Faculty of Science

Department of Geography

Graduation thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Master in Urban Studies, UNICA Euromaster in Urban Studies 4Cities

Squatters’ Movement and State: Changing Claims

in Different Welfare Contexts

2012

Ceren AKYOS

Supervisor:
Miguel A. Martínez López

September 1st, 2012

 Table of Contents

Introduction:............................................................................................................................................ 1
1. Creation of ‘free-spaces’ as of Squats; urban voids as places of opportunity ................................ 6
1.1. Freedom of a new alternative generation: ‘free-space’ as a place of cultural expression and
an alternative communal living practice ................................................................................................. 8
1.1.1. Thy Camp and Christiania as insurgent offsprings of Danish social structure ....................... 10
1.1.2. Insurgency in the form of breaking up with the ‘outside’: Free of pre-determined ideologies
and hegemonic relations ....................................................................................................................... 13
1.1.3. Reclaiming the right to the city, an alternative urbanity ....................................................... 16
1.2. ‘Free-spaces’ as safe spaces of the New Social Movements and Alter-globalism ................. 19
1.2.1. Social transformation through politicization of everyday life ............................................... 23
1.2.2. Re-birth of Anarchism ............................................................................................................ 25
2. Welfare State Structures and the Framing of Free-Spaces ........................................................... 30
2.1. Christiania as the offspring of Danish welfare State .............................................................. 31
2.1.1. Nation State as the guarantor of Welfare State .................................................................... 33
2.1.2. State Structure, Parliamentarism and Social Mobilization ................................................... 38
2.1.3. The Not - So - Evident Welfare State and New Social Movements ....................................... 43
2.2. Conservative-Corporatist Welfare State and Democratic Movements ................................. 49
2.2.1. Neo-liberalization of the Welfare and the New Social Movements as an Urban Claim ........ 54
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 59
References: ............................................................................................................................................ 63
Appendix A: ........................................................................................................................................... 71
Appendix B: ........................................................................................................................................... 74
 Introduction:

The longstanding representations that the squatter’s movement have until today - when it has been

recently becoming more and more exposed to public attention with the outburst of ‘Occupy’ events

and the squatting actions that followed in many different countries- often were depicted as a revolt

of certain groups against the public order and the authorities. However, this generalization only puts

into spotlight a homogeneous group pursuing their goals by violating one of the most established

and substantial law; the property right. On the other hand, whether it is the early squatting

movements of the working class against the raising rents and worsening of the living conditions in

France, the occupation of unproductive lands by the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra in

Brazil, the slums and shanty towns all around the world or the urban squatting movements in Europe

giving rise to autonomous spaces and social centers, just to name some; they display many different

forms that the movement can take, all having in common their insurgent character.

There are many possible ways of analyzing the factors that give rise to the ramification and

diversification of the squatters’ movement in several aspects such as the structure and organization

of the group, their means and resources of mobilization, the social networking, the main goals of the

movement, their interaction with the established socio-political structure and so on. Evidently it is

not plausible to make an analysis comprising all these factors with scientific data, either qualitative or

quantitative, so in this work we will be focusing mainly on the idea of the creation of ‘free-spaces’ - in

the general structuralist and culturalist conception of the term as community or movement

formations that are liberated from the direct control of dominant groups, are voluntarily participated

in, and generate the cultural challenge that precedes or accompanies political mobilization- through

squatting as the movement’s goal and the social dimension of the above causal factors; the socio-

political context giving rise to the differentiation of the movement. Moreover, to be able to make an

in-depth and elaborate research we will delimit our objective to the inquiry of the divergences in the

1
self-definition and demands of the squatters movement and the methods and practices of squatting

which are used to get to these demands through a cross-sectional analysis questioning why similar

movements choose different tactics or aim at affecting different policy outcomes and a comparative

one looking into the development of the trajectory of the squatters' movement in different political

and historical contexts.

Yet, it should be made clear that when we mention social dimension, it involves a dependency on

the environmental factors, including the material conditions of a given society (Rucht, 1996).

Therefore, we see fit to look into the squatters’ movement from a ‘statist’ approach and through the

‘political process’ (Tarrow, 1983) analyzing the interaction of the movement with the state or the

institutional structure and the power relations between them. However, “[t]he structure of the state

is a first and useful dimension in predicting whether and where movements will find opportunities to

engage in collective action. But social movements are multidimensional actors, just as the state is a

multidimensional target. [Correspondingly] it is more useful to specify particular aspects of

institutional structure that relate directly to movements than to reify the state as a predictor of

collective action.” (Tarrow, 1994: 92.) Based on this point of view, we will be referring to the

conception of the ‘welfare systems’ as one aspect of the institutional structure, in the general

framework of the welfare systems theory conceived by Esping-Andersen (1989) as a basis of our

contextual comparison. Furthermore, we would like to underscore that the welfare systems are likely

to exhibit hybrid forms instead of displaying exclusive regime-specific features in relation to the

policies carried out. Our effort will be in showing the effect of these policies on the movements’

formation and development.

We will suggest that the formation of a political system creates distinct ‘opportunity structures’ for

collective action. Accordingly, particular welfare systems would create different conditions,

frameworks of action and marge de manœuvre that would lead the movements to the use of

individual tactics and to an orientation of diversifying demands. To support that, we will be asking

2
which kind of sociopolitical (Garner and Zald, 1987; Kitschelt, 1986) and historical contexts facilitate

or restrict the formation of social movements –precisely the squatters’ movement in our case - and

what kind of an effect they have on the purposes, demands and raison d’être, in terms of theory of

‘political opportunity structure’ (Tarrow, 1994,1998; Douglas McAdam, McCarthy&Zald ,1996).

When we mention political opportunity structures, certainly it should be made clear that we are

aware that it is “a concept in danger to soak up virtually every aspect of the social movement

environment – political institutions and culture, crises of various sorts, political alliances and policy

shifts.” (Gamson and Meyer, 1996: 275) For that reason, we will delimit its use to the ‘context

structure’ (Rucht, 1996) and its consequences. Respectively, when we talk about political opportunity

structures we mean consistent but not necessarily formal or permanent dimensions of the political

environment such as state institutions but also conflict and alliance structures, social stratification

and cultural composition created by the welfare regime, which provide certain conditions for people

to undertake collective action (Tarrow, 1994; Rucht, 1996). Furthermore, the investigation of these

elements require a definition of what ‘State’ or the institutional power is; as Gamson and Meyer

(1996) point out differing political opportunity structures reflect not just different political systems

but also different public conceptions of the proper scope and role of the state. State policies are not

only technical solutions to material problems of control or resource extraction “[t]hey are rooted in

changing conceptions of what the state is, what it can and should do.” (Friedland and Alford, 1991:

238). Nonetheless, as mentioned above, State is not the only factor determining the movement; how

the squatters’ movement defines itself is the other side of the coin. Yet again, “…collective action is

dynamic rather than static in its avenues, products and forms. Movements and their foci may change

with success or failure, or as environments alter.” (Harrison and Reeves, 2002: 758). Besides,

opportunities shape movements but movements also shape opportunities and change the structure

creating political incentives as well as counter-movements (Tarrow, 1998).

3
In order to understand this interaction and consequent shift in the context, finally, we will be looking

into the theory of ‘urban social movement’ as conceived by mainly Castells and many others. Yet we

will not be basing our analysis on the strict and normative schism between the ‘old’ social

movements opposing to the changes in the welfare capitalism based on class conflict and material

concerns and ‘new’ social movements over ‘post-modern’ issues such as community culture and

political self-management 1, designed to protect the participants’ life-space (Tarrow, 1998: 83). On

the other hand, we will suggest that contemporary urban social movements could as well be

connected with traditional class based political battles and at the same time, they could stress

autonomous or post-material cultural transformation along with the bypassing of conventional

politics 2 (Harrison and Reeve, 2002). Martin (2001:362) has argued that movements may “combine,

albeit to varying degrees, identity politics with social policy goals”; so through urban social

movements struggles over consumption or distribution of services and the ones over identity might

overlap. However, we admit that if there is something ‘new’ about the contemporary urban

movements it could be a different form of communitarian and non-hierarchical organization defined

as an end in itself, and where demands are practiced through cultural innovation (Melucci, 1989).

Besides, we attempt to manifest through our study that; global ‘neo-liberal’ policies that took shape

after the 1980’s brought back the previous social and material issues into the agenda but the

collective action pursued in different contexts of the modern state - creating a complex social,

political and economic environment – had different consequences on how people take common

decisions, define their social change goals, organize themselves to proceed in attaining them

(McCarthy, Britt and Wolfson, 1991) and which issues became priorities shaping the future of the

movements.

1
For Castells’s definition of urban social movements in which he only includes activism over consumption and
collective culture that is capable of transforming urban meanings, in order to produce a city organized on the
basis of use values, autonomous local cultures and decentralized participatory democracy see Castells (1983)
And for its critique Mayer (2009).
2
See also Melucci, 1985,1989; Offe, 1985; Touraine, 1974, 1981
4
To put our theoretical basis on solid grounds, we present Denmark as one case of a ‘liberal-social

democratic’ welfare system which gives occasion to the creation of a ‘freespace’ as in the form of

establishing a local community structure where the hegemonic culture could be kept away to make

room for a heterogeneity where individuality and differences could thrive as part of the community.

Whereas, Spain as a ‘conservative-corporatist’ welfare as second example in which ‘free-spaces’

develop as places of dissent against the hegemonic eco-political order filling in the void of the

welfare state or at least the conception of what a state should do through autonomous organization.

In the first part of this work, we will try to clarify what ‘freespace’ denotes in a general conceptual

framework as well as its peculiarities in these two cases. Then we will attempt to introduce the

different historical and political contexts in Denmark and Spain that in our opinion laid the ground for

the emergence of distinct forms of free-spaces in each case. Withal, we hope to shed light on

individual and endemic political, social and economic phenomena that might have effects on the

divergence of the squatters’ movement in two cases.

Further, we will be referring to semi-structured interviews done in both places with residents as well

as visitors and people related to these places and materials –documents, documentaries, personal

notes, flyers, newspaper articles - gathered through participant observation carried on during our

stay in both places. Within the text, we will not be giving any names of the interviewees not only

because of privacy reasons but also as we suppose pointing out individual ideas will contrast with the

unitary character of the places.

5
 1. Creation of ‘free-spaces’ as of Squats; urban voids as places of opportunity

The conception of free-spaces as we indicated in the above introduction comprehends a de facto

idea of sheltered spaces where oppressed or marginalized groups can isolate themselves or take

shelter away from hegemonic ideas, socio-political or cultural domination as well as the surveillance

of authorities (Evans&Boyte, 1992; Hirsch, 1990, 1993). In principal, they constitute spaces that allow

the flourishing of insurgency or counterhegemonic ideas and practices; be it social, cultural or

political. However, this generic definition obfuscates the scope of the manifold shapes that free-

spaces can take. The various definitions of ‘free’, given by the members of these spaces reveal the

diversification in terms of basic principles, ideologies and aims. Nevertheless, the common goal of

having a free space signifies essentially the foundation of alternative ways of common living or a

different kind of citizenship and direct democracy 3 (Evans& Boyte, 1992) as well as taking direct

control over the life-worlds of the members. But in different contexts distinct principles become

prominent; some free spaces envision more conceptual formations where groups construct an

alternative form of sociality that would deconstruct hegemony rather than aiming at influencing

social policies. In that sense, they resemble to the ‘thirdspace’ of Soja (1996), the ‘other than spaces’

that are meant to detonate and to deconstruct, in order to create undomesticated areas. Where

stereotyped reactions can be overcome and the building blocks of subjectivity can be dehierarchized

to be reassembled in a different way as also Deleuze and Guattari (1980) suggest. Alternatively, like

the interzones of Wilson (1985), free-spaces become the voids and margins that constitute

escapades from power where groups can distort the existing reality, re-organize and re-arrange the

old. Conjointly, marginality might constitute another element of these kinds of free-spaces, whether

consciously chosen or imposed by the society. It creates opportunities to safely articulate “the right

to difference, to be different, against the increasing forces of homogenization, fragmentation, and

3
As Fisher (1994: 221)Fisher puts it; free-spaces are “the seedbeds of democratic insurgency”
6
hierarchically organized power” (Soja, 1996: 35), to plot alternatives and test the limits of authority.

On the other hand, ‘choosing marginality’ as hooks attests (1990: 145-154), questions the issue of

‘subjection’ by deconstructing both the margin and the center and creates new spaces of opportunity

for resistance and radical openness at the newly defined margins 4.

Alternatively, other groups that organize themselves in form of free-spaces might engage in direct

political actions or they might already be associated with pre-existing social movements and political

ideologies – such as anarcho-syndicalism that underlies in many squatter groups in Barcelona. In such

cases, the creation of free-spaces might have a facilitating role in the continuation of previous

movement identities; as McAdam (1994: 43) puts it, they become “repositories of cultural materials

into which succeeding generations of activists can dip to fashion ideologically similar, but

chronologically separate, movements”. Also, recently the link to previous networks and movements

seems to underline most of all an idea of ‘freedom’ from the capitalist power relations , propagating

the ideology of ‘self-management’ which is not only apparent in politically committed free-spaces

but also in the former type of so to call cultural spaces we have mentioned. Moreover, free-spaces

might also be instrumental for the emerging groups’ access to the political decision making process

when there is no possibility of engagement with the State (Whittier, 1995); hence “when

institutionalized understandings of politics exclude issues and identities as personal, private, or

otherwise non-political” (Polletta, 1999: 8).

To recapitulate, it could be said that the free-spaces form spaces of isolation and accommodation

outside the dominant system where oppositional cultural practices can be articulated and it is

possible to questioning the dominant order, regardless of political inclination and previous

engagements. Nonetheless, the typology of free-spaces should not be taken as impermeable and

clear-cut containers; the characteristics of one form can present itself in the others while there could

exist composite forms.

