Political Movements and Spatial Practices for Social Interaction .

The Case of MOPE's Occupations in Naples

Francesca Guarascio September 2013 supervisor: Camillo Boano

Squatting (h)as Multiagency

This research dissertation is submitted for the MSc in Urban Studies at University College London

For Stella

Frontcover: Fig .1 'Cerchi casa? Occupa' (Are you searching for an house? Let's occupy) Source: Author

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my supervisor Camillo Boano for his time, patience and commitment. I thank him and Pushpa Arabindoo for having inspired the political side of my professional role as an architect. I wish to thank Alfonso, Gigi, Giovanni and all the Neapolitans who made the research possible and accepted my presence in their lives. I wish to thank Antonello Petrillo, Iain Chambers, Francesco Careri, Margit Mayer and Michael Edwards for their valuable advices. I wish to thank Andrew Harris and Matthew Gandy for having accepted my participation in the MSc Urban Studies: they gave me the extremely important opportunity to understand what is my agency and who I want to be in the future. I wish to thank Giulia, Rocky and Vangelis for their support and for having shared the London experience during this intensive year. I wish to thank my family for the sincere understanding and support they always give me.

Fig.2 Naples

Source: Author

Abstract

The thesis explores the political, spatial and social significance of urban squatting at present as a democratic act. Through the concept of multiagency, it theorizes social space as inherently constituted by simultaneous interactions between different agents, thus highlighting the fragmentation of the social in its conflictual individual and collective agency. The relational perspective allows to read squatting with regard to urban space and to sustain the heterogeneous formation of simultaneous spaces of action that communicate through virtual networks of solidarity at micro and macro scales. By evaluating the politicisation of squatting with regard to contemporary social movements' fragmentation and reorganisation, the thesis questions the potential reconstitution of a unitarian bloc of movements by referring to the Gramscian concept of 'counter-hegemony'. The theoretical framework enables to set up an ideal trilogy of agencies through which framing the analytical discussion on the agencies of squatting in Italian contemporary social movements' reorganisation. Through empirical research based on a qualitative methodological approach, the thesis investigates the process of re-formation of a movement both at national and urban scales by referring to the Italian cities of Rome and Naples. By demonstrating the conflictual character proper to social space and the impossibility of physical reunification of a multiplicity of movements and social groups, the thesis reveals the potentiality of squatting as a multiagentic practice through which forms of self-government can be exerted. This work aims at enriching academic debates by inviting to analyse squatting further as a spatialised and therefore political and social practice, thus allowing to go beyond an univocal understanding of its effects.

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Contents
Introduction _________________________________________________________________ 6 1. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 2. 3. 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 4. 4.1. 4.2. 5. 5.1. 5.2. 6. Squatting (h)as Multiagency____________________________________________________ 9 Squatting has multiplicity of agencies The act of occupying space Acts Spaces Occupations
9 10 10 13 16

Squatting as multiplicity of desiring bodies ______________________________________ 19 Method(o)logical approaches to squatting _______________________________________ 20 Hypotheses and research questions Methods Data collection and analysis
20 21 22

Occupations in movement-s ___________________________________________________ 23 Italy for sale: 'Living in the Crisis' Rome teaches how to bypass the electric meter
24 28

Naples is a (u)n-ordinary city___________________________________________________ 33 Squatting (h)as movements Squatting (h)as occupations

36 40

Conclusions________________________________________________________________ 50 End-Notes List of Abbreviations

52 52

Auto-critique________________________________________________________________ 53 Appendix___________________________________________________________________ 54 A1. List of Blogs and Websites

54

Bibliography________________________________________________________________ 56 List of Figures 5

64

Introduction

The last April forty people in need squatted the ex-school Andrea Belvedere in Naples supported by the MOPE housing Campaign. About two weeks ago they got evicted. The day after they occupied another building. Thus far they have resisted. Squatting is a political act of democratisation of space. Beside acting as a primitive hut solving immediate and contingent shelter needs (1), squatting allows self-management of communal and collective practices of mutual aid and self-help, the possibility to maintain a building alive by reconfiguring its function as well as bringing about the opportunity for the construction of social networks at different urban and major scales (Awan et al. 2011, Mudu 2012a, Mayer in SQUEK 2013). This work assumes that a multiplicity of agencies coexists and works through the act of occupying space to discuss the r-evolutionary agencies of squatting in contemporary Italian social movements' challenges of the dominant system of power affecting cities through globalised political, spatial and social assets. Up to now most of literature has recognised the existence of an heterogeneous squatting milieu (Pruijt in SQUEK, 2013) by categorising squatting actions mainly according to two sets of conditions concerning space and the degree of politicisation of the subjects involved. From a spatial viewpoint a distinction is generally made between squatting on a vacant land and the action of occupying buildings (ibid.): while recognising that both of those actions can take place in cities or at their fringes, this work focusses on the latter, that is commonly intended as urban squatting. A further diversification concerns spontaneous and organised forms of squatting actions: according to Mayer (SQUEK, 2013) in the first squatting assumes a tactical function responding to the primary need for a shelter. In the second squatting becomes a strategical means for social movements' political claims and acquires the transformative character proper to them. While recognising the relevant while limited availability of academic sources, this work aims at enriching the debate going beyond binary interpretations of urban squatting to open up a different insight into the multiple possibilities of democratisation of space that occupations as agentic forms of 'autogestion' (Lefebvre et al. 2009) entail and allow to exert in political, spatial and social terms. Following three decades of struggles, particularly in Europe, squatting as an urban political practice of collective self-management of spaces and lifestyles underwent a life-cycle, whose decline coincided with a tightening up of the measures of state control over the freedom to live cities, the latter becoming also places 6

for neoliberal reorganisation of economy in global assets. Similarly to the rest of Europe, since one year Section 144 declares squatting a criminal offence also in England and Wales, thus sanctioning a politics of evictions on behalf of the 'common' good by turning into 'illegal' a widespread practice of living alternatively to a neoliberal economic model that fosters the commodification of everyday life in increasingly privatised urban environments (Vasudevan, 2011). To this end Vasudevan (2011:3) argues that 'squatting has always had a close relationship to the law'; drawing on Holston (2008:206) he suggests to consider law 'as a system of power'. It follows that the state exerts power by means of a juridical system of property rights in order to 'return space to its legal owners' (Purcell, 2013:24). Accordingly, a reflection arises spontaneously: if space is legally owned, it is legitimate to impose control over its use(r)s, thus meaning that power constrains actions performed in space (Butler, 2011). Urban space becomes therefore one of the terms in question and will be discussed according to the argument developed by Massey (2005) that conceives space as the dimension of a multiplicity of relations and trajectories and, it would be argued in Deleuzian terms, of agentic desires. The interrelation between space, multiplicity and human agency constitutes the theoretical premise guiding the reading of squatting. Moreover thinking about space as relational allows to look at cities in 'ordinary' way (Robinson, 2006) as both relational urbanities and specific geographic places characterised by the interrelation between the multiplicity of the social and the history of that place, thus meaning the archival relationship stemming from the development of a specific set of socio-economic and political conditions that follow the scales of powerrelations (Roy 2013, Marcuse 2005, Gramsci in Forgacs 2000). Thus a more just understanding of an urban landscape is particularly relevant if applied to Mediterranean cities like Rome and Naples, that represent respectively the national but partial and the urban scale of observation in which empirical research has been conducted. A personal belief in the multiple possibilities represented by urban squatting as an alternative way of living within and in opposition to the capitalist organisation of society motivates the desire to research this topic spatially. Furthermore the experience developed during the ten-year militancy in occupied spaces namely Social Centres in Italy and abroad, inspires my desire to contribute to transmit and disseminate knowledge by means of researching, to recognise and support the social cohesive value of their activities. Considering the relevant increase in number of organised squatting actions identifiable both in Italy and abroad since 2008, my research purposes are also strengthened towards a further understanding of squatting as a means to exert alternative politics; by focussing on Italian social movements, this work evaluates organised occupations as means to reassert collectively a territorial counter-politics of space while allowing to respond directly and autonomously to the worsening of living conditions in cities caused by the effects of the global economic crisis and the deinstitutionalised role of the state. 7

Chapter one firstly conceptualises squatting as a spatialised practice in relation to the theoretical construct of multiagency while highlighting the fragmented condition of individuals and social space in natural relations of conflict. Accordingly, Gramsci's 'philosophy of praxis' and in particular the concept of counter-hegemonic bloc provides the theoretical understanding to evaluate contemporary social movements reorganisation into a unitarian mass movement, thus allowing a critical analysis based upon participant observation during the national meeting of radical left organisations struggling for housing that was held in the city of Rome in the beginning of June. Gramsci's contribution to contemporary social movements's theory is in fact extremely relevant but still underused in Italian academic discourses. His spatial approach (Jessop, 2005) to the analysis of the hegemonic relation of geographically interdependent power forces between the State, capitalist mode of production and civil society and the central importance given to human agency in social space, acquires even more importance into the present discussion. Not only his theory originates from a direct involvement in the workers' councils that occupied factories in Turin and Milan in 1920, from which the historical legacy of occupations in Italy originates (Ekers et al. 2013). He also analysed the dependance of the Mezzogiorno from the north of the country, that is Italian internal colonialism, in terms of territorial relations of power between the city and the countryside, the urbanized - industrialized labour force and intellectual supremacy of northern cities, and the rurality of the South, the peasants and the potential revolutionary power of the proletariat constrained in a subaltern position dependent on the productivity of the north. Chapter three discusses the qualitative methodological approach followed in the study based on archive research, ethnographic participant observation and mapping. In chapter four the ideal categories of political, spatial and social agency drive the analysis of urban forms of collective re-appropriation of space organised by a constituting network of social groups in Naples. Finally, this work draws on the meaning of squatting at present as a possible way through which a real tendency to democratic ideals based on autogestion can be followed. Thus, it brings about a conclusive reflection on the potential reconstruction of heterogeneous 'unified' mass movements, physically fragmented but socially tie(d)-up through a virtual network of solidarity, in Italy as well as globally speaking (Purcell, 2013). It aims at emphasising the open-ended process of reconstruction of a collective belief in an alternative radical democratic project based upon the recognition and respect of different positions, to be realized through the development of 'national' and transnational networks, thus enabling to build virtual infrastructural alliances between different social groups, in order to coordinate a wide spreading of simultaneous but localised mass mobilisations disruptive of the existing oligarchic order.

