Trespass Journal

Sisterhood and Squatting in the 1970s: Feminism, Housing and Urban Change in Hackney

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Analysis

History Workshop Journal, Volume 83, Issue 1, Spring 2017, Pages 79–97,
https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/dbx024
Christine Wall
Published: 07 June 2017

WHOLE THING AVAILABLE FREE ONLINE

Abstract

By the mid 1970s an estimated 20–30,000 people throughout Greater London had reclaimed, repaired and squatted thousands of empty dwellings earmarked for demolition. This historic spatial configuration of the city allowed the radical social and political movements of the 1970s to flourish, as groups of like-minded people began to live and work in close proximity. For women, it enabled experiments in collective living and shared childcare and for some feminists, active in the Women’s Liberation Movement, it provided the framework for an extensive network of women-only housing, together with social and political spaces. Squats provided the spatial infrastructure for feminist activism in 1970s London, found in women’s centres, refuges, nurseries, bookshops, art centres and workshops. This paper examines the origins of a community of women, many of them lesbians, who moved in and squatted houses in a number of streets in a Hackney neighbourhood. Through oral testimony it uncovers the historical importance of this community, which provided an opportunity for women to live autonomously, connected to wider feminist politics in London, and enabled women to take control over their immediate built environment.

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Montreuil (Paris-banlieue): eviction of l’Écharde

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

Eviction of l’Écharde, 19 rue Garibaldi, in Montreuil (Paris, métro Robespierre). Come now to support the squatters!

Gathering tonight against all evictions, at 07:00pm , at the end of avenue de la Résistance, in Montreuil (métro Croix-de-Chavaux).

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Zeist (Netherlands): Krakelingenweg evicted

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

Around 16:30 yesterday afternoon, the eviction at Krakelingweg 19 came to an end. From 8:00 in the morning onward the police, BraTra, fire brigade, together with some cherry pickers were busy getting people out of the house (including a safe!), the basement, the roof, and of tree houses built on the terrain. During the whole day, the police blocked several parts of the forests in order to prevent anyone (‘looking like a squatter’) coming close to the building. Once the eviction got called to and end, security company Andor (a dog brigade) and DGR Dienstverlening started to clean and secure the building.
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London: Urgent support call-out as Grow Heathrow eviction looms

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

The squatted site, which was founded to oppose the nearby airport’s destructive expansion project, is facing a bailiff assault either tomorrow or on Wednesday.

In the shout out for “urgent support against a land squat eviction” earlier today organisers at the four-acre camp [map] noted that the threat comes shortly before their ninth anniversary, which is due to be celebrated with a weekend gathering on March 8th-10th.

Lead owners Malik took the group to crown court at the beginning of this month and have brought in the National Eviction Team to carry out the eviction, which affects the front of the property.
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Greece: How Neo-Nazi gangs are targeting squats

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Analysis, Interventions

On the night of September 17 2013, the Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas (Killah P) and his friends sat in the local coffee shop Korali, in Keratsini, to the south of Athens. There was a football match on the TV. The place was packed. Soon a verbal dispute between local two members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn and Fyssas’ friends started. Just one hour later Fyssas will be murdered outside of the Korali, stabbed in the heart by a member of local Golden Dawn branch: Giorgos Roupakias.

The murder of Fyssas was at the time largely condemned by all political parties represented in the parliament, including Golden Dawn. In first hours after the event a Golden Dawn spokesperson, Ilias Kasidiaris stated that the party had no connection to the incident.

During this time, many left political parties started to use Fyssas’ murder and his antifascist activities in order to politicize him. Fyssas’ family responded angrily claiming he did not belong to any political faction. His father in a television interview clearly stated: “My child did not belong anywhere, they have wrongly politicized him and exploit him. From the first day we have stated this: my child did not belong anywhere.”
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Netherlands: Noise demonstration – Freedom for Joke Kaviaar

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

Call-out in English. Please, spread it far and wide!