4
Also see Soja, E. and Hooper, B. (1993)
7
Yet, for a fact, these spaces are more than physical preserves or gathering places and the social

structural dimensions of several political or cultural dynamics have an impact on the divergences

between different forms of free-spaces. So we believe that, why, when and how certain patterns of

societal relations - including politics and culture- produce various forms of free-spaces should be

clarified. Since the extent of opportunities which give way to the formation of free-spaces is not only

dependent on the availability of physical space “within which traditional forms may be collectively re-

negotiated but also, and more importantly, on a level of social conflict that forces participants outside

the daily round of everyday activity” (Polletta, 1999: 14); a theorization of context structures is much

needed as we mentioned previously. Furthermore, it should once more be highlighted that the

institutions within which oppositional practices are nurtured are dependent on the context that

shape the framework of the movements and their raison d’être, and affect the opportunity

structures.

Following, we will elaborate on the pluralism of the conception of free-spaces, in two contexts;

Christiania and Can MasDeu, and justify our initial theory that distinctive socio-political, historical and

cultural components give birth to varying movement formations. Our first case, Christiania will

constitute an example in which squatting becomes a mean to create a free-space that aspires a

socio-cultural opposition, whereas through the instance of Can MasDeu a variety of more globalized

political issues will take stage in the free-space through diversified actors.

1.1. Freedom of a new alternative generation: ‘free-space’ as a place of cultural expression and
an alternative communal living practice

Christiania is composed of old military barracks that are still part of the city’s ramparts as well as self-

built houses. The abandoned military area, situated at the corner of Prinsessegade and Refshalevej

stretching over 49 hectares is situated in a central working class district, and was taken over by a

8
group of people in 1971 to make “a playground for their kids and something green to look at” 5. The

instance that triggered the squatting of the area is assumed to be a spoof article that was published

in an alternative magazine ‘Hovedblated’ that provoked people to occupy the place to move in

(Karpantschof, 2011) 6. The magazine was published in connection with an exhibition which took

place at Charlottenborg called "Noget for Noget" (Give and Take), where all sorts of alternative

people and hippies exhibited their art, exchanged ideas and organized happenings, displaying

another culture and way of life which reflected the new ideals of Danish youth. Furthermore, the

movements that sprouted all over the world during the 1960’s,initiated by the students who took

over universities, houses, factories and public spaces in quest for ‘free-spaces’ where they can create

alternative ways of communal living and triggered international uprisings, as a matter of course,

created a momentum in Denmark as well (Ibid).

The repercussions of the 60’s movements gave birth to what is called the ‘New Society’ (Det Ny

Samfund) movement in Denmark during the years 1968-70 germinating in a summer camp organized

around communal living in Thy district of Jutland 7. The New Society was formed in 1968 as a

successor of the Student Society (Studentersamfundet) which was a leftist splinter group of the long

established Student Association (Studenterforeningen) in Copenhagen, based on the ideals of

Scandinavian national liberal politics in 19th Century 8 (Lund, 1986). The Student Society was indeed

the first and oldest association in Denmark based on the principle of direct democracy and its

purpose was to spread this ideal to the whole society outside the group. Thy camp (Thylejren), a

festival organized for the first time in 1970 by the New Society association, constituted a space of

experimentation for these ideals, alternative ways of life forms and the practice of communal living.

Moreover, the inspiration to have such a festival in Denmark came from utopist community

movements – which appeared as huge festivals that also inspired Thy camp, such as the Isle of Wight

5
http://www.christiania.org/modules.php?name=NukeWrap&page=/inc/tale/
6
Also see the interviews and http://www.christiania.org/modules.php?name=NukeWrap&page=/inc/tale/
7
See the interviews
8
Looking Up Librarian J. Clausen in Salmonsen ( Salmon's Conversation Dictionary , 2nd Edition, Vol. 22, p 485
9
festival in England and Woodstock in the USA 9 -as an echo of the zeitgeist of the 60’s youth

movements (Fairfield&Miller, 2010). These communities had the common objectives of creating an

instance, a moment of break from the outside society and its dominant values or the everyday life

outside the formed ‘freespaces’. Their aim was to create a different space where openness and

various forms of cultural expressions that would demonstrate this new generation’s values, giving

way eventually to a freedom of individual self-realization as part of a community. These formations

were in fact a reverberation of a new society that was strived for. Also, their reclusion from the

urban society underlined the need to retreat from a system that the 60’s generation was opposing

to; so in a way it was a movement of self-exclusion and marginalization used as means to create

another space in which the dominant order would not be able to impose itself. Even though the Thy

festival was inspired by these two and shared most of the principals, especially about taking a stance

back from society and create another form of communal living away from urban life; as expected it

reveals the specificities of the Danish context.

1.1.1. Thy Camp and Christiania as insurgent offsprings of Danish social structure

The Thy Camp defines itself as a ‘haven’ or a ‘freespace’ in a sense that “it embodies life, displays life,

its complications. It has space for quirky characters, imaginative artists, caring mothers and fathers,

shamans, horse, women and many more. It is both part of Denmark and the society we are all part of

and at the same time withdrawn from unconscious consumer's race and culture.” 10 The camp is

organized usually around consensus democracy devoid of a board or a chairman. Although these

ideals belong to the Thy camp, when they squatted the old military barracks with others in 1971,

they also constituted the initial principles of Christiania; an alternative life based on communal living

9
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/thylejren-camp-thy/
10
http://www.123hjemmeside.dk/thylejren/20987098
10
and freedom at the center of the capital, meters away from the Royal Danish Palace and the

parliament, but offering a countryside life at the same time as a retreat from the outside world.

While right after its proclamation one of the goals set was to 'build up a society from scratch'; to

create “a self-ruling society, where each individual can unfold freely while remaining responsible to

the community as a whole” 11 and an economically self sustaining community that averts the

psychological and physical destitution. However, the social framework that planted the seeds for

these principles was older than Christiania itself. The youth revolt, that pioneered Christiania, which

took over “not only houses but also outdoor land to form autonomous ‘republics’ and hippie-inspired,

utopian communities that in the language of the day were perceived as ‘a revolutionary island in a

capitalist ocean” (Karpantschof, 2011: 37 ), was carrying ideological dimensions such as the

collectivity and Do It yourself culture. On the other hand, since the mid-19th Century, the society was

shifting slowly from an agricultural structure towards an industrial organization and during its

creation, the doctrines of Grundtvig on public education already had a great influence on creating a

society based on collectivity. The educational folk tradition of high schools (Folkehøjskole) inspired

by Grundtvig’s ideals of giving the peasantry and others from the lower ranks of society a higher

educational level through personal development (Lindeman, 1929) 12 incorporated the idea of

individuals as part of a society as well as responsible from its creation, organization and

management. These schools brought forth an understanding of democracy where every individual

takes part in building the community; group identity and community bonds were the basis of these

schools where men and women would spend months together taking education on general aspects

of life. Consequently, the core ideals emanating from these places lead to the development of

substantial social movements and social structures that the squatter community Christiania is also

part of. As also underlined through our interviews, the choice of communal living and participation of

11
http://www.christiania.org/modules.php?name=NukeWrap&page=/inc/tale/
12
Also for an investigation of significant attempts to build alternatives to the dominating ways of life in
Denmark such as Christiania, the Tvind schools, various communes, the Thy Camp and island camps see
Falkentorp et al. (1982)
11
every individual in the society, constituted the underlying elements of Danish social structure and

shaped it in such a way that would allow formations such as Christiania to be accepted by the greater

society outside it. This, constitutes one pillar of the concept of ‘free’; as one Christianite puts it “It is

more Hegel than Marx; individual cannot exist alone, he needs someone else, the ‘community’, to

define him”; so an individual is not free in a sense that s/he is free off society but free as an individual

in a greater organism, free to participate and decide and to do as s/he likes in the limits of the

community.

Moreover, the folk high schools engaged the people to reflect about ‘State-making’, running a society

with the consent of all its members, which also is another common element that lies in the basis of

Christiania and the Danish society as a whole. This mutual relation is reflected in the self-definition

of Christianites; for many, Christiania is not a separate entity from the society or the state, it is one

part of it 13. The anthem of Christiania ‘Det Internationale Sigøjnerkompagni’ written in 1976, that

carries the boldly stated phrase ‘You cannot kill us we are part of you’ (I kan ikke slå os ihjel vi er en

del af jer selv) expresses this sentiment thoroughly. Much as Christiania is a part of the society, it still

bares the marks of a stance taken away from it, which makes it also part of the above-mentioned

60’s utopian movements and a reaction to the dominating social order 14. For some, it is not an

example of how a State should run but of a local living community where individual is valuable and

everyone has a right to exist and be integrated in community. The composition of the Freetown’s

population - of which two-thirds need social assistance or have no registered income and has a

significant number of individuals who have been previously in the care of public institutions due to

problems such as addiction and criminality- acknowledge how important the value given to individual

is; no matter how ostracized they are form the society outside. As a consequence Christiania became

a “counter-weight to bureaucracy made up of people who would not, or were not able to, adjust to a

bureaucratic class society. Christiania was an alternative to that, inhabited by ‘happy people’ who

13
Quoted from interviews
14
Løvetand (1972) analyzes this aspect of Christiania in detail.
12
outside of Christiania would be classed as deviant” (Thörn et al., 2011:16). Through this social

integration and esteem attributed to each and everyone, Christiania ensures everybody’s

participation and integrity in the creation and in the governing of this new society, without being

atomized or outcasted from the decision-making and execution processes as in the notion of a

parliamentary state. Christiania’s structural organization, comprising of 14 self-governed areas and

the General Assembly, both ruled by consensus democracy, ascertains what makes this place differ

from the typical idea of a state and define their reciprocal relations. In Christiania, people are the

state themselves having equal access to decisions without any social, cultural, ethnic, gender or

hierarchical differences; on the contrary ‘difference’ is praised and individuals are not constrained to

share similar believes and norms to be accepted as part of the community. Despite the differences,

unity is another essential element emphasized throughout the interviews that cement the relations

between people. This unity is nourished from the ‘right to be different’, and the understanding of

Christiania as a ‘free’ space where this right is acknowledged for everyone and hence a space that

should be protected with the help of all its members.

1.1.2. Insurgency in the form of breaking up with the ‘outside’: Free of pre-determined
ideologies and hegemonic relations

The right to be different, as we asserted in the introduction of this chapter, entails on the other hand

a deliberate choice of marginality against hegemony and dominant ideologies. Furthermore, along

with the social conflicts that force some members outside the everyday life, it is an attempt to

deconstruct and re-negotiate the power relations that take place and a new kind of organization in

escapades or spaces that are liberated from these power structures.

As we tried to establish previously, Christiania is deliberately devoid of a common ideology or

doctrine- in face of the state ideology - which are believed to create idealized places. The idea of

13
‘free’ as a founding stone of the Freetown is incorporated within the right to difference and the self-

empowerment, autonomy and the freedom to choose the life paths as a an individual. Hence,

Christiania, renounces to be one of those idealized places where doctrines and ideologies empower

individuals according to Christianites; “We never wanted to make it perfect, it is not a doctrine or a

tyranny, no judgments about how someone’s life should be…that would be Hitler or Stalin or

religious/mystic cults, missionaries” 15. It is more about having an influence on the life choices, the

environment and to live with differences rather than changing the others, contrary to what the New

Society and Thy Camp aspired for. “Christiania is about another life, it is not about changing

society” 16 so in a way it entails an individual empowerment without hegemony. Yet, we argue that

this does not mean idleness in political engagement of the place. On the contrary, by challenging the

dominant cultural codes Christiania becomes an explicitly political space. As Parmar (1990: 101)

argues, “the appropriation and use of space are political acts”; and the community of Christiania by

altering the arrangement of the surrounding space and the homogenized and standardized daily life

habits, already realizes this act. Nonetheless, this requires a breathing space, in which case, the free

space becomes detached from outside. As a Christianite expresses “…it’s just the boredom and the

outside is getting in, the sameness of everything”, that Christiania is drawing its boundaries against.

This might not be only in form of physical lines or frontiers – although the gates are never closed, the

exit of Christiania where one comes across the sign ‘You are now leaving the E.U.’ and a high wall

that encircles the place constitutes obvious physical barriers – but more importantly on a social and

cultural. The notion of unity we remarked before indicates to the construction of a sense of ‘local

community’ that creates exclusiveness as a social boundary, adding to the self-marginalization of

Christiania.

After all, the case of Christiania, as a free space that defines itself as a part of the Danish society but

an element that rejects certain structural aspects of it by choosing to detach itself from the outside,

15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
14
prove that “counterhegemonic ideas and identities come neither from outside the system nor from

some free-floating oppositional consciousness, but from long-standing community institutions. Free-

spaces seem to provide institutional anchor for the cultural challenge that explodes structural

arrangements” (Polletta, 1999; 1). In this case, it is the Danish social structure that embraces the

notion of free individual as part of the community for which s/he is responsible in order to live and

run the society together that forms part of the institutions. Per contra, the ideal of democracy, self-

sufficiency and autonomy Christiania maintains from its preceding institutions the New Society and

the Thy Camp that constitute the flip side. Nonetheless, Christiania is a place of dissent that grows

within the social system in Denmark. And especially a space where the homogenizing effects of

welfare is highly contested and taken as hindrance to individual emancipation and realization.

Christiania corresponds to the idea of free spaces where groups/communities ``question the

rationalizing ideologies of the dominant order, develop alternative meanings, [and] iron out their

differences'' in these settings (Fantasia and Hirsch, 1995: 146).

At this point, we believe that it is necessary to look into the welfare structure in more detail,

highlighting the peculiarity of the Danish situation that created the circumstances for the formation

of such a free-space. Moreover, as expressed by two Christianites “A lot of things happen because it

is the perfect time for them, like the foundation of this place. Things happen by itself, because the

conditions are right”, “Christiania was a necessary addition, a space for the 70’s and 80’s of

Copenhagen. It was part of what was happening”. These two affirmations support our hypothesis

that political opportunity structures affect the emergence of movements that we will try to shed light

on in the second chapter.