1|

Squatting (h)as Multiagency

This chapter seeks to elaborate an appropriate theoretical framework for reading the polyvalent character of squatting as an act of spatial occupation in which the ideas of possession (has) and performance (as) of function are both legible. Squatting is firstly analysed in relation to its spatial nature by assuming that a multiplicity of agencies is entailed in the act of occupying (has); the constitutive relation linking space, multiplicity and human agency is therefore considered. The argument sustaining the interaction among diverse agencies exerted through the encounter between social bodies with(in) urban space is developed. Secondly the conceptual category of multiagency allows to read through squatting the fragmentation of individual and collective action in social space and the conflicting nature of social power relations, thus enabling to read contemporary social movements forms of reorganisation accordingly. Finally the instrumental relation that links the main concepts to squatting as a political urban practice allows to extrapolate the conceptual categories of political, spatial and social agency, through which framing the analytical discussion of the empirical strand of the research.

1.1 Squatting has multiplicity of agencies 'To rethink the space of appearance in order to understand the power and effect of public demonstrations for our time, we will need to understand the bodily dimensions of action, what the body requires, and what the body can do, especially when we must think about bodies together, what holds them there, their conditions of persistence and of power'. (Butler, 2011:2)

Butler makes clearly the point by stressing the idea that space and agency are strictly tied by the multiplicity of social relations generated by contact between bodies (ibid). When a collective encounter takes place, space brings together a multiplicity of individual bodies that interact socially. It follows that when a collectivity meets to squat, a multiplicity of social agents interacts to perform direct action not only to react to State control over space but also to reassert power to act in that space through its occupation. As a consequence on the one hand space is constituted by the multiplicity of social relations that people establish when they meet (Massey, 2005); on the other hand, space becomes the vehicle for collective action 9

because it allows a multiplicity of bodies to meet and act in concert. Space thought in this way reminds of respectively cities and movements as multiplicity of agentic entities. These two perspectives can be sustained by recognizing that a mutual relation exists between space, multiplicity and human agency (ibid). It is important to clarify how each of the terms is intended and to what extent they relate to each other in order to understand the way in which they interpenetrate through squatting.

1.2 The act of occupying space To get under way it is useful to reflect firstly upon the linguistic significance of the term squatting. Broadly speaking, it signifies the act of occupying space. An idea of agency is identifiable in each of the terms taken apart. It follows that by considering them as a whole, the definition of squatting implies the logic coexistence of multiple agencies: as a consequence the idea of multiplicity can be firstly associated with a quantitative concept of simultaneity and therefore of time (Massey 1992, 2005) that gathers the three concepts in dynamic relation to each other. Accordingly, a correction can be pointed out by arguing that a proper interpretation of the word would entail a pluralisation of its constituent elements; put it in this way squatting can be intended as signifying act s of occupations of spaces. The three ideas will be analysed respectively in the three following chapters.

1.3 Acts To perform an act means to take action, to do something. It firstly reminds of movement in space that is carried out by some-bodies, thus meaning that the intervention of a human agent occurs. From a physiological perspective, human action can be firstly conceptualised as the body's ability to move in space (Wilson and Shpall, 2012). Accordingly it can be argued that an agent performs action by guiding the body to move, thus establishing a dynamic relation with space. As Davidson (1980) argues movement becomes the effect of the leading action. Bodily motion in an environment is also caused by an agent's intention to reach an aim, that is normally propelled by a reason. Goal-oriented and actor-oriented theories consider this argument by arguing that the decision to pursue a particular end is directed by a strategical evaluation of alternative possibilities for agents' choices; by focussing on rationality, the incidence of context or structure on the one hand and freedom of action on the other are called into question (Jasper, 2004).

10

By considering briefly the relevant fields of research, it is redundant but worth-mentioning the longstanding debate that in social theory focusses on the dichotomy between human agency and structure, the latter intended as mode of organisation of society (Cupers and Doucet in Lash and Picon, 2009). In substance the discussion revolves on the supremacy of one in influencing the other and vice-versa. The structural theories of Giddens (1984) and Bourdieu (1977) point to balancing the dual relationship between agency and structure through considering them complementary forces that interact by influencing and shaping each other according to habitual norms (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998). Structuralist thinking informs also Bruno Latour's Actor-Network-Theory (2005) whereby social relations are thought in terms of networks between human and non-human agents, thus leaving aside matters of intentionality and freedom of action (Jasper, 2004). Drawing on Frankfurt (1988, 1999), Wilson and Shpall (2012:3) provide instead an interesting statement by arguing that: 'basic issues concerning freedom of action presuppose and give weight to a concept of acting on a desire with which the agent identifies'. This claim contributes to corroborate the remarkable critique about those theories, thus insisting on the fact that none of them considers subjectivity in human action (Cupers and Doucet in Lash and Picon, 2009). In their views feelings, emotions, desires are downgraded. To this end it is important to turn attention to the psychological aspects of human action by referring to Albert Bandura' s analysis (2006). By discarding the structuralist duality of agency and structure, the psychologist Bandura appeals to social cognitive theory that interprets human agency as the ability or willpower to affect individual choices and environmental conditions. Following that, he recognises the interdependence between social structures and agents' alternatives while highlighting the role of freedom as the capacity to influence one's choices according to desiring effects that can be obtained. Being agents partly responsible for their past and future life conditions, human agency acquires also a dynamic character with regard to time. Given that, Bandura conceptualises human agents' reasoning on the basis of the interrelation between personal conduct, habitat and the psychological interaction among three forms of human agency that are exercised in the practice of everyday life. In particular, the tripartite nature of human agency is identified as follows: - 'individual agency' responds to the aim of self-shaping personal and environmental conditions.To paraphrase, a body moves in space according to the belief in the individual capacity to affect (Protevi, 2009). - 'proxy or socially mediated agency' intervenes whereby agents realise that they can't affect entirely their conditions, thus leading them to exert influence on those having the power to assure the fulfilment of their desiring outcomes. - 'collective agency' stems from the fact that human beings act in the social sphere; it means that agents recognise that some outcomes can only be reached by acting collectively, thus calling for the exercise of a belief in the collective capacity to affect with regards to the future (Bandura, 2006: 165). 11

Bandura's concepts of individual and collective agency as well as the idea of multiplicity already embedded into the human psychical behaviour seem to be the most appropriate for the purpose of the present discussion and will be reconsidered later on. Likewise, the psychological belief in the self as capable of affecting the reality according to desires much resembles the philosophical construct of 'desiring affect' developed by Deleuze and Guattari and followed by Protevi (2009) in his theorising of a politics of desiring bodies. By drawing on Protevi's work the physiological and psychological character of human agency can be assembled within a unique discourse while enabling a theoretical reading of the idea of multiplicity. Protevi draws on the Deleuzian notion of desiring affect, to conceptualise agency as the 'political' 'body's ability to act and to be act upon' (2009:49), thus calling into question the capacity to exert and undergo power through action. For Deleuze bodies are constituted by multiple desiring entities. Multiplicity is the philosophical construct he develops, following Nietzsche and Bergson, in order to reject the Platonic idea of nature as unity (Reid 2010, Tampio 2010). Deleuze theorises multiplicity as a system that is generated by the intertwining of heterogeneous elements in a constant state of tension; together, unity and multiplicity constitute the dual relation proper to natural order. Later on Deleuze and Guattari (1987) use the concept of multiplicity in order to build a political theory based on difference, thus developing the idea that the world is formed by the coexistence of objective and subjective multiple entities combining and disjoining in assemblages in opposition to forces tending towards unity. When able to escape the constraining order through creative practices, subjective multiplicities open up a possibility for a 'minority politics of becoming' (Protevi, 2009) 'democratic', whereby different elements break codified borders and can override the majority (Purcell, 2012). Following Deleuze (Protevi, 2009) the power to act generates from the encounter between two multiple bodily entities that establish a reciprocal relation of affection and affect. In the first case agency generates from the physiology of the bodily nature, thus becoming 'affection' in the contact between two bodies, for that the action of a body produces a reaction in the other body. In the second case agency resides in the psychological side of human nature, that is, in the feeling that a body perceives in terms of change in power produced by the action of the other body. The reciprocity of those effects, the power to act, is political. Furthermore the encounter between bodies means that a social relation is established by means of the spatial interaction between them; it follows that space is a political matter. Accordingly, it can be argued that from a physiological point of view squatting as direct action produces agency through the capacity of bodies to exert their bio-power (Foucault, 1998): they expand in space through its occupation (Butler, 2011). On the other hand by bringing about collective dimension of living, squatting leads 12

heterogeneous groups of agents to collectivise their body-lives through self-management or 'autogestion' (Lefebvre et al., 2009) in order to affect change through space. Bodies are moved by a multiplicity of desires embodied in as much agentic practices. For Lefebvre autogestion should embrace the whole domain of people's existence as a 'perpetual struggle for democracy' (Purcell, 2013:84), the latter being thought as 'the permanent movement of social forces in action toward a democratic ideal of autonomy from the State'(ibid). Squatting becomes therefore a political instrument allowing to exert individual and collective agency simultaneously in and through space in the everyday practice of living. As argued before space can be thought as the means and the product of a multiplicity of agentic entities. According to the last reflection, the relation between space, multiplicity and agency can be translated into the dynamic idea of an heterogeneous reality made up by the coexistence of different positions, as Massey's argument on the relational character of space allows to sustain (2005).