Noise demonstration, 3 March, Nieuwersluis:
Freedom for Joke Kaviaar
No to the criminalisation of solidarity

Joke Kaviaar is being held in prison in Nieuwersluis. She sits out a sentence of two and a half months imprisonment. Two months for writing two articles in which she takes a stand against the persecution of refugees and calls for resistance: ‘incitement’, according to juridical authorities. Two weeks for participation in a protest action in the municipal council hall of Zeist, against the building of a prison on which refugee families with children are locked up: ‘disturbing public order’, according to the juridical authorities. In this way, the state turns an attitude of militant solidarity into a form of dangerous criminality. The state should not be allowed to get away with that.

That is why the Support Group 13 September organizes a noise demonstration on 3 March. Come, all of you! And bring drums and other musical instruments with you, pots and pans, loud voices and other objects with which we can make a tremendous amount of noise that can penetrate into the cells of Nieuwersluis.

Location: Plaats: P.I. Utrecht, locatie Nieuwersluis, Zandpad 3, Nieuwersluis
Date and time: Sunday, 3 March, 14.00 uur.

Accessible by public transport: train from Amsterdam or Utrecht to Breukelen. A bus from there, Syntus line nr. 120. Departure: 13.35 hour. Arrival Nieuwersluis Dorp, 13.50 hour. We assemble there, and walk together to the prison complex.

For more information on the case against Joke Kaviaar, see the website of the Support Group 13 September: https://13-september.nl/tag/english/

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RiP Hummels

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

Rather too late I have learned of the passing of Erik Hummels at the age of 69. I met Hummels in the late 2000s when he defended our squats a few times in court. We didn’t win of course, yet he helped us out and it was fantastic to have a ‘squat lawyer’ on our side. We had stern warnings from the KSU that he was a busy man and that we shouldn’t mess him around. I hope we didn’t. We did joke that he looked like a hobbit in his court robes but we had no doubt of the strengths of his ideological commitment. The squatting movement which is now grinding to an ignominious halt was full of wonderful colourful characters and Hummels was one. In the condolences I read that he was a long-time anti-militarist, may he rest in power. The cremation took place February 1 in Bilthoven.

Source

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Turin: Asilo evicted, charges for subversive organization and riots in the city centre

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

In the early morning of February 7, the Italian police started with the eviction of the Asilo Occupato squat in Turin. Five people continued to resist on the roof and came down after 30 hours. The building has now been evicted. The eviction takes place in a broader context of repression: seven people have been arrested under suspicion of involvement in a subversive organisation.

The arrests and eviction are the result of repression against the fight against deportation centers, the so-called CIE (Identification and Deportation Center), which are now being renamed CPR (Repatriation Center) by the Salvini-Di Maio government. The charges of subversive association or organisation against anarchists are common in Italy. The state also has certain articles of law and legal methods at its disposal that are not applicable or unknown in other European countries.
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Rome: Update on Madalina’s situation

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

#Stand4Madalina _ 15/02 public assembly and press statement: we demand the Prefect to immediately withdraw the estrangement order!

[We added: If you want to sign the petition you can find it on Fakebook]

One month ago Madalina Gavrilescu, Romanian citizen who has been living in Rome for over 10 years, was notified an order of estrangement from Italy within 30 days, and effective for five years, because of ‘non imperative public security reasons’ which would confirm her lack of social integration. But what is her actual guilt? Being a migrant, Roma woman, activist within the Housing Rights Movements, who has been in the front line of the struggle against evictions and foreclosures, in the pickets supporting exploited workers, in antiracist struggles, as well as in the construction of self-managed spaces of collective utility, such as the game room and the ‘Caos’ theatre in the Casalboccone housing squat where she lives. Within these weeks, an overwhelming amount of solidarity poured on Madalina, who didn’t back down from telling her story and being vocal in public demonstrations and assemblies, last one of those the ‘Indivisibili’ one in Macerata.
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Amsterdam: Mobiele Eenheid Evicted from Gedempt Hamerkanaal 86

Posted on by tegengif Posted in Announcement

On Friday first of February, the Mobiele Eenheid left Gedempt Hamerkanaal 86 and the adjoining Spijkerkade 2 following an eviction ruling from civil court proceedings. Six people have been made homeless and Amsterdam has lost yet another non-commercial social space.

The original eviction verdict was made on the basis of the property owner’s supposed plan to begin renovation works on the building for the purposes of building a hotel.
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