15
 1.1.3. Reclaiming the right to the city, an alternative urbanity

“Christiania openly has challenged ‘our overregulated society’ with its ‘strident,
intrusive normality”
Arnfred (2007:253)

The notion of ‘right to difference’ as Lefebvre (1968) specified, connotes an opposition against the

increasing homogenization that defines the specific geography of capitalism and most importantly

the accordingly-developed urban life. Christiania correspondingly by creating a user-defined fabric,

embodies a space where capitalism and a consumer culture, alienation and commodification that

follows, are to be replaced by, “a practical socialism’ that enables participation and self-

determination to the individual person” (Løvetand, 1972:5) 17. Christiania still bears the flag of the

initial youth movements that wanted to break away from the capitalist relations and did it by both

physically and socially marginalizing itself in the constructed free-space, although this time in the

middle of the city contrary to its precursors that withdrew from urban life. Likewise, we could also

add to capitalism, the homogenizing force of the Danish welfare state as another object of

opposition. Although we will refer to the welfare structure in detail in the next part, the urbanity

through which the social, political and cultural welfare state structures impose themselves on the

organization of physical spaces and power operates deserves a special commentary.

First of all, not choosing to move away from the urban life but to create an opposition in its midst

shows Christiania’s modes of appropriation and re-organization of space as a political act. In return

Christiania as an organic, grass-roots urban development and self built loose structures satisfies the

habitants’ socio-cultural needs and reflects the ideology of the self-control and self-empowerment

of one’s own life that the 60’s and 70’s movements brought onto the table against the rationalist and

highly ordered modern architecture and urban planning. Against the welfare state’s engineered

17
Quoted from Thörn et al. (2011: 12-13)
16
urban planning schemes through which the life-worlds of the individuals are framed and ‘colonized’

(Habermas, 1987), Christiania creates a space outside the planned and the ordered. Moreover, it

puts into value a leftover land both re-using the old urban reality and leftover materials. So in that

sense Christiania’s “scavenger economy” (Ahnfeldt-Mollerup, 2004; 61) is at the same time ‘recycles’

the social norms of the modernist welfare state and the consumer society and brings an alternative

to the “contemporary norm of unrestrained consumption” (Juhler et al., 1982: 258) via alternative

uses of energy, growing crops…etc. Further, we could assert that this is part of the political stance of

Christiania. By provoking the existing structures and modifying them, they create landscapes of

spaces of representation (Deleuze; 1968) or a “politicized spatial consciousness” (Soja 1989; 2) that

reflects the fundamental values of a new society. At the same time, this recycle was social, since

people deemed as deviant and outside the traditional society were integrated back to an alternative

community. This restoration both in its ecological and social sense, accentuates particularly the

principle of the equal right to use (or make use) that reigns in Christiania rather than to own the

space, underlining its relation with its surrounding environment and the city; achieving “… everything

that modern planning failed to achieve… [and] stood in contrast to the regulated and normalized but

‘pretty heartless’ flagship of modernity” (Rasmussen; 1976). Also by giving the people the occasion to

create physically their lived environment Christiania created a positive relation between the urban

and the inhabitants, underlining the social dimension of urban planning that was obliterated. The

communal spirit too was substantiated in the communal areas created like the bathhouse, the

nursery and the kindergarten, and services such as the garbage collection and recycling, the shops,

cafes and workshops that was open to collective use. Christiania has in this respect not simply

constituted a refuge, sanctuary or absolute alternative in relation to a surrounding modernity. On the

contrary, it was an integral part of this modernity; its own inherent borderline or marginality. As

such, it incorporated- and still does - an integral fringe on which a radical contestation and

17
reconsideration of urban fundamental values and socio-political organization – especially the

capitalist ones -may be spatially manifested and openly performed.

As Rasmussen uttered (1976: 16-17) “There is, to me, no doubt that Copenhagen by its lack of

planning has created the lawless condition, and that the "Free City of Christiania," by taking the law

into their own hands, saved the situation and preserved important buildings for posterity. And now

the lawless, the politicians of the city, will make the positive forces outlaw”. This lawlessness or, from

a reverse perspective, a different spatial disposition in Christiania is seen not only as defying the

norms and behaviors of the society but also transgressing the power of the state. As one Christianite

prefers to refer to it as due to its ‘favella like character’ 18 Christiania cannot easily be controlled.

some parts of it - such as the Pusher Street where illegal drugs sale is openly practiced- are clearly

free of state power and as a whole it is defying its institutions including the Ministry of Defence,

Justice, housing, Culture, the Copenhagen Municipality and the police. This situation creates a state

of exception and the renouncement of political control over regular citizens. However, this favella

like character 19 is not only in terms of power relations between the state and Christiania but also in

terms of the occupational status of the land.

Christiania from its beginning aimed at creating a ‘de-commodified public space’ which was radically

in contrast with the new urban policies. As Thörn( 2011: 76) asserts the ideal of modern liberal

government is to secure “how to govern urban life in a society driven by a capitalist economy…to

maximize circulation of people, of commodities, of traffic and air, while at the same time suppressing,

or at least taming, ‘bad circulation’ in order to achieve the perfect equilibrium, or social stability”.

Christiania not only cripples any kind of circulation that the capitalist economy favors with its ban on

car traffic and advertisement in the Freetown, lack of lighting in its streets as a statement against

excessive consumption, but also shelters the elements of the bad circulation and presents itself as a

public space which is not interchangeable to economic capital. Besides, on physical terms,

18
Quoted from interviews
19
More detailed analysis on this matter could be found in Lemberg (1978) and Blum (1977)
18
Christiania’s self organization and recycle based structures underline the grass-roots will to self-

empowerment and autonomy on space, the ‘right to the city’, against the oppressive order of the

modern urban planning; allowing individual narratives on space as well as a re-conceptualization of

urban morphology to germinate. In this sense, Christiania never shut down itself from the outside

world, conversely its structure highlighted the use of the city space as a public space open to

everyone. Producing a “porous enclave” (Bøggild, 2011: 101). But it is undoubtedly a radical place

that does not abide by the order of the urban plans which mirrors the official ideology. This

radicalization and break from ideology requires the formation of a both physically and socially

marginalized space in order to challenge the outside influences to be able to self-empower the free

space.

1.2. ‘Free-spaces’ as safe spaces of the New Social Movements and Alter-globalism

Can Masdeu(CMD) is defined as an “occupied rurban project” that spreads over about 4,000 m2 of

building surface and cultivated area with community gardens, situated on the only valley left unbuilt,

Sant Genis, on Serra de Colserolla within the Northern part of Barcelona metropolitan area, in Nou

Barris district. The building that gave the name to the project of CMD is built upon an old farmhouse

belonging to the Masdeu family who gave it to the Hospital de Sant Pau in 1906 which transformed it

into a sanatorium for tuberculosis and leprosy, as its seclusion from the city created the perfect

conditions for the patients. By the 1960, Barcelona had spread over the foothills of Colserolla,

leading to the improvised urbanization of the once rural district of Nou Barris to give shelter to the

wave of immigration mainly from Andalusia, Galicia and Aragon and with the construction of another

sanatorium for leprosy in Alicante, the building became obsolete and was left abandoned. Thus, the

abandoned hospital’s position right on the border of the city and the rural hinterland created perfect

conditions for a group of people, looking for a place to hold a meeting for the European youth

19
organization ‘Heifer’ and a grassroots organization ‘Rising Tide’ against climate change, that squatted

it on 22 December 2001 20.

The moment of squatting of CMD happens to be an outcome of a particular context in Barcelona of

the early 21st century during which social turmoil and mass alter-globalization demonstrations and

counter-summits both on local and international level were taking place. “It was a time in which

many people were traveling around Europe to participate in the counter-summits and that was a

phenomenon enabling many connections and exchange of experiences. CMD emerged and grew

stronger in this context, the Barcelona of 2001-2002, where there was a great volatility in

mobilizations and where there had already been a point of inflection: the defeat of Genoa, the World

Trade Center Attacks in New York, the EU summit, demonstrations against the National Hydrological

Plan, the general strike of 2002. It was a time when anything could happen, just as we are now” 21.

During this period, CMD was involved in actions such protests against the construction of

Hydroelectric dams in detriment of towns nearby; demonstrations and squat actions against the Iraq

war, in the first action against Genetic Modification in agriculture in Catalonia and co-organization of

the campaign against Europe capital and war (Tendero&Tudela, 2011) to name some. Also the

personal trajectories of the residents reveal a strong network on both levels; that passes through IMF

and World Bank demonstrations in Prague, G8 protests in Switzerland, leftist Christian organizations

in Andalucia, Zapatista movement in Latin America, road protest camps and genetic engineering

protest in UK and so forth 22. These events prove “[T]he shift in the locus of institutional power from

the national to both supranational and the regional levels, with the increasing power of international

institutions, especially economic ones (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade

Organization), and some regional ones (in Europe, the European Union; in the Western hemisphere,

the North American Free Trade Agreement ” (Della Porta&Tarrow 2004: 1), as well as a change in the

20
Quoted from interviews
21
Translated from a personal note written by one of the residents of CMD, Kike Tudela “CMD: recuperar el
común” Ponencia en Jornadas Recuperem allò Comu, 2/12/11
22
Quoted from interviews
20
demands of the new movements. With the experience of the effects of ‘global’ on ‘local’ , as Mayer

states (2009) the new social movements’ claims take place in cities where globalization touches

down and materializes. By mobilizing against not only global corporations but also entrepreneurial

local governments that pursue a neoliberal corporate agenda, they demand global justice, provision

of public services and institutions and “democratic politics of locality” (Appadurai, 2002) through

direct action in which both communitarian and a non-hierarchical organizational form might be

portrayed as an end in itself (Melucci , 1989).

As a product of an era when the Spanish squatters’ movement converged with these alter-

globalization movements (Martinez Lopez, 2006), CMD emerges as “a collective experience that has

become a benchmark in the construction of alternatives of life and struggle, a project of projects that

has evolved in parallel to the cycle of protests that took place in the Catalan countries during the first

decade of the century” (Tendero&Tudela, 2011). As they declare soon after the squatting; "This

weekend, we have e squatted with about 40 people, the farmhouse Can MasDeu, in the valley of Sant

Genis. The house has been abandoned for 54 years and is the property of the Foundation of the

Hospital de Sant Pau. With this squat, we denounce the speculative projects threatening one of the

last sunny valleys still left unbuilt and open a new space for the District of Nou Barris, especially for

Canyelles. The project aims to experiment, in reality, a model of sustainable and anti-capitalist living

based on permaculture, alternative energies and a communal life. As of now, we have received the

support of 20 institutions from Nou Barris. The project is open to everyone and there is plenty of

space to live, come when you want” 23. This declaration manifests clearly the connection of CMD with

the urban and alter-globalist movements that share a strong will to demand the ‘right to the city’ and

furthermore an anti-capitalist stand that is commonly shared. As it is expressed by its residents, the

aims of the place is to create a political, social and cultural alternatives to the capitalist system that

surrounds everyone, through an ecological way of life since ecology is one of the areas that is the

most open to the exploitation of a capitalist mode of development and that suffers the most its side

23
http://infosquat.squat.net/msg00160.html
21
effects 24. And the way it is organized becomes an effort to materialize these ideals in question.

Firstly, the land occupies a central place to put in practice these alternatives. It provides the majority

of the food that is consumed by the residents and enables self-sufficiency and sustainability that

almost obviates the need to external sources, making CMD economically autonomous. Besides, it

requires an organization around collective self-management. The relation with the land also touches

upon the issue of capitalist production and food sovereignty; in CMD self-production of food intends

to reverse commodification as well as helps fighting against Genetic Modification and spreads the

use of traditional and ecological models, what Collado and Gallar (2010) call a “political

agroecology” 25. Likewise, CMD buys the rest of the food needed directly from local producers

supporting the same ideals, strengthening the ideal of decommodification. Furthermore, the

community gardens cultivated by around 80 people outside CMD serves the ‘right to the city’ and

social justice by opening spaces privatized or closed to the use of the citizens back to the public.

Besides, the community gardens provide the ground for the exchange of knowledge and experience

between all kinds of people working together in the gardens, enabling the creation of a community 26.

On the other hand, agricultural production is not the only way that CMD seeks to create a sustainable

and ecological alternative. The life in the house aims to reduce the social and ecological impact using

compost latrines, solar panels and firewood for hot water and heating, water from the springs to

irrigate the garden and practicing waste recycle. Also, the self-built places in the house use waste or

recycled materials.

Apart from these, barter of goods and services with other communities practiced in CMD is another

strong element that defies the capitalist system as it attempts to supersede monetary relations that

holds exchange value over use value. Furthermore, the organization of work in the house also

24
Ibid.
25
Also see Cattaneo&Gavalda (2010) on self-management, self-sufficiency and alternative ways of living of
neorural-urban squatter in Barcelona and Escudero&Collado(2010) on the political and reactionary aspect of it.
26
From a personal note written by one of the residents of CMD, Kike Tudela “CMD: recuperar el común”
Ponencia en Jornadas Recuperem allò Comu, 2/12/11
22
creates another alternative to a profit-seeking mode of production and exploitation of labor 27. The

housework is collectivized and the decisions that concern the house are taken through consensus

democracy making sure everyone gets a say in order to create a self-governing community where

direct democracy and participation constitutes the main principles.

Secondly, the fact that squatting has been chosen as a way to challenge neo-liberal policies that are

shaped under capitalism is another fundamental side of the project. Squatting involves a radical

critique of the market and state policies that pave the way for speculation by making use of

abandoned buildings and refusing to contribute to the mercantilization of land and housing 28. On the

other hand squatting is not only an act of insurgency, but also it displays their creative force and

frees them from legal constraints, bureaucracy and a distant government that decides on their

behalf. Thus, its illegal status gives CMD the freedom to exercise direct action in terms of social

activities, the diverse workshops, gatherings, debates and other projects they want to undertake but

would not be able to do as a ‘legalized social center’ 29. This way squatting becomes a “window

through which a range of opportunities opens up for the development of ideals and projects, without

the need for initial financial capital or the responsibility to comply with external regulations”

(Cattaneo&Gavalda, 2010: 583)

1.2.1. Social transformation through politicization of everyday life

On the other hand, the liberation from outside constraints relates on another level to the definition

encompassing an ‘alternative’ character; “What counts is the communal experiences, alternatives to

what we say on TV, in schools…here there are alternatives in everything, sexuality and all…I get bored

in society, I am searching for experiences and people who also search and share that… To me CMD is

a place of experimentation. It is an open door to come across different experience… Also the idea is to

27
Quoted from interviews
28
Ibid
29
Ibid.
23
situate oneself on the margins, but still I don’t feel excluded or marginalized from ‘the other world’.