1.4 Spaces By arguing for a distinction between spatiality and temporality Massey (1992) looks at space as a medium for agency. Thus, the fact that acting through space is a political matter means that local agents are responsible for the making of places. From an architectural viewpoint this assumption can be easily sustained by looking at the morphology of space, that is how space is organised, being it a single building, part of a city or more correctly by considering a building in a part of a city. As Lefebvre argues (1991) the design of urban space and its production influence the possibility of acting in or inhabiting that space; reciprocally the actions performed in that space influence the way in which space is thought or transformed according to the 'functions' it needs to accommodate in relation with the surrounding environment. It follows that in a way space incorporates and allows to exert agency. From this point of view a city can be perceived as the product of the coexistence of an infinite variety of spaces through which a plurality of agents interact socially (Massey, 2005). Massey assimilates this heterogeneity to the idea of multiplicity, thus meaning that space contains and allows a simultaneous interaction of different agentic practices to take place. Simultaneity implies that space is inscribed in a temporal dimension. In fact, an urban environment can be considered the product of a specific set of socioeconomic and historical or rather political conditions that play a part in shaping and transforming its forms while ruling its social realm (Marcuse 2005, 2009, Robinson, 2006), in an ever-changing status. Consequently cities are pixelated by a combination of heterogeneous social, political and spatial events (Massey, 2005); they are the realm in which the dynamic interrelation between space and society takes place. 13

Bearing in mind the Deleuzian concept of agency as the bodily power to act, space can also be thought as a medium to exercise power. If we take a look at the history of architecture in its relation with urban space, the statement that 'form follows power' (Kaika and Thielen, 2006) proves true more than ever. In fact, it can be easily recognised how different coexisting power-relations constantly shape the form of buildings and cities, thus influencing the spatial and social organisation of places (ibid). Unfortunately as many theoretical strands tend to recognise, the history of the last thirty years draws on a global spatial project of power (Massey, 2005) whose effects are thought to override totally the urban spatial dimension of a place, as a consequence of the spatio-temporal multi-dimensionality brought about by technological progress in virtual communication and transport connection (ibid.). In order to discard the passivity of the local and of people accustomed to live according to the process of capitalism as neoliberal global homogenisation of political, spatial and social spaces (Purcell, 2013), Massey stresses the mutual relation between the two ambivalent spatial dimensions while operating also a distinction in terms of time: respectively the historical progression of events that change a place and the timeless dimension of the global. To this end she argues that globalisation has to be considered as a system of power-relations geographically intertwined that imposes its hegemonic model of development by embracing the whole of places in a constant present dimension (Massey, 2005). In this way the progressive dynamics of change that specify the history of a place are denied through commodification and homogenisation of spaces and societies or, to put it better through their a-politicization, thus functioning as a system of control (ibid). Similarly the multiplicity of spatial and socio-political practices deviating from the dominant model within one place tends to be isolated or criminalised through the system of law. Squatting is one of those. However it is 'common sense' to believe in globalisation as the only possible life-pattern, thus leading places not conforming to its logic to adapt: as a consequence a geographical growing pattern of inequalities mirrors the distribution of powers. In turn different agentic practices are at stake in the relations of powers existing between global capital, cities and the commodification of urban lifestyles, thus calling into question the responsibility of the state. This assumption needs for explanation. While recognising the relevance of many critical urban theorists, David Harvey's (2003) understanding of globalisation as a process helping to reorganise capitalism in an urban neoliberal fashion seems the most appropriate. It is worth-noting that since the crisis of Fordism experienced in the '70s, the reorganisation of capital in global assets followed the delocalisation and dismantlement of cities productive industrial economy. As a consequence, cities became local nodes for the provision of a global service economy and the restructuring of urban environments evolved into the direct source of extraction for surplus value, that previously was centred on wage labour. In order to assure a constant flux of capital, 'accumulation by dispossession' (Harvey, 2003:137) leads to the growing privatisation of public goods, thus provoking high but temporary concentrations 14

of capital that once exhausted impoverish economies. The economic crisis of Argentine in 2001 firstly and the ongoing global crisis widely demonstrate this process. Furthermore, by inscribing cities and their States in a unified system of global markets and privatisation, the process of neoliberal globalisation permeates cities with consumerist lifestyles while commodifying their urbanities: it generates a process tending towards the homogenisation of the built form and the fragmentation of societies, based respectively on private property and individualism (Brenner et al. 2012). In this process the State played a dual role. On the one hand, the absorption of dissenting positions into Leftist institutionalized organisations and parties weakened the oppositional strength of unitarian mass movements (Mayer 2000, Brenner et al. 2012, Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). To this end it is important to remember that after May '68 mass mobilisations gave birth to a decade of political activism and mass contestation of the State and the Fordist organisation of production through an extremely variegated and complex panorama of experiences spreading out throughout Europe (SQUEK, 2013). Among them, squatters' actions reached a peak during the '90s but then they began to see their radical Left positions criminalised, regularised or in the case of Italy institutionalised through the absorption into the Leftist sphere of the party system (Ceccarelli, 1982). On the other hand, in order to sustain the market forces in national economies, the ongoing neoliberalisation of the State apparatus favours the shift from its 'entrepreneurial' role to a mediating one (Harvey, 1989) in a way that enables to transfer the political decision-making process to transnational governing institutions, namely the European Union. The de-responsibility of Welfare State politics in favour of an economic leadership determines the shift from an antagonistic structure traditionally based on a bipartisan political model to a cooperative one, thus provoking the crisis of representative democracy and the dismantlement of the dissenting position of the traditional Left with regards to neoliberal power (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). In 2008 the unsustainability of neoliberal capitalism emerged again in the current global crisis as a consequence of the collapse of the subprime market in the U.S, thus worsening the uneven geographical pattern of inequalities depending on the relation between concentration of power and distribution of resources (Harvey, 2003). Among other effects, the precarious economic stability of some countries forced a new cycle of austerity measures while high rates of unemployment and a further impoverishment of the population affect a process of 'dispossession by accumulation', thus reinvigorating the critical conditions of an already sensitive sector by exacerbating the housing crisis further (Pealver, 2009). This condition of things that mainly characterise Western economies runs parallel to the 'Arab Spring' and other increasing manifestations of civil discontent and rejection of dominant while ideologically different state regimes throughout the world (Rivetti, 2013). To react against the persisting economic crisis, to challenge capitalist accumulation as hegemonic 15

source of power, to express desires for a democratic ideal (iek, 2013), a political heterogeneity of bodies performs 're-possession by occupations' in a multiplicity of forms, places, struggles (Marcuse, 2011). Spaces become the dimensions for social movements existence.

1.5 Occupations In Latin 'occupy' (occupare) means literally 'to take over, to take control or charge of something, by reason of'. From a linguistic point of view, the etymology of the term already reminds of the ideas of space and agency, thus implying that movement is performed. According to the theoretical reflections developed till now, it follows that occupations can be translated into a multiplicity of acts that 'take over space', thus exerting movement that is power to act by reason of desiring 'affect' to change; in other words, Lefebvre's permanent struggle for democracy (Purcell, 2013). Occupation can be considered as one of the diverse forms through which the dynamic interrelation between a multiplicity of spaces and social agents comes into play. Given that action brings at stake the idea of movement between two bodies that interact socially through space, similarly a multiplicity of agentic social bodies in space gives form to a social movement, whose nature is inherently bio-political. Squatting conceived as the act of occupy space, independently from who (which subjects), what (which space or place), how (which form of action), represents one of those 'spatialised' tactics of protest for social movements' bio-political expression. In a public lecture Joan Donovan, an Occupy LA activist, argues that the temporary and more spontaneous character of occupation as a form of protest allows to redefine space for a limited amount of time; on the other hand the specific use of power enabling to affect change effectively in a more enduring while always unfinished form, is only achievable through the organisation of a strategical infrastructure or network, thus allowing to turn a protest into a political movement. It follows that a social movement can be defined according to the degree of organisation of a system of collective actions aiming at affecting political change (Tilly in Tarrow, 1989). Precisely the evaluation of the inability, or better the impossibility to organise collectively in order to pursue such a political change is one of the key debates in current social movements' studies. In particular the discussion is grounded on the arguments comparing the less degree of effectiveness of new social movements with regards to the cohesive capacity for mobilisation that old social movements demonstrated by reacting to the crisis of Fordism during the '70s (Castells 1983, Mayer 2009). To this end it has to be acknowledged that although they had their demands and positions fulfilled, old social movements conflicting positions were domesticated through absorption into institutionalised Left organisations falling under 16

party systems (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Moreover the promotion of entrepreneurial individuality in the consumerist society and the use of new media and digital communication as source of organisation contributed to the localised fragmentation of current social movements' aims, struggles, spaces and forms of action (Mayer 2000, 2009). However it has to be considered that mainly due to the current economic crisis, exactly those conditions become the basis for the emergence of 'virtual' alliances between new and old social movements: in fact by recognising their fragmented character they are re-organising themselves in order to respect the diversity of spatial and ideological positions of struggle that become their source of power (Purcell 2009, 2013). It has to be noted that an organisation that takes diversity into account means not only that a decision-making process takes place, things are prioritised, tasks are assigned, strategies of action are developed (Tarrow, 1989). It also brings about the necessity to consider the persisting tension deriving from the simultaneous interaction between different positions, that is to say conflicting agencies. Given that, an important reflection occurs. On the one hand conflict weakens the cohesiveness of the movement as a whole for that more powerful positions can emerge in the form of leaderships, thus depending on the hegemonic nature of social forces (Mouffe,1979). On the other hand conflict allows the movement to endure and transform itself continuously. Accordingly, the movement can be considered an 'unfinished act' (Agamben, 2005:3) that exists in political terms as an ever-changing democratic process of conflict (Massey 2005,Purcell 2013, Laclau and Mouffe 1985). It is important for the discussion to expand on those assumptions in order to draw a conclusive remark. The conflicting nature of social relations and the coexistence of diversified ideological scales of power struggles has been recognised well in advance by Antonio Gramsci (Purcell 2013, Ekers et al. 2013,Jessop 2005). As anticipated briefly in the introduction Gramsci's writings are being reconsidered in many social studies for the actuality of his theoretical insights with regards to the growing unevenness of spatial, political, social while geographical configurations of neoliberal capitalism affection (Cox, 1987). While recognising the entire relevance of Gramsci's political philosophy, this work adopts his 'spatial' reading (Jessop, 2005) in order to reflect upon the ongoing construction of a 'fragmented' movement of social alliances at urban and major scales. By distancing himself from a traditional class-based Marxist vision of society, Gramsci's understanding of history as a dynamic process led to ground his theory on the hegemonic relationships intertwining social forces and dominant forms of power spatially distributed at different geographical scales (Ekers et al. 2013, Carroll 2006, 2010 a,b). In fact, placed in the Italian historic conjuncture of the '20s, Gramsci draws on the failure of the northern italian proletariat in building an alliance with the southern peasants and their respective forms of struggles, factories (urban, the city) and land (rural, the countryside) occupations, in order to develop 17

