selection and editorial material, Pierpaolo Mudu and Sutapa Chat-
topadhyay; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Pierpaolo Mudu and Sutapa Chattopadhyay to be identified
as authors of the editorial material, and of the individual authors as authors
of their contributions, has been asserted by them in accordance with sec-
tions 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Mudu, Pierpaolo, editor. | Chattopadhyay, Sutapa, editor.
Title: Migration, squatting and radical autonomy : resistance and
destabilization of racist regulatory policies and b/ordering mechanisms /
edited by Pierpaolo Mudu and Sutapa Chattopadhyay.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Series:
Routledge research in place, space and politics series
Identifiers: LCCN 2016004569| ISBN 9781138942127 (hardback) | ISBN
9781315673301 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Squatter settlements–Political aspects. |
Squatters–Political activity. | Immigrants–Political activity. |
Internal migrants–Political activity.
Classification: LCC HD7287.95 .M54 2017 | DDC 325–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016004569
ISBN: 978-1-138-94212-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-67330-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Cenveo Publisher Services
Contents
List of illustrations ix
Notes on contributors x
Foreword xvii
BRIDGET ANDERSON
Acknowledgements xxi
Introduction: migrations, squatting and radical autonomy 1
PIERPAOLO MUDU AND SUTAPA CHATTOPADHYAY
PART I
Borders and frontiers 33
1 From the desert to the courtroom: challenging the invisibility
of the Operation Streamline dragnet and en-masse hearings 35
ANDREW BURRIDGE
2 Frontex and its role in the European border regime 40
SARA CASELLA COLOMBEAU
3 Undocumented territories: strategies of spatializations by
undocumented migrants 47
HENK VAN HOUTUM AND KOLAR APARNA
4 Trapped on the border: a brief history of solidarity
squatting practices in Calais 54
CALAIS MIGRANT SOLIDARITY
vi Contents
PART II
Squatting for housing 65
5 Why migrants’ squats are a political issue: a few
thoughts about the situation in France 67
FLORENCE BOUILLON
6 Migration and mobilization for the right to housing in Rome:
new urban frontiers? 78
NADIA NUR AND ALEjANDRO SETHMAN
7 Student migrants and squatting in Rome at times of austerity 93
CESARE DI FELICIANTONIO
8 Palazzo Bernini: an experience of a multicultural squatted
house in Catania 99
FEDERICA FRAzzETTA
9 The untold struggles of migrant women squatters and the occupations
of Kottbusser Straße 8 and Forster Straße 16/17,
Berlin-Kreuzberg 104
AzOzOMOX AND DUYGU GüRSEL
PART III
Resistance to exclusion, criminalization and precarity 119
10 Space invaders: the ‘migrant-squatter’ as the
ultimate intruder 121
STEPHANIA GROHMAN
11 Racialization of informal settlements, depoliticization of
squatting and everyday resistances in French slums 130
THOMAS AGUILERA
12 Emancipation, integration, or marginality: the Romanian
Roma in Bologna and the Scalo Internazionale Migranti 143
FULVIA ANTONELLI AND MIMMO PERROTTA
13 “We are here to stay”: reflections on the struggle of the
refugee group “Lampedusa in Hamburg” and the Solidarity
Campaign, 2013–2015 162
SIMONE BEATE BORGSTEDE
Contents vii
PART IV
The difficulties of defining and arranging diversity among
heterogeneous subjects 181
14 Sacred squatting: seeking sanctuary in religious spaces 183
SERIN D. HOUSTON
15 Beyond solidarity: migrants and squatters in Madrid 189
MIGUEL MARTíNEz
16 Narrating the challenges of women-refugee activists of
Ohlauer Straße 12, International Women’s Space
(IWS refugee women activists), Berlin 207
AzOzOMOX AND IWS REFUGEE WOMEN ACTIVISTS
PART V
Social centers, radical autonomy and squatting – beyond
citizenship and borders 223
17 Beyond squatting: an autonomous culture center for
refugees in Copenhagen 225
TINA STEIGER
18 When migrants meet squatters: the case of the movement
of migrants and refugees in Caserta 232
ROMAIN FILHOL
19 Migrant squatters in the Greek territory: practices of
resistance and the production of the Athenian Urban Space 248
VASILIKI MAKRYGIANNI
20 Natural resource scarcity, degrowth scenarios and
national borders: the role of migrant squats 257
CLAUDIO CATTANEO
21 Euro trash in Loïsada, New York 272
HANS PRUIjT
22 Squatting and the undocumented migrants’ struggle in the
Netherlands 275
DEANNA DADUSC
viii Contents
23 Migration, squatting and radical autonomy: conclusions 285
PIERPAOLO MUDU AND SUTAPA CHATTOPADHYAY
Index 288
Illustrations
Figures
I.1 Bologna: Senza Frontiere since 1990 from the Social
Center “La Fabbrica” 22
12.1 Winter 2002: Flyer produced by the Scalo Internazionale
Migranti 144
12.2 2003: Flyer produced by neofascists against the Scalo
Internazionale Migranti 152
18.1 Migrant participating to the MMRC by nationality 237
18.2 October 2014: demonstration organized by the MMRC in
Castel Volturno 244
19.1 Migrants’ squats in the municipality of Athens 252
Tables
I.1 Repertoire of Contention in Resisting Racist Practices
against Migrants 18
18.1 Average birth-year of the migrants participating in the MMRC 237
18.2 Average presence in Italy of the migrants participating in the
MMRC 237
Contributors
Thomas Aguilera is Phd in political science (2015) and postdoctoral researcher
at Sciences Po Paris (Centre for European Studies) where he teaches political
science, sociology and research methods. His research work concentrates on
public policies towards urban illegalities, squats and informal slums in
Europe, by crossing governance, social movements and urban sociology
approaches in comparative studies. He also works on tourism policies and
resistances to tourism patterns in Europe.
Bridget Anderson is Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre
on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS). She is interested in labour
migration and trafficking, migration, enforcement and the liberal state, and
citizenship. Publications include Us and Them? The Dangerous Politics of
Immigration Control (Oxford University Press, 2013), and Doing the Dirty
Work. The Global Politics of Domestic Labour (zed, 2000, winner of the
Philip Abrams memorial prize). She has worked with a wide range of national
and international organizations including the Trades Union Congress (TUC),
the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Fulvia Antonelli is a researcher in anthropology at the University of Bologna,
Italy. Her research interests include migration processes, urban ethnography,
education, marginality and youth cultures. She published Tranvieri: Etnografia
di una palestra di pugilato (Roma: Arcane, 2010); ‘Dar El Baida mon amour’
in M. Peraldi and M. Tozy (eds) Casablanca, figures et scènes métropolitaines
(Paris: Karthala, 2011); ‘Ethnographie de la ‘malavita’ mobile’ and ‘La rue
ici, la rue ailleurs’ in M. Peraldi (ed.) Les Mineurs migrants non accompagnés.
Un defi pour les pays européens (Paris: Karthala, 2014). Her research is cur-
rently focused on issues around urban and social exclusion processes, migra-
tions, and school drop-outs.
Kolar Aparna is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in Geography at the
Nijmegen Center for Border Research, Radboud University, Netherlands. Her
career has meandered across the arts and academia, from being a performing
artist to a geographer. Her current research and activist interests fall at the