Well, ‘the norm’ doesn’t exist for me. I think everyone is unique and one should find his own norm and

that’s a place that you can do this.’” 30 . The above statement of a visitor in CMD connotes to a

freespace where self-realization can take place, sheltered from the outside, the cultural and social

pressure of the society. It can also be substantiated if one looks at the activities taking places in the

social center, the PIC, in CMD 31. From its beginning it is possible to see a wide array of activities

taking place that range from agro-ecology , food sovereignty, consumption, social struggles,

feminism to more new age activities, yoga, dance, women circles, alternative concerts and so on.

Thus it provides a ‘breeding ground’ both for the proliferation of New Social Movements and

promote participatory and inclusive activities that can provide alternatives.

Lastly, squatting highlights direct action, to be able to create a space for collective living and a way of

life that defies capitalism. As a squatter expresses “I want to live in a place, in a more political way

you know. It was because of that. I found that in squatting, I could have done it in another way, you

know, but for my generation and in this context squatting was like a solution to achieve this feeling of

ok I am politisar… I am politicizing my life more, deeply….In Spanish we say poner el cuerpo, to put

your body into the struggle I don’t know how to say it. It is like...saying I want to get more involved, I

want to live that way. You know, I don’t always want to be going out to the city, to the street. Like

going out of my house, I don’t always want to have that feeling that I need to leave my house to

meet people, to do politics” 32. Accordingly, CMD becomes a space of struggle to live a vision of

‘another world’, making the everyday life a site of politics that turns space into a field of opposition

through the daily practices of its users (Certeau, 1984; Katsiaficas, 2006). This way all the ideals that

the new urban social movements support such as horizontal coordination, direct democracy, and

30
Quoted from interviews
31
See the Program of the PIC, http://www.canmasdeu.net/?page_id=905 and the Chronology,
http://www.canmasdeu.net/?page_id=449
32
Quoted from interviews. Also this idea reverberates directly the concept of “integral personality” that
appears repeatedly in Spanish anarchist documents that signifies individuals who not only cerebrally accepted
libertarian principles but tried to practice them. See Bookchin (1994)
24
self-organization become a continuous life practice (Deetz, 1992). Another squatter repeats a similar

ideal, “ You can just sort of start living as if you had a revolution now basically. This to me is an

example of anarchism that people can relate to” 33; which this time adds another dimension to the

idea of direct action; anarchism.

1.2.2. Re-birth of Anarchism

Having no ideology is one of the aspects that many of the residents of CMD insist on. It is the absence

of any kind of ideological labels that is acclaimed as the essential point that eradicates prejudices and

enables access to a diversity of people taking part in the project 34. The fact that the groups that take

part in new social movements avoid consciously labeling the projects ‘anarchist’ is a new

phenomenon; “There are some who take anarchist principles of anti-sectarianism and open-

endedness so seriously that they are sometimes reluctant to call themselves anarchists for that very

reason. But the three essentials running through all manifestations of anarchist ideology are

definitely there. These are anti-statism, anti-capitalism and pre-figurative politics (in other words,

modes of organization that deliberately demonstrate the world you want to create; or, as an

anarchist historian of the revolution in Spain has formulated it, ‘an effort to think of not only the

ideas but the facts of the future itself ‘” (Grubacic, 2004) 35. On the other hand, most of the squatters

identify themselves personally with anarchism and maintain that it is one of the reasons for choosing

to live in a place like CMD; “… it is sort of living in a communal way where the rules are made up here

not in some distant government. The rules I created in this house, the rules of my society, the norms

that I create…”. Another squatter elaborates; “Anarchism is a philosophy of life, it’s a way of seeing

life and the relations between people. It has to do with... the idea of being free and achieve that

33
Ibid.
34
Same discourse can be followed on their website; “…expand the project to other people by break the
pattern of ‘young alternative’ squatters to be able to have a real interaction with the neighborhood”. See
http://www.canmasdeu.net/?page_id=945
35
Also see Epstein (2001)
25
freedom for the rest of the human kind... When we are talking about freedom, we are talking about

being able to construct another world apart from the institutions that we have right now which are

basically state, the church, different churches, religion. Well, the anarchism says that the causes of

the injustice in this world are not natural, they are the product of a bad organization of society and it

looks forward to conquer or to achieve other ways of organizing ourselves. And to relate to future in a

different way, far from authoritarianism, from violence…What I see about anarchism is that it doesn’t

think that a political change will be enough to solve the problems in this world. We need to go deeper

in the change of our things, of ourselves. We really need something new”. All these ideals of anti-

authoritarianism, participation, horizontal organization, decision-making through direct democracy

and consensus, respect for difference, and the goal of unity in diversity; apart from being emergent

properties of the alter-globalization movement (Chesters; 2003), show clear lines of continuity

between the 1968 libertarian movement and repose on a long and rooted history of Spanish

anarchism (Bookchin, 1994).

Spanish anarchism has a lot of influence from Bakunin’s ideals of a collectivist anarchism, embracing

a stateless socialism, absolute individual freedom and self-determination that can only be catered by

economic and social equality, co-operation and mutual aid between equals working for the

emancipation of all through popular organs of self-management (Bakunin, 1972; Peers, 1928 ). A

squatter expresses similar concerns but this time referring to the Zapatista movement; “Create now

and here what we want, for everyone; that’s anarchy ‘Para todos todo’ as Zapatistas say. We must

translate the Zapatista movement into our reality. The idea of autonomy apart from the State and

changing the world without taking power” 36. Besides, this leitmotiv is found nearly in all the ABCs

and the aims of the project that are self-empowerment, replanting communitarian dynamics

impinged by individualism and develop collective experiences beyond the community's life. And it is

possible to claim that these emanate from, a Spanish model of socialist communitarian anarchism,

36
Quoted from interviews
26
subsuming collective self-management in the spheres of economics, politics, and society (Alvarez-

Junco, 1977).

On the other hand, the Bakuninist movement of CNT-FAI(Anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation

of Labor and the Iberian Anarchist Federation) 37, the anarcho-syndicalist revolution of 1936 and the

anarchist movement especially in the Catalan countries have also a great influence on the

emergence of today’s social movements, including the Spanish squatters’ movement that CMD is

part of. The discourses of freedom, liberation, the replacement of the capitalist system by a

decentralized organization and direct action constituted the principles that we can trace even to

CMD 38.

But even before that, in the 1870’s, the anarchist movement gained influence especially in rural

Andalucía and Levante amongst the landless workers who aspired to radically restructure the

capitalist economic and political system, with the goal of creating socioeconomically autarchic and

self-determining individual communities. (Bookchin, 1977; Kaplan, 1975). The Agrarian Andalucían

anarchist ideology gave birth to the formation of utopian communities where, not only the inequality

and material exploitation inherent in capitalist relations of production were critiqued but also an

alternative culture opposing to the fundamental norms and ethics of the society arose.

On the other hand, we should also emphasize the importance of the context of the neighborhood of

CMD that added to the possibilities of emergence of such a space and the continuation of the

movement. Nou Barris is an old working class district that witnessed a wave of immigration in the

1950’s from Andalucia, Galicia and Aragon. Due to the leftist traditions of the workers, during the

37
There is an exhaustive list of academic research done on the Spanish Labor, and the leftist, anarcho-
syndicalist movements. Fort the basic references that give a historical perspective see Smith( 2007) and
Piqueras and Rozalen (2007). And for a detailed work on the division between different fractions of anarchism
and the changing discourses that led eventually a divergence between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ anarchist, that
took shape in Spain and the effect of the Spanish state on the movement see the thesis of Adrian Wilson (2007)
”Decentering Anarchism: Governmentality and Anti-Authoritarian Social Movements in Twentieth-Century
Spain”, submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Master of Arts in the
Department of Geography, Chapel Hill
38
Here we do not argue whether there is an organic connection between CMD or any other political
organization, we are just aiming to exhibit the effects of a political tradition that still reverberates today in
different forms.
27
history of the neighborhood there has been many actions from factory lockouts to house occupations

that cemented the organizational character of the district 39. One of the most important actions is the

occupation of an old asphalt factory through a neighborhood movement in order to create an ateneo

popular, the local leftist clubs and centers that relates the movement to the anarcho-syndicalist

history of Barcelona (Rider, 2002). With this, the neighborhood had its first public equipment; a

meeting place and a cultural center, which in the end was legalized. The already existing tradition of

social struggles is one of the many important contextual elements that facilitates CMD’s presence. It

is also due to this context that CMD survives the first -and the last for now- attempt of eviction,

where the strong support of the neighbors from the vicinity as well as other people around Barcleona

ends up in a 3-day protest that saves the place. The fact that there still is a strong and reciprocal

relation between CMD and the ateneo of Nou Barris reveals the continuing ties and the parallel lines

that two formations follow on an ideological basis.

After all, the unique culture of opposition in Catalonia as well as the long-established anarchist

tradition in Spain, which shared a common refusal of centralized state create the suitable conditions

for the emergence of such a place like CMD. Also, as Martinez ( 2007: 392) argues the squatters’

movement in Spain emerged in parallel to the decline of neighborhood associations around the

1980’s, in a way replacing it, and revived the libertarian ideals of the transition and post-transition

period along with alternative movements, such as anti-militarist, environmentalist, feminist and

counter-information movements that culminated in the alter-globalization movements. Furthermore,

in strong alliance with the anarchist influence, the places that became the substantialization of these

new movements in Catalonia aimed not only a revolution but constituted a way of life; “partly the life

of the Spanish people as it was lived in the closely knit villages of the countryside and the intense

neighborhood life of the working class barrios” (Bookchin; 1994: 10).

39
For the working class history and the actions that took place in the neighborhood see Paz et al. (2003)
28
Finally, we attempted to elaborate on the different possibilities and directions the concept of free

spaces can take through these examples. The influence of the context structure in each case and the

opportunities created within this structure was our main concern to be able to give meaning to the

pluralism and the diversification of the concept in different frameworks. Whether they are

reflections of cultural and identity politics making claims on daily life practices or directly political

assertions on official power – or State - and direct democracy, or maybe even an amalgam of

different features from both, our argument was that they were not extrinsic formations to the

structural arrangements within they develop. On the other hand, the conception of free spaces

cannot solely be explained by the historical and social context encompassing the established societal

forms and connections between the groups and movements. As Polletta argues (1999: 8) “…the free

space concept simply posits a ``space'' wherein [opposition to dominant ideologies] occur, without

specifying how, why, and when certain patterns of relations produce full-scale mobilization rather

than accommodation or unobtrusive resistance”. Although within the same context, apart from the

social structures, we believe that the political opportunities reserve an important place since they

link together the social formations and on the other side, the institutional state policies that shape

the conditions in which free spaces and movements can take place and shed light on the different

patterns of mobilization. For that reason in the next part, we will be analyzing the political

opportunity structures by problematicizing what ‘State’ is for the squatters’ movement and how the

State structure shapes the framework of the movement. Nonetheless, as mentioned in the first

place, we believe that the political opportunity structures are shaped through the development

process of the movements as much as they define the initial conditions. To better illuminate our

thesis, we will base our theory on the welfare state structures and corresponding policies that create

differentiating conditions.

29
 2. Welfare State Structures and the Framing of Free-Spaces

In this part, we will try to elaborate on what kind of socio-political organization, welfare structures,

as designated by Esping Andersen (1989;1990), engender and what is the relation between this

organization and the squatters’ movement’s contextual development. Yet, it is inevitable to touch

upon certain characteristics of welfare state that establish the frame for our two cases and clarify

what aspects of the welfare system we take into account to elucidate our hypothesis. Frequently,

welfare state is assessed by the level of social expenditure devoted to different groups of population

or the whole society (Esping-Andersen, 1990). Furthermore, the level of economic growth, the

modes of production, urbanization and demographic patterns are also taken as indicators of the

welfare state structure as they reveal the consequences of social policies in the system. On the other

hand, another opinion is assessing the class mobilization and the development of the notion of social

citizenship that constitutes one of the core ideas of welfare (Marshall, 1950). Social citizenship

involves the granting of social rights and as Esping-Andersen (1990: 105) asserts the

decommodification of the status of individuals vis-a-vis the market as well as the decomposition of

class positions in terms of citizenship. The incorporation of the notion of citizenship facilitates the

claim of individual or communal rights – depending on the social bonds and the level of individuation

– and combined with decommodification emancipating individual from market pressure, it might

create the suitable conditions for mobilization and solidaristic action.

In this part, we will approach the welfare state from a point of view that takes into account both of

these stands. As Esping- Andersen suggest “the welfare state is not just a mechanism that intervenes

in, and possibly corrects, the structure of inequality; it is, in its own right, a system of stratification. It

actively and directly orders social relations” (ibid: 108). “Welfare states are key institutions in the

structuring of class and the social order. The organizational features of the welfare state help

determine the articulation of social solidarity, divisions of class, and status differentiation” (Esping-

30
Andersen,, 1989: 55). Departing from here, we will assert that the same organization prepares or

hampers the conditions for the emergence of individual as a citizen with rights and for the creation

of social bonds through which individuals might claim these rights, giving birth to social movements.

Consequently, we will focus on the social order, nurturing the notions of ‘individual’ as a citizen and

‘community’, that the welfare state creates, in order to explain the divergence of the squatters’

movement, as part of social movements. Our reference points will be; Christiania (DK) as a

movement whose conditions of emergence are shaped by a Scandinavian liberal-social democratic

welfare state and Can Masdeu (ES) by a conservative state-corporatist one; both incorporating

distinct institutions that create different socio-political and cultural contexts.

2.1. Christiania as the offspring of Danish welfare State

“Christiania is the symbol of Danish liberalism”

A Christianite

The ideal welfare state is assumed to be a body that orders social structure in order to level

inequalities, ensure that each ‘citizen’ gets equal rights and equal share from the system and both

positive and negative effects of policies are socialized. However, as we mentioned in the

introduction, this is not so evident; there are significant variations in the welfare state’s equalizing

and redistributive capacity. Nonetheless, “its effect in Scandinavia is substantial and trend towards

greater equality continues” (Esping-Andersen, 1990:50) or at least it was dedicated to moderate the

inequalities aroused by the (capitalist) economy until the social policies took a turn towards neo-

liberal objectives. But first, we will take a look at the foundation of the welfare State in Denmark,

drawing analogies between the trajectory of Christiania, before getting into the changes brought by

this neo-liberal shift.