a theory of social multiplicity based on the idea of hegemonic alliance as 'a modality of convergence among a plurality of self-organised political forces' (Kipfer and Hart in Ekers et al., 2013:323). Once established, it can function as a 'counter-hegemonic bloc' able to override the historical dominance of a bloc of power, that in the present conjuncture corresponds to capitalism as a 'common sense' practice of life (ibid). It follows that the construction of the alliance can be realised only by means of a transformation of social forces' 'common sense' in a 'revolutionary' way, thus allowing to develop a collective moral awareness standing for the unifying element that can work in opposition to the prevailing social norms controlled by the dominant forms of power. Consequently a cultural transformation needs to be realised in every aspect of life by means of language, education and knowledge, thus calling for the role of intellectuals and therefore of a leadership able to guide the transformation of the multiplicity of allied social groups (Ekers et al. 2013, Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). To translate it into the present conjuncture, it has to be considered that current social movements are more likely to be composed by well-educated individuals, being them students, activists, academics or simply belonging to an impoverished middle class, each of them leading their own struggles. Being unified by the common enemy of capitalism, they may be able to constitute an 'intellectual entity' thus allowing to mobilise other groups such as immigrants and working class. As a consequence it can be argued that an hegemonic relation between different leaderships may exist within one group or among a multiplicity of allied social forces. This internal hegemonic struggle is always conflictual but also spatial for depending on the contrast between different 'urban identities': in fact a social group or movement belonging to a city whose historical legacy reminds of powerful mobilisations, may tend to exert a leading role with regards to others. It follows that the conflictual nature stemming from the multiplicity of interacting social bodies is endless and ever-changing, thus leading to a political process that is constantly imperfect and indefinite as democratic politics thought as an open-ended process should be (Purcell 2013, Massey 2005). In conclusion it can be argued that the idea of democracy as both a unitary political project and movement is not achievable in a practical sense: being aware of their multiplicity social movements recognise the specificity and equivalent importance of each spatial and ideological struggle, thus leading them to accept their localised fragmentation and build an alliance based on difference and solidarity by taking advantage of the possibility of simultaneous communication and organisation achievable through virtual space at urban, regional, national and transnational scales (Purcell 2009, 2013, Bandura 2006). Squatting is one of those heterogeneous movements of desiring bodies that struggle in and over space through territorial practices of counter-power as a unified but transient social alliance claiming for a different future.

18

2|

Squatting as multiplicity of desiring bodies

The concept of multiagency allows to read squatting as a spatial practice through which society interacts dynamically in places by producing a multiplicity of effects in/through space. The interdependence between agencies is the theoretical construct guiding empirical analysis in evaluating Italian social movements ongoing actions of occupations. By considering the interrelation between ideal categories of political, spatial and social agency, the multiagency of squatting is analysed with regards to an individual agent and a collectivity of agentic positions. In the first case, an individual is moved to act in space through occupation primarily in order to respond directly and autonomously to the intimate and physiologic necessity of body-life stemming from a difficult condition that the dominant system is unable to deal with, or directly responsible for it. In this sense squatting entails bio-political agency. The extension of the individual through spatial occupation is the establishment of a bodily relation with space: he/she acts in order to adapt to that space while also modifying it according to the necessity. Being in a condition that allows to experiment a multiplicity of possibilities of living communally based on social value and autogestion, individuals collectivise their body-lives thus exerting reciprocally social agency. However the body is also moved by the psychologic desire for something different with regards to a present condition, thus developing an utopic will to act that is imaginative of a different future. In the case of a collectivity of bodies sharing a common desire to react and challenge the present condition, squatting becomes one of the means through which that political will can be asserted. Furthermore, the illegal status of squatting leads to exceed the dominant juridical power thus becoming an act of resistance to the dominance of a commodified society whose lifestyles are regulated by the power of the state according to neoliberal models of governance. Squatting is a spatial instrument for reasserting a territorial counter-power. Through autonomous and horizontal forms of democratic decision-making processes, squatting becomes also instrumental to question the legitimacy of the state-organism in its social function; thus, it allows to exert social agency through a range of activities directed towards the creation of alternative ways of living; it enables to building up alliances grounded on a shared collective belief in autonomy and self-management as practical tools through which an ideal of horizontal democracy can be pursued. Occupation generates social cohesion between heterogeneous movements acting through urban space to reclaim a just quality of urban living. 19

3|

Method(o)logical approaches to squatting

'Research is always bound up in networks of power/knowledge and is, therefore, inherently political'. (Cook and Crang, 2007:17) This chapter aims at clarifying the set of hypotheses and research questions guiding the research process both in the development of a theoretical line of thoughts and the identification of a conceptual trilogy of agencies enabling to frame the empirical analysis. A discussion follows concerning the methodological approach applied to the whole of the study and operationalised during the fieldwork research in the Italian cities of Rome and Naples (June 2013).

3.1 Hypotheses and research questions While aiming at broadening the current strand of research on urban squatting this work explores in comparison with the past the renewed potentiality of occupied spaces in social movements' strategic responses to neoliberal urban capitalism. They are assumed to function as counter-active agencies through which sociallyoriented practices of living in cities can be experimented. An attempt to evaluate the collective and social value entailed in the act of living through occupying informs the study of the constitution of networks of solidarities at local and major scales by considering respectively Naples and Rome as study cases. According to the respective hypotheses, a main question and a set of subquestions frame the research process starting from the assumption that considers squatting as multiagentic. In relation to contemporary social movements' strategies squatting entails a resurgent political agency. It follows that the main question informing the research is formulated as follows: With regards to previous waves of civil contestations, is it (re)emerging the political agency of squatting as an instrument of protest in the practice of contemporary social movements? The potential formation of neo-Gramscian 'counter-hegemonic bloc(s)'. The multiagentic nature of squatting brings about to consider its value for constructing alternative urbanities through the exercise of spatial and social agencies; accordingly the research responds to the following set of subquestions: 20

- What are the effects on urban space stemming from a coordination of occupying actions? - What is the potentiality of those places in establishing social cohesion and collective practices among a diversity of urban dwellers affected by the global economic crisis? - With regards to the Italian tradition of radical politics, do the 'new' occupied spaces go beyond the traditional model of Social Centres? How do they function?

3.2 Methods The investigation of political, spatial and social networks linking organised actions of urban squatting led to set up a qualitative methodological approach through which combining research of secondary sources with primary sources collected during the fieldwork by relying upon methods of ethnographic participant observation and mapping (Flowerdew and Martin, 2005). With regards to secondary sources a revision of the relevant theoretical strands was combined with research of historical and current sources of information thus allowing to develop a coherent set of ideas concerning the arguments involved. Having highlighted the importance of history for understanding a city in its current forms, it was necessary to revise historical publications, archives, blogs and websites concerning the history of struggles in Italy, Rome, and the urban storyline of Naples and its occupied spaces, in order to reconstruct the relations between the different political positions from the urban to the national scale. This was partly achieved through a detached revision of the relevant material while other sources were collected directly during the fieldwork. In parallel a weekly correspondence with a Neapolitan activist started in advance in January and still lasts. It provided an immediate understanding of arguments and motivations leading activists' occupations in the city while allowing a first insight into Naples urban dynamics. Furthermore the spontaneous establishment of an equivalent relation of trust and friendship was decisive for building up a network of connections during the visit in Naples. Finally virtual social media proved to be a useful tool for providing daily contacts with activists organisations and updating of the relevant events going on in the city, thus enabling to trace a progressive evaluation of the situation. The personal involvement in a transnational virtual network gathering several organisations struggling for housing throughout Europe allowed to relate observations conducted in Italy at urban and national scales by referring to a broader context. The collection of primary sources was achieved through participant observation conducted firstly in Rome in occasion of the two-day national plenum of radical Left organisations and Italian social movements, to 21

evaluate the degree of collective organisation and conflict existing between the different parts at a wider scale. In Naples the will to explore the socio-spatial networks linking inhabitants and occupied spaces required an ethnographic research through the streets and spaces of the city based on a living interaction with occupants and their activities and a constant participation to the events organised. The ethnographic experience of Naples was realised by applying a situationist approach to urban space through the practice of walking la drive (McDonough, 1994) throughout the city, from one space to another; by following the movements of people involved, a psycho-geographic reading of the multilayered spaces of Naples was realised through mapping of its occupations (Powell, 2010). According to a personal interpretation the production of maps helped the reflection upon movements networking through space and the spatial agency exerted through its occupation.

3.3 Data collection and Analysis Unlike the use of semi-structured interviews as initially planned, the research was conducted by relying upon not recorded in-depth dialogues, thus depending on the will to establish a relation of trust with activists, who demonstrated to be quite peeved by the use of a sound recorder. Some dialogues took place during organised meetings while others, the most fruitful, came spontaneously through encounters in the streets around the university as well as in occupied spaces. The practice of errare (wondering) (Careri, 2002) in the city led the streets of Naples to function as working desk while a daily diary kept personal observations and the spontaneous reflections made by others, thus informing later the whole of the analytical strand of the research. The ideological political affinity between the researcher and 'the researched' enabled to enter deeply their lives (Cook and Crang, 2007). Daily interaction deepened the relations with some of the occupants insomuch as developing into fidelity and emotional bonds in a spontaneous way. The construction of a personal network allowed to expand connections with people who demonstrated to be keen on the research project and helped the researcher in many different ways by providing rare archival materials and oral narrations about the history of political activism in Naples. However some of them were suspicious about the 'powerful' position of the researcher in evaluating negatively their ways of living. Another reflection concerns the fact that the presence of the researcher unconsciously stimulated the occupants to turn the discussion into arguments referring to their political activities and occupations while other conflictual aspects were kept more private. The attempt to maintain a detached objective role with regard to arguments and positions in line with personal political views was the hardest task ever experienced. 22

4|

Occupations in movement-s

'The more people comprehend the logic of this system the more they see housing being speculated upon while their own access to adequate shelter becomes precarious. Claiming housing as a right has a great potential to win mass support. Once that argument has entered the collective imagination (re)appropriating vacant buildings becomes a logical and defensible next step'. Mayer (2013:6)

Mayer draws attention to urban squatting as an action instrumental to reclaiming housing and income while allowing to organise a unitarian social body under a common line of struggle. This perspective helps firstly to recognise the multiagentic character of squatting as the theoretical assumption guiding the empirical study presented in the following chapters. In particular the conceptual framework based on ideal configurations of agency in political, spatial and social terms enables to set up as much readings concerning the strategic reorganisation of 'heterogeneous bloc(s)' of Italian social movements under the struggle for housing: through direct actions of occupations as multiple territorial forms of counter-power social bodies distance themselves from the state by challenging its power and rejecting the capitalist assets of urban societies. The analytical chapters are organised as follows. Firstly a brief insight into the current Italian situation allows to introduce Rome as a national and territorial scale of analysis in order to evaluate the degree of fragmentation of social forces in their collective agency. Participant observation conducted in occasion of the national plenum of the platform 'Abitare nella crisi' (Living in the crisis) enables to evaluate the 'territorial' relations of conflict existing between movements in relation to their political plurality. It stimulates a reflection on the impossibility to pursue a physical and ideological reunification while sustaining the argument about the progressive formation of virtual alliances enabling to coordinate simultaneously a multiplicity of consolidated and new radical positions, struggles and self-managed practices of urban lives. The imaginative travel from Rome to Naples (Figure .3), Gramsci's parasitic cities (Ekers et al. 2013: 88), deepens the scale of observation and reflection: the analysis of the ongoing process of reconstitution of a movement struggling for housing in a peculiar urban dimension enables to read the conflictual relations existing at the level of individual and collective social action emerging from an historical and present pattern of occupied spaces in the city of Naples. Secondly a closer and prolonged experience with those spaces allows to sketch the multilayered networks of 'affect' that desiring direct actions of occupation create in a place as spatial practices for social interaction. 23

The conclusion reflects on the meaning of squatting at present as a self-managed practice of living that participates in the multiplication of alternative political projects in hopes for a democratic future.