31
Danish welfare, being part of the Scandinavian system, is reckoned as a universalistic system that

promotes equality since all citizens are accorded similar rights irrespective of their class or position in

the market. In this sense, basic welfare provisions such as education, health care, social benefits and

pensions, are a citizen’s right defined according to individual needs and financed via collective taxes

(Andersen, 2004). On the grounds that citizenship and needs are taken into account for welfare

provision instead of the economic position of the individual, the Scandinavian welfare is regarded to

have a decommodifiying character (Esping-Andersen&Korpi, 1986-1987). The ideal behind this is to

enhance the capacities for individual independence and minimize the dependence on the family;

however this does not mean that individualization is fostered over community bonds. The rationale is

to support self-sustaining individuals but the welfare of the individual is still the responsibility of the

social collective (Esping-Andersen, 1990) since financial responsibilities are shifted from the

individual to the whole society. Moreover, the decommodifiying character guarantees, unlike the

market, social position of the individual in terms of job, income and general welfare endowing the

freedom to decide when individual can “opt out of work…when they, themselves… deem it necessary

for participating adequately in the social community (ibid.: 107). “In this sense, the system is meant

to cultivate cross-class solidarity, a solidarity of the nation” (Esping-Andersen 1989: 109), considering

that the social policies embrace the entire population, treat diverse social groups impartially and the

welfare is based on the notion of collective social responsibility (Esping-Andersen&Korpi, 1986-1987).

If we take a look back at the core principles of Christiania, the similarities behind the founding ideas

seem quite evident. Christiania in itself provides the welfare for individuals that the community takes

responsibility for, regardless of their social status and aims to create the space for independent self-

realization. The prerequisite to be part of the community is per contra not the notion of citizenship

but a voluntary inclusion to the collective life and taking responsibility for the well-being of the

whole. Decommodification of the individual is already another core principle of Christiania as a free

space from capitalist relationships; in the Freetown an individual’s status is not dependent on his/her

32
rank or economic position but on the inherent human capacity to be part of society. In this manner,

Christiania could be considered as a simulacrum of the Danish welfare state, a different side of it

sharing the same core.

On the other hand, the divergence point between the Freetown and the welfare State is, in

Christiania the provider of welfare is not a supreme entity such as the state that grants its citizens

with rights and social services. Distinctively, the community, with each member’s effort ,creates the

life-world conditions and breaks with the idea of state as a higher organism than the people. On the

other hand, although the Danish welfare state could be taken as “a continuation of an older tradition

for a delicate balance between the individual and the collective” (Christiansen&Petersen, 2001: 180)

it still carries the dichotomy between the notions of ‘the State’ which grants rights and on the other

side ‘the citizens’ that benefit from them. As Andersen indicates, “the universal or Scandinavian

model has the state in a crucial role as supplier of social services” (2004: 744) through a peculiar

fusion of liberalism and socialism. This gives rise to a feeling of the State as a motherly figure that is

not supposed to be upset as a Christianite put into words; “In the end it is state that gives us bread

and butter”. 40

2.1.1. Nation State as the guarantor of Welfare State

In many cases the birth of the welfare state coincides with the process of modernization; the

transformation from agrarian to industrial societies, accompanied by urbanization and by the

dissolution of traditional forms of social bonds and social security (Christiansen&Petersen, 2001).

Modernization also introduces the “modern bureaucracy as a rational, universalist, and efficient form

of organization. It is a means for managing collective goods, but also a center of power and in its own

right, and will thus be inclined to promote its own growth” (Esping-Andersen, 1989: 97). For that

40
Quoted from interviews
33
matter, the nation state appropriates the societal bonds and social security which was once provided

by family, church and guilds but at the same time due to the principle of universalism penetrates in

every pore of the society through its institutions such as schools, bureaucratic organs…etc. In

countries, such as Denmark, where the ‘social democratic’ welfare regime prevailed –meaning that

the dualism between state and market, and between different social classes are avoided - the

principles of universalism and decommodifiying social rights were extended to new middle classes

and rather than an equality of minimal needs, the promotion of the equality of the highest standards

were pursued. As Esping-Andersen suggests “The Scandinavian, or social democratic, model relied

almost entirely on social democracy's capacity to incorporate the middle class in a new kind of

welfare state: one that provided benefits tailored to the tastes and expectations of the middle classes,

but nonetheless retained universalism of rights. Indeed, by expanding social services and public

employment, the welfare state participated directly in manufacturing a middle class instrumentally

devoted to social democracy” (ibid.: 117).

These implied, first, that the welfare state upgraded all the services and benefits, evening out social

differences and creating a homogenized socio-cultural structure. Further, everyone benefited from

the system, so everyone was dependent and obliged to realize economic dues. Therefore, the

Scandinavian social democratic welfare state created a culture of collective social responsibility but

by promoting the middle class culture and way of life as the official state culture; homogenized and

attenuated diversity and differences.

Secondly the welfare system, especially the one in Denmark , as Christiansen and Petersen suggest

cemented a clear class structure in which people could identify themselves both as individual citizens

and as member of larger social collectives; “across conflicting ideologies people regarded these

collectives as the prime agents in the formation of the future social order, and these collectives,

farmers and workers in particular, played an essential role in the formation of political democracy in

Denmark as well as in the construction of the welfare state” (2001: 178). The farmers and workers

34
collectives reserve an important and prominent place also for the Danish modernization rather than

industrial development, as we mentioned in the first chapter as well referring to their character as

one of the building blocks of the Danish socio-cultural context creating the convenient conditions for

the emergence of free spaces along with Christiania. Therewith, the early stages of the Danish

welfare state was lead by the left political parties - Liberals (Venstre) and the Social Liberals (Det

radikale Venstre).

The conception of the welfare did not comprehend only the designation and framing of class

structures nor the provision of social security. Culture was another building block for the social

democratic welfare society. Promoting possibilities of individual freedom and democracy on one

hand, the scientific management or what we could call the social engineering of society through

social reforms was a dominant character of the welfare state that created its own culture.

As all other ideologies, the Social Democrats had their own vision of “ ‘good society’ in which they

harmonized capitalism with social security and social justice”(ibid.: 181). On one hand, the

institutions of the welfare state that replaced family; the solidarity structures such as schools,

daycare for the children and elderly…etc, and all the other provisions that are meant to solve the

societies welfare problems and facilitate living conditions meant total regulation and control of the

state over its citizens from cradle to crave. The omnipresence of the state in every aspect of the

organization of social life engendered the politicization of everyday life or what Habermas calls ‘the

colonization of the life worlds by the system’ (1987). On the other hand, the social engineering and

welfare socio-political policies encapsulated a social democratic urban ‘utopia’ which developed

between planned economy and capitalism. The Scandinavian welfare cities wanted to tell a narrative

underpinned by political interest putting forth an image of “community’s ‘public happiness’ taking

place within the public domain” (Bøggild, 2011: 102). Urban planning became a tool to regulate the

public and private economic interests, ensuring that social engineering was indispensable for

egalitarianism, justice, redistribution and moral foundations of social indignation and solidarity (ibid.)

35
which enforced the power of the welfare state on urban fabric both socio-culturally and physically.

The colonizing effect of the welfare continued to develop through urban fabric via creation of

neighborhoods, communities provided with public intuitions and the requisites of a modern ‘good’

lifestyle via schools, collective launderettes, libraries, sport facilities, kindergartens, shopping

streets…etc, “echoing the social democratic/modernist Zeitgeist of progress, collectivism and

egalitarianism” in Denmark (ibid: 104).

As we discussed in detail before Christiania was a reaction to the imposed middle-class lifestyle and

state’s infiltration in the life-world. The Freetown was a place where those trying to still live and

resist in the in-betweens of the striated landscape of state-regulated Fordist capitalism found a

heaven to oppose its homogenizing effects. Karpantschof (2011: 41) highlights that “the whole

lifestyle in Christiania, not least the obvious use of drugs, was a thorn in the side of traditional

bourgeois virtues of the hard-working, law-abiding, nuclear-family citizen life”. As a Christianite

asserts “The welfare system might not be oppressive in a physical sense, everyone in Denmark is

somehow related to the welfare institutions but I think this one is very much oppressive. It is in every

social institution from family to culture to education … Makes you dependent”. Another one explains

with an analogy “Less homogenous the better; if you know something little about biology you can see

that diversity is good for the species”. With the modern welfare were, urban design comprehended

the idea of functionalist design and standardization that “became synonymous with ‘productivist’

values of freewheeling capitalism or state communism, reducing Man to attachments of the machine

rather than its drivers” (Sadler, 1998: 6). Per contra, with Christiania the ‘actor’ or the individual was

introduced in urban development managed by a strong state apparatus, turning individuals into

clients and consumers. The ‘experimental’ living in Christiania, the freedom that the individual has

along with the self-governed character was a tool against homogenization. But, the Freetown clashed

with the universalist approach of the Danish welfare. Everyone should under normal circumstances

have been equal when it comes to rights and Christiania was creating an exception. Moreover, as

36
several Christianites underlined states cannot accept their power to be challenged, Christiania where

people take their own decisions constitutes a place harder to control. For Christianites this is

“bringing back real democracy ” although still following the ideals of collectivity of the welfare, but as

asserted “The state here, they see themselves as the only collective, so they can’t bear the idea of

another collective” 41. These constitute also the motives behind the state’s policy of ‘normalization’ in

Christiania, which would be “drain[ing] everything that was special about it” 42 , normalizing the

Freetown through cultural and social norms where normal would be synonymous with sameness and

homogeneity that abides by the egalitarian and universalist stand of the welfare state.

Yet, it should not go unnoticed that without the welfare state Christiania would not have found the

circumstances to exist. First, Christiania is not only a place of opposition it is well and truly part of

the same welfare structure. As we elaborated before in the first part, Christiania had the legacy of

historical farmers unions and of the way a political culture and practices were built through these

collectives. The Freetown’s aim was to create a community where individual could be both

him/herself and part of the greater social collective, in parallel with the society that the Danish

welfare structures created. Although seen as antagonists, Christiania and the welfare state are

different facets of the same whole which also finds resonance in the Freetown, “I think this

community has to do with the Danish soul" as to quote the words of a Christianite. The Freetown

could be taken as a much needed and appreciated space that points out what is wrong with the

society and the capitalist consumerist state that is shaped by the welfare state. Not only Christianites

who assert that Danish people have some kind of pride of having such a free space that allows the

existence of difference and diversity but also Rasmussen support that it is a need for society; “You

could say that if you did not have Christiania you would have to invent it. Yet it cannot be done

artificially because Christiania is a living budding life like a green plant between cobblestones. No

laws can create it. But they can crush it. (Omkring Christiania, 1976: 10)”

41
Quoted from interviews
42
İbid.
37
However, in the early 1970 Denmark went through a rapid decline of the welfare (Andersen, 2004).

By then, the demographic profile of Copenhagen city center was dominated by young people “many

of whom were looking for a place to live, and at the same time the municipality implemented an

urban renewal plan that left many houses empty and thus ripe for occupation” (Karpantschof,

2011:39). This fact combined with the international context of the 68’s movement and the youth

revolt against the Vietnam War that increased anti military sentiments; created a ripe moment for

the occupation of the abandoned military barracks in 1971.

2.1.2. State Structure, Parliamentarism and Social Mobilization

In order to better understand the social mobilization processes we should look at the larger picture,

the relation between the welfare state and the civil society and the approach of the state framing the

mobilization processes. Social mobilization requires enough resources for groups as well as a

considerably free environment to be able to get in action. Social, political and cultural structures that

cater for this environment are necessary for the emergence and the perpetuation of the movements,

but they are not extrinsic to welfare state structures. It is denoted that social democratic welfare

states by emancipating the wage earners from market oppression, atomization and stratification

through provision of social rights, income security and elimination of poverty, increases the

capacities of collective action. Moreover, as we just mentioned, the social welfare state’s ideal of

universalism guaranteeing social rights for everyone and the policies that lead to collective social

solidarity and unity, facilitate empowerment of social groups that have the potential to mobilize

themselves (Esping-Andersen 1985a). Moreover, as Heimann (1929) indicated, social rights push

back the frontiers of capitalist power and prerogatives, so a social democratic welfare state

establishes critical power resources for wage earners and, thus strengthens movements; although

paradoxically at the same time it may pursue capitalist policies.

38
The second important point is that, mobilization depends on the ease of access to official decision-

making processes. If groups can have a voice in the political systems, a collective bargaining power or

an influence in the welfare state development, then the participation to politics would more likely to

take conventional methods; such as unions and political parties, NGO’s. Nonetheless, one of the

debates about the welfare state was that whether parliamentary class mobilization would provide

the means to realize the socialist ideals of equality, justice, freedom and solidarity. The social

democratic model cherished the idea that fundamental equality requires economic socialization; “yet

historical experience soon demonstrated that socialization was a goal that could not be pursued

realistically through parliamentarism” (Esping-Andersen, 1990: 95). Even so, in Denmark, the social

democratic movement had the longest history (Matti&Kuhnle, 1986-1987) and the ideal of equality

was believed to be achieved by parliamentarism.

As remarked before, although the social democratic welfare initiated social solidarity, it also

promoted clear class structure in which people could identify themselves as member of larger social

collectives. And due to Denmark’s agricultural history; farmers’ collectives occupied an important

place in the creation of community structures and unity. They were politically articulate and well

organized, shaping the rest of society’s social structures and implemented a historical and deep-

rooted culture of self-determining collectives that advanced democratic skills and direct

participation, much before the accomplishment of the welfare state that lasted until now. Although it

is disputable to label the agricultural social formations under ‘corporatism’, it is possible to say that

they are free and self-governing and pursue a democracy of popular movements or a kind of an

associative democracy (Johansson, 1952). In Denmark, there has been a long tradition of including

the organizations in the political-administrative process, on both the input and the output side and

organizational participation in government is open to a very large number of interest groups (Trope,

2003; Buksti, 1979). Olsen (1981) states that corporatism is conceived as a form of coordination

between state authorities and interest groups and the distinguishing attribute is that the corporatism

39
implies direct representation and participation of interest groups in policy-making. Corporatism as an

institutionalized form of policymaking might be seen as a replacement of representational bodies

such as political parties and parliament in the same way that it entails the delegation of members’

rights to leaders of the established groups (Benjamin, 1980). However, their access is

institutionalized and administered by public institutions. In countries where the state manages

strongly the society with institutions, the two notions of the state and society become synonymous.

In such cases large public sector stands in opposition to an active civil society undermining popular

self- organization and governance (Trägårdh, 2010).

On the other hand, since the very beginning of the foundation of welfare state; “the Social

Democrats realized that the conquest and retention of power required an effort at all levels of society

and in all institutions. In that effort they proved able to build upon and carry on the traditions to

create a democracy that demonstrated a unique capacity for social integration… and, together with

the liberals, gradually contributed to the shaping of a political culture based upon negotiation and

compromise” (Christiansen&Petersen, 2001: 182). So the relation between the associations and the

state has been characterized by cooperation and negotiation than by conflict (Klausen & Selle 1995).

Further, the structure of state institutions created ‘political opportunity structures’ for the individual

by enhancing the individual’s resources for participation by creating new channels (Trope, 2003).

During the initial years of Christiania, it was this approach of the state that avoided physical

confrontation or in the words of a Christianite that “it wouldn’t come knocking down the houses“

allowed the Freetown to thrive, although later on resorting to violence became one of the tools of

the state that occurred hand in hand with the changes in welfare policies.

Besides, a second aspect of the opportunity structures, which is the instability of political alignments,

was more crucial for the inception of Christiania. In line with Tarrow’s arguments suggesting “The

changing fortunes of government and opposition parties, especially when signaling the possibility of

new coalitions emerging, encourage insurgents to try to exercise marginal power and may induce

40
elites to seek support from outside the polity” (Tarrow, 1996: 55); the Freetown was born when a

government was just formed. It was a suitable moment for social movements since the new

government refrained from implicating harsh rules that gave the squatters the chance to explore the

power vacuum. Also, as we acknowledge, the Danish welfare state approached social movements

with a will to negotiate and show compromises making it easier for them to emerge and keep their

autonomy. For Christiania, this was good news since in 1972 various ministries under the social

Democrat government and the likewise social Democrat led municipality of Copenhagen set up a

contact group to negotiate with representatives of the Freetown. Christiania did not by then and

neither now rejects to negotiate with the State; “we don’t accept to be influenced by their ideas on

the other hand we are not stubborn and stupid to not to listen others” as mentioned a Christianite.

This shows where they place the State and themselves in return; maybe not as partners but certainly

as peers.

After all, being part of the democratic culture of farmers’ collectives and the offspring of the leftist

splinter group affiliated with the Student Society (see Chapter 1), Christiania is retaining the tradition

of civil society movements in Denmark. However, evidently, it is representing an insurgent social

movement that diverged from official and conventional ways of political participation. The extension

of state control into what had been previous autonomous spheres of action, such as the collectives

or the infiltration of bureaucracy in corporate forms of interest groups meant the “colonization of the

civil society” (Tonboe, 1988). Consequently, the increased the power of the state on the

management of social change hindered the autonomy of the institutions and politicized news aspects

of social life. Although Christiania shared with social organizations and movements the

aforementioned characteristics of pushing back the frontiers of capitalist power and prerogatives, it

undoubtedly split itself from the official way and adopted a manner against the state’s takeover of

social life and civil society. As raised by a Christianite “Welfare in Denmark was founded against

Russia to prove that communitarianism could be much better under capitalism”; while the accuracy

41
of the statement is disputable, it definitely underlines the will to oppose the capitalist system

reinforced by the welfare state. By the late 1960’s, the cooperativism merged with broader demands

for self-management and autonomy of socio-economic processes and the daily life, recuperating it

from individualistic and consumerist influences (Vieta, 2010). Freetown was also following the same

pattern in its claims.

During the following years in 1970’s and especially after the 1980’s, just like in most places in the

European territory, the neo-liberal shift was also visible in Denmark. According to Torben (2004: 745-

6) “Despite the large public sector and therefore public involvement, fairly liberal policies have been

maintained vis-a-vis business, private property, etc. The Scandinavian welfare model is thus tightly

integrated with a liberal market economy”. Although, this shift in return increased the opportunities

in participation 43 with the support of the state and governance policies that reduced the inequality in

political participation in the 1980’s and 1990’s (Goul Andersen&Hoff, 2001; Trope, 2003) and

increased the partnership with associations.

Contrarily, the dominant opinion that in advanced capitalist nations, the power center of decision-

making was shifting from parliaments to neo-corporatist institutions of interest intermediation

(Shonfield, 1965) was being shared by many Christianites. For many, the welfare in the old sense was

dying and the State was more and more being run by an elite. As a result, the Freetown was seen as a

place to withdraw from parliamentary politics 44 and representative democracy, and implement

direct democracy and consensus instead. Although we should here note that respectively in 1974 and

1978 Christiania put up candidates and got in the city council to be able to carry their demands to the

official policy making platforms. This shows that although representative democracy was a no go

inside Christiania, it incorporated the political system of Denmark and had a complicated relationship

with its political structure. Christiania’s policy was not totally an anti parliamentarist approach but

43
Public participation became a buzzword and almost a new trend in urban governance approaches with neo-
liberal shift. Although it has a variety of controversial aspects, we will not go into them in our work.
44
Nonetheless, not every Christianite agrees in this opinion and still believes in the power of parliamentary
democracy in Denmark although not necessarily for Christiania, Quoted from interviews.
42
more like taking a distance from institutionalized politics. On the other hand, Freetown never ceased

to manifest against the policies of the Danish welfare system. The NATO-army of Christiania

occupying the Danish Radio in 1973, the protests against the entry of Denmark to European Union

and their participation at the UN Social Summit NGO Conference were some memorable occasions

where the Freetown publicly made clear its stance against the policies of the State.

2.1.3. The Not - So - Evident Welfare State and New Social Movements

Just as we acknowledged, in the 1980s, due to the worldwide economic recession, the Scandinavian

social democratic parties have been confronted with serious problems: “the expansion of the welfare

state is no more considered to be self-evident, as before” (Matti&Kuhnle, 1986-1987:38). The 1970’s

and 80’s the welfare provisions were slowly started to be left to the hands of the ‘third sector’ with

the consent of major political parties (Christiansen&Petersen, 2001). Although the liberal and

conservative governments that have been in power from 1982-1993 and again from 2001-2011 have

not seriously challenged the welfare state (Mailand, 2009), Danish policies started following a global

trend in which new discourses of ‘welfare dependency’ introduced concepts such as ‘activating

state’ which promoted the idea that traditional state provided welfare policies and its targeted

beneficiaries should be regulated. In Denmark, it reverberated in form of strict work obligation as a

condition of welfare benefit that showed State’s engagement to transform the established "welfare

regime" into a "workfare regime" (Wohlfahrt, 2003; Christiansen&Petersen, 2001). In parallel with

the regulated labor market policies emerged a discourse of ‘domestic security’, that went in hand in

hand with the new image of the state. This image characterized the state not only by its authoritarian

welfare policies but also as the guarantor of a social order based on control, discipline and

reinvention of social values that usually alludes to conservative political objectives. On the other

hand, another discourse that propelled the self-help and civic engagement that emphasized the

43
‘community’ replacing the state provided welfare. It formulated goals such as strengthening the

power of civil society, promoting active citizenship and extending citizens’ right in political

participation and administrative decision-making. “These discourses and policies in many ways

integrated earlier movement critiques of bureaucratic Keynesianism, and have been successful in

seizing formerly progressive goals and mottos such as ‘self reliance’ and ‘autonomy’ —while

redefining them in a politically regressive, individualized and competitive direction.” (Mayer 2009:

366), transferring the responsibility of welfare to individual and third parties and rendering state into

a moderator co-operating with state-owned, state-controlled as well as private players in order to

achieve common goals.

In the 1990’s cities became the crystallization points of this tendency where ‘neo-liberal

governmentalities’ (Foucault , 1978) shaped by discourses of ‘risk’ (Beck , 1992) and ‘fear’ were

initiating a wave of ‘zero tolerance policing’ of certain groups justifying urban clearance. The

renovation projects that aim to upgrade certain urban areas through ‘revanchist’ city planning

strategies (Smith; 1996, 2001) to ward off the unwanted populations usually took refuge behind

discourses that claim these spaces as ‘outside’ or as a fundamental threat to the social order by

associating them with crime, drugs and misery; creating “territorial stigmatization” (Wacquant, 1999)

and labeled its inhabitants as the reason of the crumbling of welfare state 45. These policies were

advocated as the comeback of social values and urban renaissance by the conservative led

governments and necessary measures to decrease welfare dependency against groups that refuse to

work and take the responsibility of active citizenship. So, welfare control instruments were being

used as disciplinary instruments to establish employability and create communities of ‘law abiding

responsible citizens’ versus opportunist welfare dependents and deviants that are harmful to society.

Although not to such an extent, Denmark was showing similar trends in its new urban policies,

especially in Copenhagen (Greve, 2006; Vagnby&Jensen, 2002; Andersen et al., 2002; Andersen ,

2001) in form of a state-led urban entrepreneurialism(Andersen&Pløger, 2007). The projects

45
Also see Schram, 2006; Tevanian, 2010)
44
included a bridge from Copenhagen to Malmö, a new metro system, expansion of cultural

institutions, neighborhood programs aimed at modernizing the dwellings of the inner cities and

Ørestad Project 46 just to name some, which did not solve the problems “but left the city with its

current symptoms of crisis as well as a set of long-term structural problems, including increasing

segregation and polarization” (Andersen&Winther, 2010: 700). Besides, the Danish active labor-

market policy coupled with the xenophobic policies of a right-wing government coalition and a

weakening hegemony of the state - that gave its signals with the controversies around the EU

membership (1972), the Earthquake Election (1973) and the right-wing Foursome Government

(1982)- has deepened the social divide in larger cities including Copenhagen (Andersen et al., 2008).

Christiania’s relationship with the State that revolved around the issue of ‘legality’ and the ‘rights’ on

space is in fact mirrors these tendencies and the shift in the political discourse that solidified around

the urban question. In its first decade, despite the founding principles challenging the capitalist socio-

economic structure, the supporting welfare institutions and the founding stones of capitalism, which

is the right to property, the Freetown was entitled as an official social experiment in 1973 47 and in

1989 was legalized with an act that granted Freetown the right to collective use of the area. These

were results of the political opportunity structures created by the policies of the social democratic

welfare State that wanted to assert sovereign control both on space and on the inhabitants through

the means of dialogue and enforcement of universal law and social norms. However, in 1990, the

authorities come up with a local plan gave the first signs of a changing welfare discourse and during

the 2000, Christiania’s relation with the city took another dimension under the influence of

globalization process and its common side effects on many big cities. One of the main indicators that

pointed to this neo-liberal shift in mentality was the changing hands of the land property from the

Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Finance with the new act. As a settlement right at the center of

46
Concerning the urban projects that were undertaken since the 1990 see (Majoor, 2008)
47
See Arbejds- og socialministeriet (1973) Redegørelse vedr. arealerne ved Bådsmandsstrædets kaserne og
ammunitionsarsenalet. København: Library of the Ministry of Work and social Policy for a government report
that led the Social Democratic government to grant this status.
45
the city Christiania was preventing the realization of possible urban renovation projects at the district

that would immensely increase its land value. However, for many Christianites this scenario was

exactly what was to be avoided; it was believed that if Christiania was to be demolished it would turn

into what is going on in the nearby are Holmen with the construction of “hotels, condos, conference

halls, just like anywhere else” 48. Moreover, it would indicate a possible gentrification process, as

some of the suggestions involved the construction of mixed housing from condominiums to public

housing which would change the population structure in the area. Further, a Christianite also pointed

that with the architecture school recently moving in the area, it already started attracting the

creative class, revealing the official tendency to homogenize the urbanscape for the benefit of

certain groups. The status of Christiania as a ‘legalized’ settlement was reversed in 2004 when the

parliament made significant changes in the 1989 Christiania law and the communication between

Christiania and the State broke off when the Freetown refused to give up the right to collective use.

Yet, until recently the state came up continuously with demands of population registration to

normalize and legalize Christiania, however the fact that the last approach in 2003 was made on an

individual basis rather than a communal one, attests individualization of State policies and on the

other hand the appraisal of individual claims to property (Thörn, 2011) that marked a shift in neo-

liberal mentality that many Christianites see as a “divide and conquer tactic” 49. But finally in 2011,

the Danish Supreme Court announced Christiania had no right on the area and finally the situation

forced Christiania to sign an agreement with the state that involved the purchase of the area bringing

to an end its ‘squatted settlement’ status.

The process which led to the agreement and the official discourses used meanwhile highlighted

clearly the neo-liberal tendencies. First of all the government organized in 2003 an open competition

for a master plan of the future development of Christianshavn, including Christiania, in accordance

the ‘participative democracy’ discourse promoted as part of the new urban governance perspective,

48
Quoted from interviews
49
Ibid.
46
although it was shelved soon. Secondly, although drugs and crime has always been a recurring issue,

it was since the 2000’s that the effort of the liberal-conservative government following an anti-

terrorism and immigrant policy and tightening security, gave way to discourses that depicted

Christiania appear as an ‘outsider’ associated with urban misery and insecurity (Bøggild, 2011).