Fig 3. Central Italy

Source: Author

4.1 Italy for sale: 'Living in the Crisis' Hundreds of debates engage with the resurgence of mass mobilisations in the Mediterranean countries affected by the crisis, but hardly any mentions Italy. Defined as a 'Republic without government' (Allum in Tarrow 1989) in the '70s and a '(post-)democracy' more recently (Teti and Mura, 2013), Italy most notable facts account for the weakness and dubious legitimacy of a political government chronically in crisis. Although since 2008 the recession contributes to worsening the precarious economic and political stability of the country insomuch as requiring the intervention of a technocratic government, up to now Italy failed in engaging broadly with the wave of protests that from the Mediterranean to the US arouses a variegated panorama of mass movements. In the background of Greece violent riots against the extremist Right party in power and the overseas development of 'Occupy' movements, the capacity of unified action of Italian social forces appears far less effective if compared to the legacy of struggles that characterised the life of the country during the '20s (Two Red Years) the '70s (Operaism) and later on (Post-Operaism, Autonomy and Post-Autonomist Social Centres) (Wright 2008, Edwards 2007, Della Seta 1978, Mudu 2012a,b). The fact that shortly afterwards the beginning of the crisis Italian social forces did not show an effective engagement in mass mobilisation, it does not mean that they are far from reorganising. According to Zamboni (2012) their fragmentation can be partly explained by recognising a higher degree of politicisation 24

characterising many different ideological stands within and outside social movements organisations. On the other hand, the blind faith in the representative political leaderships of new Left and thirty-year Right forms of populism contrasts with the radical Leftist militancy in Social Centres, whose political agency lost much of its importance particularly in the last decade as a consequence of the exacerbation of institutional and police repression from the G8 events in Genoa on (Wu Ming, 2001). To clarify, Vecchi (1994:5) defines Social Centres as: 'A public sphere in formation...rather particular, for it succeeds in being simultaneously both a public space of discussion about the common good, the government of the metropolis, and a place in which experimenting forms of social cooperation not subordinated to wage labour'. (Vecchi in Calasso 1997, translation by author) In order to look into social movements internal dynamics of re-organisation it is important to acknowledge some of the measures adopted by the government to cope with the recession, while bearing in mind the deeprooted interdependency existing between political nepotism, urban development planning and management and property speculation regularly at work in Italian urban centres. The administrative and juridical autonomy of Regions is another relevant aspect that needs to be considered. Overall the persisting effects of the crisis brought about a general impoverishment of the population as a consequence of the imposition of a full austerity package, layoff, cuts in state fundings and privatisation of public services and institutions, thus affecting incomes and housing markets and leading new categories of citizens suffering from unemployment and evictions to react in concert by occupying streets and squares and, more spontaneously, empty buildings. Among other effects the economic stalemate in Italy brought about the government to push further the clearance sale of public building stock and state properties that amounts to 439,319 billion Euros (Abitare nella crisi, 01/06/2013). To this end it can be noted that the ongoing selling of the ERP (Council Housing) patrimony (Figure .4) not only brings about a reduction in the number of dwellings but it works also as a measure allowing the introduction of a public-private partnership program of construction of 'social housing' in order to provide a partial solution to the worsening of the housing condition (Nomisma 2010). Being the ERP patrimony a consistent source for families in leasehold, it is relevant for the discussion to provide data concerning the condition of Italian families in leasehold with respect to their impoverishment and the evolution of prices in the housing market. Figure .5 shows that during the last thirty years the increasing impoverishment of the population was paralleled by a rise in the prices of dwellings in lease while an increase in the number of evictions depended upon the suspension of mortgages for the impossibility to pay. 25

Fig 4. ERP patrimony

Source: data elaborated by the author

Fig 5. Leaseholds and evictions

Source: data elaborated by the author

26

It follows that the impoverishment of a broader range of categories affected by the crisis in terms of housing and income brings new subjects closer: students, families, unemployed, immigrants and the so-called 'postfordist labour - flexible, 'precarious', temporary workers' (Wu Ming 2001:5), swell the ranks of a multiplicity of extra-parliamentary left movements such as Social Centres, housing and anti-austerity movements, environmental and radical groups fighting against major building and military projects such as the TAV in the Susa Valley and the MUOS in Sicily, the Cobas, the Italian rank and file trade union (Wright 2008). In 2009 the reclamation of housing and income as unitary matter of struggle brought together new movements and radical social forces through the web-based platform of 'Abitare nella crisi' (Living in the crisis): on the one hand it functions as an instrument enabling to coordinate communication and solidarity between different cities and the simultaneous organisation of localised actions of squatting, anti-eviction picket lines and mass protests; on the other hand it allows a regular confrontation in 'national' meetings whereby the specific situation of each city is kept up to date and collective strategies of action are discussed and agreed upon stepby-step. The growing effectiveness of this strategic network is demonstrated by an equivalent increase in the number, frequency, and resistance of direct actions (La Repubblica, 12/05/2013) insomuch as requiring the intervention of the State. To this end it is interesting to note how control over bodies and space is exerted by means of juridical punishment: the proposal to worsen the penalty for occupying (Chamber of Deputies, 21/03/2013) and the agreement reached between trade unions (CGIL, CISL, UIL) and Confindustria (Confederation of Italian Industries) with regards to the modalities for organised strike (InfoAUT, 2/06/2013), work respectively as deterrent for bodies-actions while weakening the possibility of protesting for radical movements, thus involving control over space through which the right to strike is exerted. Nevertheless in the last year the most remarkable result was reached by social movements in Rome through the Tsunami tour (InfoAUT, 06/04/2013): favoured by the massive localisation of vacant dwellings and abandoned buildings in the city, partly depending on chronic processes of property speculation in the peripheral belt (cementificazione), about twenty occupations were carried out in two days of actions over a span of months, thus producing important consequences. Their impact is relevant in terms of numbers and typology of buildings occupied, such as hotels and offices (Figure .6) (2). Also, with regards to a great achievement of mass support the organisation of simultaneous squatting actions work for other movements as a model to be followed and an incitement toward a process of construction of a diversified social organisation of human relations based on forms of cooperation between heterogeneous subjects. In this way Roman social movements confirm their historically bounded hegemonic role with regards to the others and the centrality of the city as epicentre of protests. The journey through Italy starts from there.

27

Fig 6. Occupied offices in via Spalla 53, Rome

Source: http://asia.usb.it/typo3temp/pics/c618452302.jpg

4.2 Rome teaches how to bypass the electric meter

Fig 7. Italian movements in Rome for 'Abitare nella Crisi'

Source: Author

28

The summer plenum of 'Abitare nella Crisi' takes place in Rome at the beginning of June on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the organised occupation of the ex-barrack of Porto Fluviale. The two-days event gathers many movements from different Italian cities although not the totality (Figure .7), while the new coloured guise of the facade painted on purpose by street artist Blu intrigues others to come in and see. On the right side of the entrance an art installation portrays the story-map of the last decade of occupations in the city, while pinpointing the respective engagement of each of the three housing - movements operating in Rome (Figure .8). By accounting for thirty-five occupations that correspond to about 3000 family units and 8000 people coming from Italy as well as different parts of the world, the map doesn't reveal the internal leadership that each movement exerts with regards to the people housed by means of an organised squatting action, while allowing to outline a first geography of hegemonic relations existing between them, whose leading roles emerge quite clearly during the general assembly. To clarify it has to be acknowledged that the struggle for housing in Rome is primarily directed against the political management of the city, thus aiming at mobilising two processes: on the one hand making accessible

Fig 8. Art installation at Porto Fluviale , LAC Laboratorio Arti Civiche

Source: Author

29

the procedure for council housing allocation (the last public call dates back to 2000) and the construction of new dwellings; on the other hand pressing the municipality to adopt as a law a regional measure developed ad hoc in 1998 to regulate the process of cooperatives' autorecupero (auto-construction) (L.R. Regional Law 55/1998). Furthermore it has to be pointed out that the degree of political organisation of movements for the right to housing is higher in Rome in comparison with the rest of Italy. It stems from the maintenance of an historical continuity with the workers' movement that from the Liberation on gave birth to a well-structured tradition of urban struggles and early forms of local autonomy and self-management throughout the country: among many others 'Consulte Popolari' (The Popular Advice Centres) in the '50s, 'the Union of Roman borgate (working-class suburbs)', 'Comitati di Zona' (Neighbourhood Councils) and 'Comitati di Quartiere' (District Committees) in the '70s (Della Seta,1978:308). The legacy of occupations and housing struggles in Italy and their success in obtaining block of evictions and construction of council housing in the '70s (Figure .9) (Della Seta, 1978) is recalled several times during the assembly as a kind of 'myth-making' (WuMing, 2001), thus enabling to strengthen the collective identity between the different movements and their localised struggles. They recognised and evaluated their specificity mainly in terms of squatting actions, eviction orders, the respective regional housing legislation and the level of police repression.