Furthermore the law of protection of national patrimony that listed only the military fortifications as

national heritage in Christiania and declared the demolition of self built houses was promoting a

certain official culture above the social, cultural and political values that Christiania constituted. It

proved a shift in mentality when Denmark was more homogeneous in which “collectivism implied

lighed = likeness and equality”(ibid.: 119) to a new discourse of societal cohesiveness and Danishness

and a new representation and construction of identity that nostalgized a golden past against societal

fragmentation/segregation, globalization and post-1968 culture. Finally, the agreement that forced

Christiania to buy the land in 2012 “gives residents control over just over seven hectares of the 32

hectares the commune occupies. In addition to being granted ownership of most of the current

buildings, the commune will also be allowed to construct new buildings. They are also responsible for

the maintenance of the buildings located in Christiania that are still owned by the state” (Christiania

deal is done, 2012). As one of the Christianites clarifies the situation, “Christiania has friends that

made a foundation that has no owners. The Christiania Fond has been allowed to buy all sellable

parts of the area of Christiania. Some parts are not for sale as they are historic landmarks and cannot

be sold by the state. All houses have according to Danish law been offered to the dwellers in common.

Only very few houses has been sold privately that way (about 5-7 smaller houses). The houses that

cannot be sold are hired to the foundation, that hires them out to the dwellers. The normal structure

of Christiania is not, and will not be changed. The city of Copenhagen is happy with the solution, and

has not any plans or possibility to built in Christiania. All in all a good solution. And the new

government is more positive towards us than the old one” 50.This puts an end to its illegal status

without risking the ‘self-management’ of the Freetown but beyond that it most certainly revokes the

50
Quoted a person correspondance with a Christianite after the deal is done.
47
insurgent character against private property, although the ownership will be administered

communally through the Christiania foundation and not individually. The pro and con arguments

that found voice in debates before and after the finalization of the deal showed how the neo-liberal

conservative discourse framed the public opinion. One of the pro arguments stressed the importance

of creativity and cultural identity in global urban competition and as an economical asset as a tourist

attraction – which is also an argument used a lot by Christianites 51; in fact what they meant to say

was that the 1968 cultural values have become part of the consumer society and hence “Christiania

is incredibly important for Copenhagen’s brand internationally” (Mogensen, 2011). On the other hand

many conservatist news papers argued that “the Christianites, in their bid to realize their so-called

freedom, have lived as parasites on other citizens” (Fristadens fremtid, 2011) and the deal brought an

end to an unjust exception although not to a satisfactory extent 52.

After all, Christiania’s interaction with state has been a mix of political praxis and discourses that was

directly linked to the re-scaling the welfare organization. As Bøggild (2011: 120) attests “This shift is

clearer in Denmark where the (neo-)Liberal Party (Venstre) and Conservatives (Det Konservative

Folkeparti) supported by the nationalist Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) have governed for a

decade”. The effort to decrease welfare dependency and “the rise of `glocal’ forms of governance

(Swyngedouw, 1992, 1996) takes place through …systematic exclusion or further disempowerment of

politically and/or economically already weaker social groups… Such exclusive homogenization of

regional spaces erodes diversity and difference in highly oppressive ways. The glocal `entrepreneurial’

or Schumpeterian workfare’ state becomes an `authoritarian’ state” (Swyngedouw, 1996: 1459)

raising security discourses that in cities initiate revanchist movements to re-conquer areas seen as

dangerous and reinstate law, order and cohesion by defining legitimate and illegitimate uses of space

as in the case of Christiania. Strategic urban planning and reconstructed cultural discourses that refer

to a homogenous past deem on the other hand territories outside capitalist market forces as threats.

51
Ibid.
52
See also ‘Leder: En løsning?’ in Jyllands Posten 22.06.11, http://jyllands-
posten.dk/opinion/leder/article2469147.ece,
48
What happened in Christiania reveals the ‘stick and carrot’ strategy of the changing welfare that is

authoritarian in provisions but open to negotiation and co-operation with third parties when it

comes to urban development as well as the intentions such as the protection of fundamental

principle of the property right over universal social justice and equality.

In this way what Christiania stood for as a counter cultural place that challenged the general world

order and capitalist state policies in issues such as anti-war movements, sexual freedom ,a different

working ethic and communal living becomes a place for the renegotiation of the urban,

citizenship/civic engagement and the right to the city.

2.2. Conservative-Corporatist Welfare State and Democratic Movements

Spanish welfare system incorporates elements of what Esping-Andersen (1990) labels a ‘conservative

corporatist’ welfare system, distinctive for its ‘status differentiating’ welfare programs and systems

of income and health care strongly related to employment status and family structures, and the

‘subsidiarity principle’ meaning that the state will only interfere when the family's capacity to service

its members is exhausted. In general literature Spain is included in what is called the Southern

welfare systems that are distinctively ‘mixed systems’, whose constitutive elements are the state, the

family and the church (Ferrera ,1996). The peculiarity of the Spanish welfare is on the other hand lays

in the delay in the construction of the welfare state at the beginning of the 20th century and

particularly in the Spanish Second Republic. However, it mainly originated with Franco's dictatorship

in a paternalistic, authoritarian and residual nature. The institutional welfare state was set up in the

1960’s in order to sustain economically the late industrial modernization of the country and the

demands of a brand new urban middle class (Sanchez de Dios, 2002). The Franco's regime was

characterized by the absence of social groups to have input into the political system, organization of

the whole welfare state according to capitalist accumulation, and a structure that did not permit a

49
redistributive policy (Cabrero, 1989). At the end of the Francoist period in Spain, an inadequate

public financing and the important role of private or non-profit institutions, characterized social

assistance. Due to this uneven and limited redistribution, traditional ‘pre-industrial’ forms of social

solidarity and charitable institutions such as the family and the Church (Rhodes, 1996; Guillén, 1996;

Ferrera, 2005) replaced state’s role in welfare provision.

Nevertheless, during the transition period, there was a consensus among the political parties, trade

unions and other pressure groups on the consolidation of democracy that lead to a ‘negotiated

transition’ (Huntington, 1991) representing the social demands between these groups. The first

element of the consensus was a stabilization plan moderating wages and limiting social spending that

reorganized social security and opened the way toward economic liberalization. As Sanchez de Dios

(2002) asserts, for unions this arrangement gave them a key role as a representative interest group in

political exchange; however, in public eye it was an agreement to demobilize the civil society and

confine the political participation to the electoral arena. Therefore, the consolidation of democracy

did not involve the expansion of participative processes to civil society (Collado & Sánchez, 2008).

After the passage to democracy, and especially after the integration into the European Community in

1986, under socialist Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) government, Spain has followed a

pattern of welfare convergence with the other European countries, especially in terms of the

provision of social services by private and “third sector” organizations (Arriba&Moreno, 2005). On

the other hand, the distribution of costs and benefits of the welfare services has often been under

the “influence of pressure groups and political lobbies rather than principles of equality or equity”

(Rhodes, 1996: 14), showing the traits of a corporatist welfare state. Contrary to the Scandinavian

‘corporatism’ we mentioned before - which meant a political exchange between social partners and a

balance in power relations and involvement of the civil society as an institution in decision-making

processes as an alternative to state domination- in Spain it materialized as “a specific socio-political

process in which organizations representing monopolistic functional interest engage in political

50
exchange with the state-agencies over public policy outputs” (Cawson, 1985: 8). As a result, it

contributed differently to the structuring of state-civil society relation that prepares the conditions

for the emergence of social movements.

The welfare under the socialist government was linked to an agenda of economic modernization that

meant the expansion of market forces and the integration of firms to render Spanish economy more

competitive, which resulted in a process of privatization and a power shift in governance structures

where private institutions took control over policies. On the other hand, structural reforms regarding

the labor market were taking place that was giving way to ‘flexibility’ structures, triggering an

increase in ‘precarious’ forms of work (Rhodes, 1996) with a low rate of membership in unions, thus

less chances of self-organization. This increased under the rule of the conservative government,

since 1996, alongside with the downgrading of the redistributive capacities of the state. (Del Campo

&Ferri, 2001).

The first wave of social movements that take place today carry the legacy of the mass movements

that emerged during the 1960’s, even before such a context of passage to democracy and the

consolidation of a welfare state in Spain, in a way hastening these processes. However, they are not

specific to the Spanish context; they carried common traits with the mass movements that emerged

all over the world that raised demands of a political nature; challenging the institutions of collective

consumption, their provision and the limited options to participate in their design. Hence, they

staked out rights over welfare and civil rights in a mass movement to build a more progressive, a

more democratic society (Mayer, 2009). In Spain these emerged most prominently in form of

‘neighborhood movements’ claiming better public services and the quality of life for working class

neighborhoods by providing cultural and social activities, and protest against economic and social

policies on both municipal and national level, in a period when the labor and student demonstrations

met with severe repression (Castells, 1977). The most common issues articulated by the

neighborhood organizations and movements were housing, schooling, public health, transportation,

51
public urban spaces, improvement of social life in the neighborhood, and political demands (Hipsher,

1996) through collective action such as the manifests in 1973 against the Greater Barcelona Plan and

the Commercial (District) Plan, the general protest in Barcelona against the city council's ‘No to

Catalan’ or the campaign against the high cost of living that led to a boycott in 1975 in Madrid

(Borja, 1977; Castells M, 1978) . On the other hand the movement was important in connecting the

material problems and demands for democratization and social and political liberties through direct

action claiming a right to the city. The neighborhood movement was part of urban social movements

initiated by left-wing activist who argued that the site of class struggle had moved from the

productive to the reproductive sphere (Mayer,2009).

CMD, as a part of squatters’ movement that emerged with the decline of the neighborhood

movements after the passage to democracy (Martinez, 2007; Hipsher, 1996), inherits the same

traditions of neighborhood action revolving around democracy and collective consumption. CMD and

similar community based movements become a new political urban actor, able and ready to

intervene in urban development and politics through “a vibrant infrastructure of progressive

alternative projects” (Mayer, 2009: 364).

One of the main aims of the project CMD that keep coming up through the interviews and the

common discourses is; to recover the social use of the valley and to achieve a node in a network of

people who are willing to create alternatives 53 and neighborhoods as human spaces “which are not

just parking lots, places for people to sleep, work and consume but where social relations count” 54.

The Four Pillars of the project, the Community Gardens (CG), the PIC (Interaction Point of Collserola),

the Communal Life and the Agro-ecological Education, constitute the main elements of CMD as an

important actor in the neighborhood life. PIC frames a meeting place where social activities open to

everyone take place and it serves as a platform for the dissemination of the ideas behind the project.

Apart from the activities, the library of PIC also serves as a place to exchange ideas and experiences

53
Quoted from interviews
54
Kike Tudela “La Vall de CMD y la Prospe”
52
and an information base. In the words of a squatter; “To me it’s really important to have places like

Can Masdeu that people have access to free education in the form of the workshops and free

information of, you know, we got the information about empty houses and putting people in contact

with places. For me it’s making these alternatives accessible and easy” 55. The CG also serve as an

important place of education; “a place where agroecology is practiced as a tool for social

transformation” 56. CG were opened the year after the squatting of the place to meet a specific

demand, to provide self-managed spaces for the district where the associational and communal life

can take place and constitute an important element of the project as a neighborhood movement. CG

constitute a meeting space for learning and mutual support but they also serve as a crucial

equipment for the district and especially for the elderly. As one squatter narrates “And one of the

things that they said really struck me was that before they had their gardens most of these people, of

course are retired, and what happens when you retire from your job…Maybe you start getting

depressed, a bit lost and lonely, so you start taking pills, you start going to the doctor…All of those

people were popping pills, because they lose their sense of…Finally the gardens became available and

they’ve got their gardens suddenly they got something to get up in the morning. They go to their

gardens and get busy, they are healthy because they are working and also they’ve got a new family,

they’ve got a community there. So, they were shouting at the guy from the town council ‘We’re

saving you thousands because we’re not taking our pills anymore!” 57. Moreover, as we mentioned

before, CMD serves as an important database for empty buildings in Barcelona, which aims to

provide a solution for the severe housing situation 58, especially for young people and immigrants.

Accordingly, CMD takes part in a social movement connected to ‘old’ movements over political and

welfare issues that were put back in the agenda, such as private property, housing and social-

collectivist institutions (Mayer, 2010). So in this sense, it belongs to “social welfare movements...

55
Quoted from interviews
56
Kike Tudela “CMD: recuperar el común” Ponencia en Jornadas Recuperem allò Comu, 2/12/11
57
Quoted from interviews
58
For more information on the housing situation see Allen et. al ( 2004)
53
constituting collective activity, consumption and/or control of important services, and/or the meeting

of individual, household or group needs and aspirations... and is likely to include... direct participation

from the grass roots” (Harrison&Reeve, 2002: 757). As it combines activism around collective

consumption with struggles for community culture and political self-management, CMD could be

classified as an urban social movement “capable of transforming urban meanings, and to produce a

city organized on the basis of use values, autonomous local cultures and decentralized participatory

democracy” (Castells, 1983: 319-320). According to a squatter, “the social function of CMD for me is

even above our right to live here, yes I have it pretty clear. (...) I've always had that story, I think the

squatting has to fulfill a social function, I think so." 59

2.2.1. Neo-liberalization of the Welfare and the New Social Movements as an Urban
Claim

“Now people need to be brave which is starting the difference. You know what is going
on, you acknowledge…then what are you gonna do? Are you gonna stay at home, are
you gonna squat or make a strike, or create a cooperative or what kind of life do you
wanna, we wanna live? Now that you know that you won’t be able to live the life of your
parents, of our parents. Because all of our generation had… our grandparents worked
really hard under the dictatorship, our parents work hard but they have this kind of same
job for the rest of their lives…Even I am talking about, working in a factory or as a
teacher… They found their jobs and they have been working there for all their lives.
Because the labor market was like that but since 15 years ago that situation started to
change. And it has been slow process in which people realize now, come on, I am not
gonna be able to live that life. I am gonna be more poor than my parents” 60.