Fig 9. Dwellings occupied in Rome in the '70s

Source: SKEMA (1970) 'La Casa', II, 9, 37

30

The two-days plenum closes with an overall agreement reached by consensus upon a strengthening of: 'organised practices of occupation as direct repossession of income and possible forms of self-management to contrast profit and speculative exploitation over territory, by not paying rent and housing bills... occupation as a moment of political struggle instrumental to resistance and control over territory from the bottom in order to reclaim housing as a common right to a decent quality of life (abitare)... occupation as a means to establish a real territorial counter-power by respecting differences and building on social contrasts a national and transnational struggling body against the state and the EU by networking between movements in order to arrive to a social general strike in Autumn'. (plenum 'Abitare nella Crisi', 01/06/2013, translation by author)

By summarising the main arguments discussed in the assembly, this quote enables a first set of reflections. Multiagency can be red by identifying squatting as both a practice through which responding directly but temporary to a difficult condition and a tactic instrumental to a multiplicity of social movements unified under the claim for the right to abitare. Secondly the confrontation between social movements in Rome leads to speculate about the potential formation of counter-hegemonic bloc(s) in Gramscian terms by means of collective agency (Bandura, 2006): for a growing number of subjects recurring to tactics of occupation to react against the state and the crisis, realises, by reaching 'common sense', that in order to be effective they need to reunify their struggles by moving together. To maintain the specificity of their political and spatial fragmentation they rely upon virtual communication and the construction of networks enabling to strengthen the coordination of localised and mass actions. To sum up, it can be observed that each movement redirects struggles toward a broad contestation of power but the confrontation with specific 'territorial' conditions and internal dynamics of conflict affects the capacity and potential success of organised actions at the urban scale as well as influencing collective actions at wider scales. Given that, movements try to reorganise by coordinating communication through virtual networks while remaining locally fragmented. Fragmentation can be assimilated positively to multiplicity: in political terms as simultaneous interaction between heterogeneous social bodies; in spatial terms as territorial 'dislocation' of affective social practices. During the meeting of Abitare nella Crisi one of the representatives of Cobas questions the lack of a comparable degree of organisation of squatting actions in other Italian cities with regards to Rome. A delegation of representatives of the recent housing campaign in Naples asserts the relative autonomy of movements with regards to the necessity to confront with place-specific urban dynamics. An explanation for the diversity of organisational approaches followed in each city can be drawn by analysing the local dynamics of occupation in a specific place whereby the coexistence of factors depending on the 31

characteristics of the urban environment, historical-political, socio-economic and spatial, and the diversity of agentic positions involved determine conflicts and influence the capacity for organising unitarily. The case of Naples is emblematic in this sense: as history teaches us, although the peculiar characteristics of the city and its society (Allum 1973, Dines 2012a) should represent a fertile terrain for the emergence of strong mass protests, the unsteady process of reconstruction of an housing movement seems to suggest a different pattern. The analytical journey through the streets and the history of occupations in Naples aims at providing a critical understanding.

32

5|

Naples is a (u)n-ordinary city

'Naples is a volcano...of chatter'. This quote captures the essence of the ordinary complexity of Naples, its precariousness.

(anon.)

The history of the city and its losses is well-documented: from the cinematic reportages on property speculation ('Le mani sulla citt' - Hands over the city, 1963) and organised crime, socio-economic and housing deprivation ('Gomorra' - Gomorrah, 2008), to the anthropological analyses of its peculiar urbanity (Benjamin 1979, Pasolini 1976, Belmonte 1989), and the intricate system of power relations linking politics and territorial urban management (Allum 1973, Belli 1986, Petrillo 2009, Dines 2012a), Naples has always represented a city-laboratory for social studies. This time the narration is grounded on the stories of those who stayed and maybe will leave, who left and came back, who live there and occupy moved by 'desiring affect' for a better future. According to Robinson (2006), thinking about Naples as 'ordinary' means to consider the city as a whole, for a place in its present condition is the product of the storyline of the political, social and economic agentic ties affecting the dynamism of its spaces as urban events (Marcuse 2005, Massey 2005, Dines 2012b). It follows that an understanding of squatting at present can't be developed regardless of the history of the city and its social forces: mismanagement and state control over territory on the one hand, occupations on the other. Considering Naples as ordinary means also to read its territorial asset as a spatial process of social fragmentation (Belli, 1980): the metropolitan hyper-dense area (Figure .10) can be considered the spatial product of a mosaic of public and private, local, national and transnational interests. Moreover, it mirrors the attempt to disempower the 'historic bloc' of revolutionary social forces that from the '60s on made difficult not only the reorganisation of the industrial production following the mid-'70s crisis (ibid.), but also the more recent process of neoliberal urban restructuring, that was managed by previous political leaderships and only partially achieved in the inner city (Belli 1980, Dines 2012). The result is a society hierarchically divided between lumpenproletariat, working-class, middle, upper classes and immigrants who inhabit a huge old town centre surrounded by an endless working class periphery that extends up to reaching the neighbouring provinces. Crumbling popular districts alternate to isolated gentrified areas (Dines 2012) (Figure .11). Only within the 'municipal' boundaries, the chronic condition of housing emergence and socio-economic distress characterising Naples since more than a century (Petraccone, 1981) forced about 400.000 inhabitants to leave the city in the last ten years (Istat, 2011): according to a study developed in the Campania Region, in 33

Fig 10. Naples and the 'metropolitan province'

Source: Province of Naples .Data elaborated by the author

2001 over a total of 362.213 dwelling units, 4.125 resulted to be rented in contrast with 21.802 left empty (CLES, 2008). In addition several problems concern the maintenance of a poor and old housing stock depending partly on a downturn registered in the construction activity starting from the year 1991, thus contributing to classify Naples as the twenty-first municipality at high risk for housing emergence in the regional ranking list (ibid.). With regard to the ERP patrimony it is worth mentioning the thirty-year relation of favouritism linking the municipality to the real estate company Romeo: as the representative of Unione Inquilini (Tenants Union) Mimmo Lopresto sustains (Angrisano, 2012), the current financial disarray of the city government is mainly caused by the twofold debt incurred consequently to the public-private partnership with Romeo. In fact the company mismanagement, now under investigation, concerns not only the activities for the maintenance and selling of the public housing stock but also the process of clearance sale of state properties in line with the national directives (Nomisma 2008). Furthermore Romeo mismanagement of council dwellings in the periphery of the city (3) worsened the condition of more sensible districts as a consequence of the profligacy of public money destined to their regeneration, thus allowing the Camorra to take control over those areas. Unemployment, informal and temporary organisation of labour, underdevelopment of productive activities and services, poverty strengthen the precariousness of Naples urban space which a multiplicity of social forces has taken back all along by means of occupation to claim for housing and space, jobs and income, happiness. 34

35

5.1 Squatting (h)as movements 'Magnammece 'o Pesone' means literally in Neapolitan dialect 'Let's eat the rent': since one year the slogan animates an heterogeneous movement of bodies to re-appropriate vacant and abandoned buildings in the city for social and residential aims; by saving money scarcely raised for the payment of a rent, that most times in Naples corresponds to an informal agreement for an undignified room or flat, people are able to ameliorate their everyday life by their own, given that the state doesn't provide any practical solution to their disadvantages. Urban squatting becomes a direct but temporary solution gathering students, unemployed, temporary skilled workers, immigrants and families in sharing a communal responsibility for their lives while providing the opportunity to self-manage the space they occupy. For this the MOPE Campaign aims at working as a bio-political network enabling diverse people equated by similar necessity to encounter with the assistance of help desks and act together moved by the desire to achieve a place to live in. For many of the occupanti (squatters) reclaiming housing and income has a precise political meaning: from this viewpoint the Campaign springs from the attempt to reconstitute a unitarian struggle for the right to abitare (inhabiting) instrumental to the reclamation of territorial self-management from the bottom to contest the corrupted mismanagement of the city government and the invalidation of state social agency. Moved by different but precise ideologies political bodies belonging to Social Centres, students' unions and unaffiliated (Free Dogs) interact with the bio-political agents of society through the re-appropriation of empty buildings, thus exerting the micro-hegemonic role of Gramsci's 'intellectuals' in experimenting hybrid forms of occupation whereby militants, families and other subjects share responsibility and adapt in the same living spaces. On the one hand the desire to rebuild an affective social bloc is stimulated by the legacy of Naples social struggles and the past and present militancy in occupied spaces (Belli 1980, A.R.N. 1981, Festa in Cappelli 2003); in addition the operational model of action of Roman social movements exerts a partial influence for the effectiveness of internal organisation. This is a matter of fragmentation among Neapolitan activists: conflict exists between those who recognise the necessity to build an ideological path of struggle enabling to guide direct actions of occupation that otherwise would be an end to itself; whereas others are more prone to maintain spontaneous forms of autonomy with respect to the formation of leaderships. For the latter matters of organisation only concern the coordination of communication between different spaces and media coverage as a means through which denouncing the wastage of state property in the city. The conflictual relation characterising political activism in Naples mirrors the broader complexity of Italian open Marxism that, starting from the workers' struggles and the rise of Operaism (workerism) in the '60s and the '70s (Wright, 2008), develops through the 1977 movement into the radical trend of Autonomism, thus giving 36

birth to the longstanding tradition of Social Centres (Mudu, 2012a). Such a complex process of political history can not be discussed in this context but emerges through the analysis of Neapolitan social struggles; it allows to trace a develop-mental path in which inscribing the current configuration of political trains of thoughts conflicting in the occupied spaces of the city. The history of social forces in Naples is rooted in the events pertaining to the Antifascist resistance embraced at the end of the Second World War. The strongest category of the population, the urban proletariat, along with unemployed and students have always led the cycles of working and 'middle class' occupations and protests in the city under the claim for income and against the working conditions in factories and the chronic suffering from job insecurity and state negligence (Festa, 2003). The struggles of 'cantieristi' and 'corsisti' (construction and temporary workers) (Festa, 2003:384) launched a first period of mobilisation in conjunction with the influential events that from the occupation of Fiat Mirafiori in Turin on characterised the Operaism decade. The hegemonic power of the DC (Christian Democrats) was strongly faced by the massive organisation of workingclass movements into a powerful bloc (Tarrow, 1989). Following the mid-'70s industrial crisis and the parallel transition to the political trend of Autonomia (Edwards, 2006), workers movements reinforced by joining the rise of new movements struggling for housing throughout the country (Della Seta, 1978). In Naples, they aimed at contesting the territorial reorganisation of the industrial production seen as the nth attempt to push them out of the inner city through the construction of sleeping quarters in the periphery and the development of business districts such as the Centro Direzionale (Belli 1980, Allum 2003, Vicari 2005). At the end of 1980, the Post-Autonomist phase coincided in Naples with the activist alliance between students and workers in the platform of Banchi Nuovi Committee: their organisation in the first movement for housing coordinated a massive occupation of 20.000 dwellings in the city as a direct response to the earthquake and to the State negligent corruption when dealing with the ' affare terremoto' (The bargain earthquake) (CAMPANIA PCI, 1989). Shortly afterwards, the evolution of the Committee into the CCN (Neapolitan Communist Collective) inaugurated the thirty-year season of Naples Social Centres. Started with the occupation of Tien' A' Ment in the popular district of Soccavo (Festa, 2003) it led students' collectives to turn into a unions' body and occupy together with unemployed the historic CSOA Officina 99 in the eastern industrial district of Gianturco (ibid.), thus following the contestations against the 1990 university reform and the rise of the movement La Pantera (the panther) throughout the country. Since then the alternation of relevant political events, in the last thirty-year history of the city, and in wider terms of the country, initiated a concatenation of squatting actions that intensified particularly in recent years. The table in Figure .12 synthesizes them according to the findings resulting from the analysis of personal research materials while aiming at reading them chronologically on the basis of Mudu's study and temporal classification of the development of Italian Social Centres in four main phases (2004, 2012:71). 37