This statement reflects the changes in the Spanish welfare that is one of the motivating factors

behind CMD as a movement that aims social transformation. However, the modes of achieving this

59
Quoted in Escudero (2012: 162)
60
Quoted from interviews
54
goal lies in the socio-political context that shapes the social movements that CMD is part of. The

eradication of the Spanish welfare that became more evident since the 1990’s under the right-wing

Partido Popular (PP) continues during the socialist governance of PSOE that cannot dissociate itself

from the modernization program of the late 1950’s premised on the deepening of “Spain’s existing

‘specializations’ in tourism, property development and construction, as ‘competitive advantages’

neatly adapted to the new approaches of the emerging global economy, i.e. high capital mobility and

growing competition to capture financial incomes…without any significant support from industrial

expansion”(López & Rodríguez, 2011: 7-8). Furthermore, the ongoing effects of the Francoist regime

that intensified the geographical mobility of the population and an uncontrolled urbanization process

exacerbated by the local policies of the Autonomous Communities that operate as “growth machines

in competition with each other…[that] have become boosters of their localities, the main advertisers

of the miraculous benefits for the entire class of investors, flowing from often disproportionate or

poorly planned growth” (ibid.: 26). These state policies ending up in the collapse of the financial

property development, and the reforms in public services and labor, engendered a highly polarized

social order, with a large population dependent on public services that are on the way to

privatization. With the increasing precarious working conditions and the dissolution of the tradition

family structure that replaces state provided welfare, proper conditions for the emergence of

popular movements, mainly in big cities where the effects of these changes are felt the most, arose.

On the other hand, after 2004, the socialist PSOE government has taken actions that satisfied the

demands of the new social movements, such as withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, the

cancellation of the highly- opposed National Hydrological Plan and the legalization of same-sex

marriages, changing in this way the available structure of political opportunities (Karamichas, 2007).

CMD as an emerging action in such a context puts forth claims that revolve around the

transformation of the changing welfare conditions and their reflections that are most apparent on

the ‘urbanity’. As they assert, CMD is “... an enclave of life that resists the rhythm of the seasons,

55
from the mountains northwest of Barcelona, the voracity of a city that wants to be infinite. Challenge

to the world of money, smoke and ordinances, noise, speed ... Our response to the world that is the

destroyer of dreams, creator of discomfort, the world where we live. A proposal of an establishment

of a permanent collective, social cooperation, intergenerational coexistence, to dare to be, want to

live. CMD is an inevitable event” 61. In most of the discourses CMD sustain a stance against the

consumer society and the urban model that exploits and commodifies nature in detriment of an

equalitarian and sustainable model. The location of the house right at the border of Barcelona but in

nature on the mountain of Collserola becomes a crucial and repeated element in most of the

interviews as an asset that help CMD make its point of creating a new way of life placed and raised

in the city but on that transforms it. Hence, the ‘ruralization’; the fusion of rural and urban; the

creation of a self-organized ‘agroecosystem’ – as they repeat in almost all discourses – that feeds

itself from the social and cultural potential of the city without losing the sight of a collective-

communitarian vision that comes from the rural character ,becomes the main point of opposition to

the current form of urbanity that is a result of neo-liberal/capitalist policies. This is clearer when we

look at the events organized in CMD and the workshops and actions they partake; events organized

on the issues of living in rural areas, anti-industrial development, metropolization and social conflict

arising from the capitalization of natural areas 62, manifestation against the National Hydroelectric

Plan, urban gardening in the community garden ‘Xino’ in the neighborhood of Raval and co-

organization of the ‘Campaign against Europe of Capital and War’ and the ‘Forum of Culture’ in 2004,

just to name some.

Another aspect that is frequently underlined by CMD is the social transformation that will come from

the grassroots against the urban speculation and neo-liberal policies that take place in the city; “Five

months ago we started this project with the intention of recovering the social use of an agroforestal

space which until 40 years ago was full of orchards, neighbors, farmers and water sources. If we

61
http://www.canmasdeu.net/
62
See http://www.canmasdeu.net/?page_id=449
56
decide to resist as we are doing, it is to denounce the irresponsibility of governments and financial

institutions involved and show the hypocrisy of their speech. For the effects of neoliberal dictatorship

there is no need to far; 300 meters from Can Masdeu people live in buildings higher than 15 floors,

while the ones pulling the strings deprive us of such an essential human right, such as the right to

locality and an ecologically and socially balanced and sustainable environment. Clos appeared in the

media in Porto Alegre smiling, supposedly committed to the struggle of social movements and now

offers its mediation to help resolve the situation in which we find ourselves: Mr. Clos, you do not have

to mediate, the city council is the co-owner and has the solution. The administration has to commit

to agree on a development project for the Valley, with the neighborhood associations, environmental

organizations and civil society in general. If the council is committed to preserving this natural space

and citizens, the situation will be resolve; if the council considers only economic power and no one

wants to negotiate with us, we will resist until we have strength. Ours is a political struggle, social

and ecological, not just a squat. We cannot afford the ruin of one of the last natural areas we have

left, we have to stop speculation, we cannot continue to close public land with fences without

impunity so that a few well-off benefit; the land belongs to the people and the people will return" 63.

This statement by itself is sufficient to reveal what CMD stands for as an urban movement against

the neo-liberal form of urbanization and as part of mass mobilizations that took place in Barcelona at

the time. Likewise the defense action of the valley against the ’16 Gates of Collserola’ project opened

up to competition by the City Council and the active part CMD underlines the same intentions. CMD

resists the privatization and transformation of the city through an uncontrollable urban growth that

undermines nature and stands for a participatory project that would improve free public spaces

through public management and organization 64. This also indicates to the link between CMD and the

environmental movement in Spain that confronted the discourse of economic modernization and the

63
Communication of the inhabitants of Can Masdeu;
madrid.indymedia.org/slash/articles/02/05/02/195232.shtml
64
The plan anticipated the construction of a tunnel, luxury residential complexes as well as a ‘cleaning up’ of
the neighborhoods. http://www.canmasdeu.net/?page_id=615 and
http://www.canmasdeu.net/?page_id=1005
57
(neo) liberal economic policies under an organizational identity that would emphasize autonomy and

democracy from below rather than being placed under political parties (Collado , 2005).

Eventually, CMD exemplifies social movements that are designed to protect and enhance people’s

‘life-spaces (Tarrow, 1998) at a time when economies globalize and politics localize. Their claims

indicate to the changes in welfare capitalism and the structural contradictions of late-capitalist

societies that crystallize in urban forms and fragment social, economic, and environmental resources

in the name of enduring economic policies. These movements “challenge the forms, goals and effects

of corporate urban development, they fight the commercialization of public space, the intensification

of surveillance and policing of urban space, the entrepreneurial ways in which cities market

themselves in the global competition, as well as the concomitant neglect of neighborhoods falling by

the wayside of these forms of growth politics. Another fault line sparks mobilizations against the

neoliberalization of social and labor market policies, against the dismantling of the welfare state, and

for social and environmental justice” (Mayer, 2010: 366). They demand global justice on a local level

where they confront welfare cuts and social rights in alliance with anarchist, autonomous, leftist

groups in a regional and global network. They claim a right to the city and how a city should be; as

Marcuse (2009:193) describes “…it is multiple rights that are incorporated here: not just one, not just

a right to public space, or a right to information and transparency in government, or a right to access

to the center, or a right to this service or that, but the right to a totality, a complexity, in which each

of the parts is part of a single whole to which the right is demanded.” CMD fits perfectly into this

profile; it seeks to influence public policy and to put the users of the ‘urban’ instead of the private

parties at the center of the decisions that should pursue social equity and justice. Also, it could be

asserted that all through these actions, a universal provision of welfare which is not demanded

anymore from the state or through a political agenda is sought by empowering people and giving

them chances to provide it collectively.

58
 Conclusion

Social, political and cultural contexts have to a great extent shape the framework in which squatters’

movement maneuver. The claims, main goals and the issues that the insurgent groups challenge alter

according to the opportunities created by these structures. Further, the cultural tradition that

sustains social movements depends upon the socio-political and economical structures that the

welfare state systems conceive. Therefore, the social and spatial forms, which we referred as free-

spaces in this work, diversify as a result of the relations they establish with these contextual

structures. Free-spaces as heavens of isolation and protection from hegemony and dominant

ideologies create conditions for community or movement formations that are liberated from control,

where demands and alternatives to institutionalized understandings of politics that exclude issues

and identities can spring to life and thrive.

Christiania, constitute a freespace which is a fruit of the Danish liberalism. It manifests traits of

traditional folk high schools and farmers’ collectives where people lived and learnt community life

and State-making in from of popular self-management. On the other hand, the Danish welfare

structure founded by social democrat policies, fostering the idea of universal equality and hence

determined to even out differences, creates at the same time the grounding principles of Christiania

and concurrently the foremost aspect that it confronts. Primarily, the Danish welfare idealized the

enhancement of the capacities for individual independence. Besides, the principal of equality

entailed the idea of an individual as the responsibility of the collective; however, it condemned

difference and engendered homogenization. Christiania’s raison d’être originates from a need for a

room for free play where individual can claim a right to difference against the social structure of

welfare that filters into every pore of the life-world of the individual with its institutions. As a

freespace, it aims to create an alternative to the uniformity. Still, it is the presence of a political

59
culture based upon negotiation and compromise that accommodates the springing of an insurgent

element emanating within the same structure.

Nevertheless, the equalitarian character of the welfare that pursues social justice does not

contravene with capitalism. Danish welfare sustains liberal policies that increasingly converge with a

global trend. Christiania, also stands for an alternative against the capitalist system. It roots from the

60’s libertarian movements and the ideals of a ‘new society’ that it also shares in common with Can

Masdeu. However, Christiania does not harbor any pretense on the transformation of the whole

society; it rather chooses to create an autonomous alternative through the restructuring of every-day

life worlds at the margins of the system. The principles of self-management, direct participation or

politicized self-help target in the case of Christiania prior developments in welfare systems, state

assistance and management practices, and in surveillance or regulation. Moreover, it challenges

implicitly bureaucratized or professionalized service provision systems that have ‘colonized’ people’s

life-worlds.

As for Can Masdeu, it represents the ideals of a later period when social movements display hybrid

forms, although still rooting from the same libertarian movements but with stronger counterclaims

on capitalist power relations. Contrary to the liberal welfare system in Denmark, Spain’s welfare

institutions are result of the Francoist dictatorship that aspires after the belated erection of a

market-led liberal economy. However, long-time leftist governments pursue liberalist and

progressive policies in terms of social structures that render the assertion of social claims and

popular movements possible. Further, the delay of the emergence of social movements, or rather a

perturbation caused by the dictatorship, results in the amalgam of the movements with alter-global

insurgencies. Combined with the anarchist political tradition that denied to seize power or to see the

state as the locus of social change and dismissed social democracy as authoritarian; new movements

rejecting traditional political ideologies and in return seeking democratic organization, direct action

and a self- managed communal way of living revived.

60
In the 1980’s conservative-liberals take over in Denmark, and Spain follows in the 90’s with a right-

wing government that hastens neo-liberal takeover; indicating maybe not to a total convergence but

to the reduction of the gap between different welfare systems . In both places neo-corporatism, in

which the power balance shifts towards the benefit of private interests and the markets arises. And

its side-effects become prominent in new forms of urban governance and restructuring of cities

where urbanization stands for a transformation of society and everyday life through capital.

However, in Spain the eradication of the welfare becomes more conspicuous with reforms that

implement labor flexibility and decreases social provisions. Consequently, strong structures that used

to replace welfare, such as the family, disintegrate creating an apparent precariousness. The

accelerated and uncontrolled urbanization adds up to this and social movements turn towards urban

issues. Can Masdeu exemplifies a hybrid movement that roots on one hand from counter-

hegemonic ideals coming from longstanding community institutions that target both the state,

capitalism and class structures and on the other new global social justice movements that operates

on an transnational level through international networks. Although both sides can be taken as social

welfare movements that opposes objective inequalities and deprivations and demand equal

redistribution through social and political action; the latter shows a further ramification and

internationalization in terms of social and cultural demands and localization in terms of action. Can

Masdeu is part of such social movements through which global capitalism is contested with a

multiplicity of struggles rather than identification with a single party or ideology. In addition, this

opposition solidifies the most in urban and a moral claim founded on fundamental principles of

justice and right to the city; in their will to create an alternative to capitalist form that commodifies

and privatizes public spaces, common goods and most of all nature. As a rurban project, it presents

an alternative where sectors of everyday life are free of capitalist forms, operating within the same

system but not dominated by it and that aims to transform it. Anti-authoritarianism, direct

61
democracy, autonomous management and social regulation of collective consumption constitute its

main pillars.

Besides, collectivism in this case aims a social transformation for all, for the rest of the society; that

makes the relation with the neighborhood and the city essential. In addition, it relates to the

disillusion with conventional politics that attributes collective living a social function; which aims to

prove that a social change not based on the pursuit of hegemony is possible. In the end Can Masdeu

is a space of direct democracy, common living, solidarity and formation of a social citizenship that

challenges the capitalist system and its institutions, just like Christiania, through the emancipation of

the daily life.

Finally, it is possible to state that the forms that the squatters’ movement take and the free-spaces it

aspires is linked to the idea of the State; how central a role it should play and which areas of life it

should be responsible for. The variation of the movement in different contexts is likely to be

contingent on specific material conditions of a society, the welfare practices, the cultural, identity

and solidarity trends and ongoing political engagement opportunities. After all, in both cases, free-

spaces stand as means to self-management, autonomy, a radically new and different form of

citizenship and direct democracy without claims on institutionalized power. Both Christiania and Can

Masdeu embody spaces of collective resistance where the process of revision can begin in order to

create alternatives.

62
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(pp 12-20). Berlin: FU Berlin, John F. Kennedy-Institute.
 Web Pages:

infosquat.squat.net/msg00160.html
virtualglobetrotting.com/map/thylejren-camp-thy
www.123hjemmeside.dk/thylejren/20987098
www.canmasdeu.net
www.christiania.org
www.isleofwightfestival.com
www.woodstock.com/themusic.php
Appendix A:

Picture 1: Existing Structures in Christiani. Source: Personal

Archive

Picture 2: Galleries and concert halls. Source: Personal Archive

Picture 3:Self built houses. Source: Personal Archive
Picture 4: From Christiania’s 40th Birthday Celebrations. Source:
Personal Archive
Appendix B:

Picture 5: Can Masdeu,the hostpital building and part of Community Gardens

seen from the valley. Source: Personal Archive
Picture 6: Community Gardens on an open-house Sunday. Source: Personal
Archive

Picture 7: Bike Washing machine. Source: Personal Archive

Picture 8: Herbarium, Showers and compost latrines. Source:
Personal Archive
Picture 9: Workshops. Source: Personal Archive