38

By recognising the emergence of a growing number of actions corresponding to the events that from 2009 on followed, the economic crisis and the approval of Gelmini's Reform on the Education system, a fifth wave is identified to integrate Mudu's generations. The chronological classification of Naples political occupations is then associated with the multiplicity of respective movements' ideological positions and related to the historical events characterising each generation: it enables to trace the evolution of political activism in the city while highlighting the networks linking movements in their evolutive process to squatting direct actions. An intricate path of political trajectories derives from the study, whereby a main line can be traced gathering some of he relevant actions and movements, from the occupation of Tien' A' Ment up to the recent constitution of the Campaign. By following the evolution and fragmentation of the Post-Autonomist CCN in a multiplicity of groups, the coexistence of different Marxist and Post-Marxist positions characterising the Italian radical Left (Wright, 2008) can be identified among a prevalence of students' collectives. They act more or less in cooperative forms together with Comitati di Quartiere (District Committees)and more radical and autonomous positions such as performing arts workers, unemployed and NoGlobal movements, thus contributing to diversify the political spaces of Naples urbanity. Among the most active, it is worth mentioning the Occupied Laboratory S.k.a. from which the two wings following the Disobedients movement originate (4): on the one hand the first experience of the collective Zone d' Ombra (Shadow Zones) with the establishment of CSOA Insurgencia; on the other hand the more recent separate experience of Zero81 that, by referring to the Roman wing of the movement, sustains the Campaign with other autonomous groups and individuals. To this end it is important to note that while remaining faithful to their respective political ideas and practices, militants share with other less politicised subjects the same living spaces occupied through the Campaign, thus leading micro-conflictual dynamics to occur. It follows that the coexistence of different ideologies in as much occupied spaces brings about the formation of several levels of conflict between them and the multiplicity of political, spatial and social agencies exerted in the city.

39

5.2 Squatting (h)as occupations At a macro-level Figure .13 maps the spatial process of diffusion of Social Centres and occupied spaces in Naples as empirically identified: their spatial organisation mirrors the variety of political configurations existing between the different groups and functions as an instrument to exert collective spatial and social agencies through the respective uses of those 'adopted' spaces in their relation with the urban environment. The progressive formation of a socio-spatial network of occupations overlaps the existing urban layers (Marcuse in Madsen and Plunz, 2001) while spreading out diverse models of urban living in contrast with the mainstream urban tendencies. The degree of freedom of action and the resistance making those spaces enduring is partly influenced by the urban dynamics going on in the city while also depending on the position of the city government in relation to movements' direct actions. With regards to the former the map allows to recognise in the second and third generation of occupations the will to locate in the industrial districts. This relates to the radical political tendency common at that time, mainly redirected toward stimulating interaction with the peripheries through the establishment of collective practices of mutual aid and self-help between Social Centres and the surrounding communities (Festa, 2003) (1-13). At a later stage occupations concentrated instead in the city centre (14-16,18-20,23-25,30) as a consequence of the partial restructuring operated during Bassolino (1993-2000) and Iervolino (2001-2011) 'eras' that, among other interventions, led some parts of the university to move out, thus increasing the chance to occupy for a greater availability of empty buildings with respect to other parts of the city (5,7,11, 14-16, 20, 23, 30). Moreover it is worth mentioning that some of the last actions 'affect' one more time the peripheral areas (17,21,22,28, 29), thus testifying the renovated interest for exerting social agency through occupation. This argument is particularly felt by some of the squatters belonging to the Campaign (25-27) and represents another matter of conflict as well as the relation with the city government does with regard to the position of tolerance or contrast concerning the consolidation of those spaces. Apart from a scarce number of evictions (2,17, 22, 24, 27), the persistence of the majority of occupations in Naples reveals a reasonable degree of communication and reciprocal understanding between the parts along the years. Some of the oldest spaces last through free lease (3, 4, 6, 18, 28), while other more recent experiences are in negotiation with the municipal authority for formal recognition (19, 25, 26) or simply endure as a consequence of the promised return of urban space to the inhabitants made by the 'Left' Mayor in office De Magistris during the political campaign.

40

41

Quite the contrary seems to be the position of the church, another important political actor in the city for the number of properties owned. In fact the recent eviction of the last occupation sustained by the Campaign from the ex-school of Belvedere partly depends upon the fact that the building is owned by the church. On the other hand the location in the upper class district of Vomero is also a matter of fact. Accordingly it can be argued that spatial agency linked to an occupied space is influenced by both its location and the morphology of the building with regards to the formation of external and internal dynamics of conflict. In terms of external conflict the choice to occupy a building connects with the relational character of its location with regards to the broader processes characterising the urban environment, thus influencing the possibility for that space to survive. In turn the choice to occupy in a specific location tends to be instrumental to the effects that squatters want to obtain. As for internal conflict the morphology of a building influences the internal dynamics between the inhabitants, their movements and lives within that space and the possibility to transform it according to the diversity of needs of people living in. Both those aspects can be discussed by referring to a meso and micro-level of observation by way of respectively Figures 14 and 15. Figure 14 captures the political and spatial configuration of occupations in the city thus allowing to analyse the intermediary level of organisation and conflict emerging from the interaction between the diversity of spaces and their respective locations. A first observation concerns the different level of cooperation with the surrounding neighbourhoods, thus demonstrating a more or less explicit interest in, affecting them socially. Secondly it is interesting to note that each group configures spatially by expanding through further territorial reappropriations, particularly in the university. Nevertheless a degree of collective agency is maintained through the interaction between subjects belonging to one or another space or sustaining simultaneously more than one. The levels of micro-conflict can be verified by looking into the internal organisation of the three (now two) spaces occupied by means of the Campaign, thus enabling also a reflection pertaining the morphology of the building in influencing self-organisation of communal life. To this end it is important to stress the fact that the occupations organised through the Campaign for social and residential purposes lead a diversity of political subjects affiliated to respective spaces of action, to share the same living space with other conflictual positions, unaffiliated, immigrants and families. Figure 15 shows the three locations occupied through the Campaign: they differ in typology of buildings, districts in which they integrate, subjects involved, thus influencing the level of social interaction with the neighbourhood; in addition the whole of them generates from different premises.

42

43

44

'Each occupation represents the evolution of a path of struggle, being it more or less organised or entirely spontaneous'. (anon.)

In chronological order the first space to be occupied twice is the ex-school Schipa (13-25). It is located in the middle-income district of Materdei in the northern centre of the city. The one-year occupation can be considered the first experiment in the Campaign: its history dates back to the previous three years when it was occupied by the whole of Neapolitan antifascist forces in opposition to the occupation in the same district of the ex- monastery of San Raffaele (12-19) by a small isolated faction of Casapound, the extremist Right movement growing now in Italy. At present the monastery garden is occupied by Materdei district Committee and defended by the whole neighbourhood as the only public space in which different social activities with schools, children and women take place. The Ex-Schipa gathers 'free dogs', unemployed, a family and students affiliated to Zero81 and Bancarotta Bagnoli while functioning as a branch for CARC, a national socialist movement. They inhabit all the three floors corresponding to as many houses that are accessible to everybody. Decisions are taken through horizontal democratic forms of assembly (Piazza in SQUEK, 2013) in which discussion is prolonged as far as consensus is reached without relying upon voting. The private living dimension of the house prevails over the social aim, for the only space available for such a purpose is the backyard, sometimes unliveable for some problems regarding the sewer pipe, thus drawing neighbours criticism and invalidating a possible interaction with them. In general the Ex-Schipa stands rather unnoticed while the lack of social agency reduces the level of internal conflict that limits to collective decisions regarding the whole of the house. Cooperation between the eighteen occupants prevails. Villa De Luca is the authentic product of the Campaign. It shares the popular district of Chiaiano with CSOA Insurgencia, that at the beginning of its lifecycle supported the inhabitants' struggle against the project for the garbage dump, during the hot phase of the waste emergency. Following Insurgencia's decreasing involvement in the neighbourhood and increasing support for the Mayor, the possibility to establish a cooperative relation with the community, while denouncing Romeo's selling packet, led MOPE's activists to occupy an historical refurbished villa left abandoned by the municipality for thirty years. The stronger social orientation of the occupation brings about the cohabitation of more activists, mainly referring to L.O. Ska and Zero 81, with free dogs and less politicised subjects, thus leading to a higher level of internal conflict concerning the sharing of responsibilities in the self-management of the building and the modalities for carrying on social actions. Also in this case decisions are made through discussion without 45

voting. On the other hand the size and deterioration of the villa bring the eighteen occupants to intervene day by day by experimenting forms of socialization of knowledges in the difficult attempt to repair the most damaged parts through auto-construction. They resist since January by interacting daily with neighbours through the organisation of different kinds of social activities in the backyard and the close park. Although recently evicted, the ex-school Belvedere was the third and youngest occupation of the Campaign, and the most complicated in terms of external and internal conflict for the difficulties brought about by the cohabitation of political activists belonging to L.O. Ska, 'free dogs', five families, old persons and immigrants for a totality of about forty people. It follows that the management of spaces complicates and requires militants to exert an hegemonic role. In spatial terms the inclusion of more families in this hybrid form of occupation was favoured by the organisation of the interiors whereby large ambients, corresponding to the administration area and separated with grating from the the rest, allowed families to place in by recreating the space of a flat. Since the beginning they tried to open up the internal courtyard to the neighbourhood in order to stimulate interaction but the interference of the church and the location have made the experiment short-lasting. With regards to the whole of the three occupations it can be highlighted the fact that the existence of essential forms of conflict, both internal and external, makes difficult an individual and collective exercise of spatial and social affection insomuch as leading occupants to suffer from high levels of stress in the form of anxiety and insomnia. Above all, activists have a keen interest in living their lives according to their own political positions that reflect their everyday practices of self-management and communal life. Being aware of their political differences, they see conflict as a negative element influencing their cohesiveness and therefore the possibility to reconstruct a re-unified movement. Some veterans are becoming so sceptical to the extent of considering with resignation the future of the Campaign. On the other hand they persist in experimenting different forms of collective autonomy stemming from the diversification of their positions by fostering the simultaneous proliferation of interconnected spaces that enhance constantly networks of solidarity through the establishment of interlaced social activities while enriching in several forms the fervent sociality in the city. Far from considering it in negative terms, it can be argued that the greater availability of free time stemming from the lack of stable jobs and a widespread percentage of unemployment brings people a higher degree of autonomy in managing their lives, thus leading them to daily inhabit streets and squares while stimulating lowcost creativity in many different forms through the organisation of cultural and social activities in the occupied spaces of the city. 46

47

As Figure .16 recounts an extreme variety of activities and services is provided at different levels in each space in autonomous ways or through the interaction with groups of citizens belonging to popular districts. It can be observed that within a generalised engagement with political radical discourses and practices, many of the spaces mainly linked to the traditional role of Social Centres continue the production of counter-cultural projects in the arts while the most recent experiences of occupation are mainly redirected towards widening the relations between spaces and neighbourhoods. They provide educational and social services in varied forms that very often replace the state negligence in dealing with the needs of the population. Urban space functions as joining link among the different social actors and it becomes the performing stage for those activities to take place (Figure .17). Simultaneous forms of political agency interact through and within urban space affecting the city as many localised hubs while strengthening the interaction between different categories of citizens by engaging with them through a collectivisation of social practices and competencies.

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|6

Conclusions

'In a democratic polis, there are no states, no elections, no parties, no representatives. There are no organs of power like corporations, or churches, or unions. There is only us, each the equal of every other. We declare our intention to govern ourselves, to keep our own power for ourselves, to give the laws to ourselves, to manage our community, our city, and our affairs for ourselves. We refuse to be ruled by another, by the few, or by the one. We do not yet know what we can do, but we have decided to find out'. (Purcell, 2013:74)

Few days ago the national confederation of Cobas announced the decision to hold a general strike in Rome on the forthcoming date of the 19th of October. Simultaneously the transnational network linking housing movements and anti-austerity coalitions across Europe and beyond is organising a common day of actions on the same date. The increasing multiplication of autonomous political bodies and spaces is on the way. The crisis of capitalism, the state and the subject in his individualised agency signal a stage in the endless journey towards becoming democratic by bringing human beings back to practicing affective forms of living and acting collectively in cities. This work aimed at reading urban squatting in Naples as one of those spatialized practices. Through the theoretical lens of human agency and the relational nature of space urban squatting is considered deeply as a practice through which the fragmentation of individual and collective action becomes the condition for a multiplicity of agentic ties to exist, communicate and expand the political will for self-government. The multiagentic character embedded into the act of occupy space brings squatting to become a political means allowing a plurality of social bodies to encounter, coexist democratically and manifest through the interrelation of their political, spatial and social powers, whose conflicting nature leads a multiplicity of counterhegemonic blocs to emerge within one place and from the urban to wider scales. The research reflected upon a new cycle of occupations by looking at them as diverse responses to the resurgent need for cooperation between bodies and the desire to live equally and to self-manage outside from the capitalist organisation of society (Purcell, 2013). In this way squatting participates in a process of multiplication of collective and autonomous experiences of self-organisation. By analysing the evolution of urban squatting in the city of Naples the research demonstrated that the sociopolitical nature of squatting in its relation with space brings about the formation of affective networks as mutual relations of solidarity enabling the heterogeneous reality of struggling bodies to gather in and through space in 50

order to exert simultaneous localised forms of democracy by means of their collective counter-movements. The meaning of squatting as a democratic act opens up new possibilities to reflect upon by considering its relevant agency in bringing together while respecting a multiplicity of desiring bodies.

51

End-Notes

(1) I thank my supervisor for the suggestion. (2) It stimulates a comparison with the well-known occupation of Torre David in Caracas. (3) 24.000 units were built during the post-earthquake reconstruction through speculative administration of a huge amount of state money delivered through a Law promulgated ad hoc, Legge Speciale 219/81. (4) To this end it has to be acknowledged that Italian Disobedients emerged in the mid-'90s through the White Overalls movement that developed in the CSOA Leocavallo in Milan by following the Ya Basta collective under the influence of the Zapatistas in Chiapas (Mudu 2012a, Wu Ming 2001).

List of Abbreviations

CGIL CISL COBAS CSOA DC ERP IACP PCI UIL USB

Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori Confederazione dei Comitati di Base Centro Sociale Occupato Autorganizzato Democrazia Cristiana Edilizia Residenziale Pubblica Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari Partito Comunista Italiano Unione Italiana del Lavoro Unione Sindacati di Base 52

Auto-critique

Article 3 of the Italian Constitution sanctions the principle of equality as follows: 'All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinion, personal and social conditions. It is the duty of the Republic to remove the economic and social obstacles which by limiting the freedom and equality of citizens, prevent the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organisation of the country'. Squatting is becoming normal. Over against the failure of the state in fulfilling the principle of equality, citizens respond by organising autonomously political, spatial and social forms of government. Moved by a practical consideration on the conditions of squatting at present, this dissertation aimed at highlighting the value and potentiality of self-management in going beyond a concept of democracy from above. The impossibility of reunifying the society under an univocal modus operandi brings about the necessity to consider simultaneous forms of government respecting the differences among human beings. Given that, the dissertation outlined the importance of considering individual and collective forms of actions in relation to urban space and their natural conflicting interaction. The discussion of the Italian case allowed to build up a coherent interdisciplinary theoretical and analytical structure, although my first experience of research in social sciences made the process of construction extremely difficult. The deep knowledge about the topic coming from personal experience helped in deciding the relevant arguments for providing an overall understanding of the problem, while words limit and the incapacity of synthesising properly each passage, make the text subject to further revision. The fieldwork research proved to be challenging, for the need to engage directly with people as a researcher, brought about the necessity to compromise from both an ethical and political point of view, thus leading sometimes to conflicting exchange opinions with the researched. The decision to take into consideration two different scales of observation caused some arguments to be treated more superficially, thus weakening the attempt to present them through a deep analytical investigation. The development of a wide range of new skills proper to social studies will allow to continue the research hopefully in the near future by taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of the present version in order to enabling the construction of a more coherent set of ideas and the development of analytical investigation at a deeper level. 53

Appendix

A1. List of Blogs and Websites Antifascist movement | http://www.ecn.org/antifa/ Bancarotta Bagnoli Naples | http://bancarottabagnoli.wordpress.com/ CAU Naples | http://caunapoli.org/ Coordinamento di lotta per il lavoro Naples | http://lnx.disoccupatiorganizzati.org/nr/ CSOA Officina 99 Naples | http://www.officina99.org/ DAMM Naples | http://www.ecn.org/damm/inizio.html Disobedients, White Overalls movement | http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/tute/ Gridas Naples | http://www.felicepignataro.org/home.php InfoAUT, informazione di parte | http://www.infoaut.org/ La Balena collective Naples | http://www.exasilofilangieri.it/ Lettere Precarie Naples | https://www.facebook.com/lettereprecarie Living in the Crisis | http://www.abitarenellacrisi.org/wordpress/ L.O. S.k.a. Naples | http://loska.noblogs.org/ Magnammece 'o Pesone | https://www.facebook.com/MagnammeceOPesone Napoli Monitor | http://napolimonitor.it/ Naples, Social Spaces | http://www.globalproject.info/it/tags/napoli/geo?f_tags_subtags=spazi-sociali&f_tags_ subtags_types=community Naples Urban Blog | http://www.napoliurbanblog.it/ Occupy Naples | http://www.uninomade.org/occupa-napoli/

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Population Census 2011 | http://censimentopopolazione.istat.it/ Province of Naples | http://sit.provincia.napoli.it/ Self-management | http://becomingpoor.wordpress.com/ SQUASH Campaign | http://www.squashcampaign.org SQUEK, Squatting European Collective | http://sqek.squat.net/ TPO Naples | http://www.autistici.org/terzopiano/ Zero81 Naples | http://www.zer081.org/

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List of Figures
1 .Frontcover: 'Cerchi casa? Occupa' (Are you searching for an house? Let's occupy) Source: Author 2 .Naples Source: Author 3 .Central Italy Source: Author 4 .ERP patrimony Source: data elaborated by the author 5 .Leaseholds and evictions Source: data elaborated by the author 6 .Occupied offices in via Spalla 53, Rome Source: http://asia.usb.it/typo3temp/pics/c618452302.jpg 7 .Italian movements in Rome for 'Abitare nella Crisi' Source: Author 8 .Art installation at Porto Fluviale , LAC Laboratorio Arti Civiche Source: Author 9 .Dwellings occupied in Rome in the '70s Source: SKEMA (1970) 'La Casa', II, 9, 37 10 .Naples and the 'metropolitan province' S

Source: Province of Naples .Data elaborated by the author 11 .Naples municipalities .districts Source: PRG 2001 Comune di Napoli . elaborated by the author

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12 .Occupations in movements in Naples Source: Author 13 .Map of occupations in Naples Source: PRG 2001 Comune di Napoli . elaborated by the author 14 .Networks Source: http://www.archweb.it/dwg/geografia_mappe_dwg/citta_italiane/citta_italiane_dwg.htm . elaborated by the author 15 .MOPE Occupations Source: Author 16 .Activities and typology of spaces Source: Author 17 .Naples Multiplicity Source: Author

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