the tale of two squats - strategies against illegality in amsterdam

Olcay Çat – The Tale of Two Squats: Strategies Against Illegality in Amsterdam

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The Tale of Two Squats:

Strategies Against Illegality in Amsterdam

Master’s Thesis in Sociology Track: Urban Sociology

July 2014 Olcay Çat

Student Number: 10635998 [email protected]

Supervisor 1: Dr. Walter Nicholls Supervisor 2: Freek Janssens

mailto:[email protected]


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Acknowledgements

I owe my gratitude to my first supervisor, Dr. Walter Nicholls, for pointing me in the right

direction whenever I lost my way. My ideas were floating in the air when I first started with

the proposal of this thesis, and he was there to answer my questions without delay. Thanks to

him I was able to focus my ideas in a very short time. Having such an excellent guidance was

the first thing which helped me keep my mind even in the most stressful stages of this

research.

I would like to thank Dr. Justus Uitermark for helping me with my field access. That was a

critical part of this research; without him, finishing this thesis in time would be very difficult

if not impossible. I also appreciate his helpful comments when I needed them.

All my friends from the thesis seminar deserve credit, especially Sven Maureau and Francesca

Palamidessi. They did not shy away from being critical on my proposal; thanks to them, the

proposal served as a good guideline in the research.

A huge thanks goes to Eline de Smet for taking her time to explain many things that I did not

understand due to language complications. She never turned me down when I needed help

with new developments and ensured that I was updated. I could not hope for better assistance

on the field.

Without my respondents and all the people who participated in my research, writing this

thesis would not be possible. Despite the fact that they are living their harshest times they

made time for me and they were always patient with me when I asked too many questions. I

hope to live up to their efforts and their trust in me while doing this research.

There are times when we think that we are out of options, and the paths forward are unknown

to us. I felt the fear of not being able to succeed more than once and it really took its toll on

me emotionally. My final thanks go to my mother for telling me that there is no way I can let

her down, and Gamze Kantarcıoğlu for being there for me when I needed her. It was your

support that has kept me going even when I was going through the worst of everything.


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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction 4

A) Research Problem & Overview 4

B) Research Questions 6

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework 8

A) Types of Squatting 8

B) Law as a Social Activity 10

C) Urban Entrepreneurialism and the Creative City Paradigm 10

D) Neoliberal Citizenship and the Strategy of Identification 17

E) Literature Gap 19

Chapter 3: Methods 21

A) Operationalization 21

B) Data acquisition 22

C) Data Processing 25

D) Field Access 26

E) Ethical Considerations 28

F) Limitations 28

Chapter 4: Historical / Present Context 30

A) The Rise And Dissolution Of A Movement 30

B) Legal Context 34

Chapter 5: The Tale of Two Squats 36

A) Midwich 36

A1) Relationship With Authorities / Legal Situation 37

A2) Discursive Strategies 43

A3) Mobilization Strategies 50

B) Brookhaven 51

B1) Relationship With Authorities / Legal Situation 52

B2) Discursive Strategies 60

B3) Mobilization Strategies 66

Chapter 6: Conclusion 74

References 78


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Chapter 1 : Introduction

A) Research Problem & Overview

Europe has a significant history of urban squatting. Most basically defined as inhabiting in or

using a dwelling without its owner’s approval, urban squatting is taking buildings in the city

(unlike squatting in vacant land), and it involves intentions of long-term use. Squatting

establishes itself as an autonomous act by staying relatively clear from both the state and the

market when housing is considered (Chatterton, 2002; Pruijt, 2013). Squatters create their

own spaces for housing and other activities by bypassing private property rights and state

housing/planning policies. While this aspect of squatting makes it political, not all squatting is

necessarily practiced with political purposes. Nevertheless, this defiance of individual rights

to private property may lead squatters to be targeted by state repression, while some squats

may be a part of the new social movements which are integrated into the neoliberal project

(Mayer, 2013a). In other words, the state actively banishes certain squatters while

simultaneously facilitating the continued existence of other squatters in the city. This

interesting difference calls for an explanation.

Urban squatting is being practiced in many European countries like Spain, Italy, England,

Greece and recently Turkey. The Netherlands is also a country in which squatting is being

practiced; it also has a rich squatting history, particularly because of its previous

political/legal context. Pruijt (2013) makes a good remark which summarizes squatting in the

Netherlands:

“The Netherlands can be seen as a real-life laboratory that offered activists ample

opportunity to explore what is possible in squatting. This is because affordable

housing shortages were persistent, while between 1971 and 2010 it was possible to

squat without breaking the law.”(p.3)

There was a legal basis for squatting in the Netherlands which made possible for squatters to

occupy vacant buildings without immediate threat of eviction. This has led to a flourishing

squatting movement in The Netherlands during the years, which had a wide repertoire of

strategies in order to squat buildings and keep them for long-term. These included pre-

squatting strategies like doing research on the building to figure out the length of vacancy,

having people with expertise on locks, consulting in Squatting Information Hours (KSU); and

post-squatting strategies like doing maintenance in order not to give the owner enough reason

to call for eviction, engaging in dialogue with authorities or building a legal defense in court.


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Sometimes these strategies could also take a violent turn, like barricading, rioting or

intimidation. The squatting movement in The Netherlands has seen its rise and fall in the

second half of the 20th century. During this time, the movement fragmented into different

aims. The relationship of the movement with the government differed according to these

motivations. Over time, squatting with radical political agenda gradually declined, while the

cultural/artistic part of the movement found itself in a better opportunity structure compared

to other frames and fractions of the movement. The changing political economy of cities

resulted in some squats being viewed as an asset rather than a threat, squats which add value

to the cultural economy of the city notably among them (Uitermark, 2004b).

In the last two decades, squatting became less popular in the Netherlands. Private property

rights increasingly came to the foreground, as new strategies were developed for keeping

squatters at bay. This was done primarily by limiting the legal rights of squatters by the state.

Property owners also had more incentive to press for quicker evictions because of a real estate

market on the rise (Pruijt, 2004). A cunning way of repelling squatters was the development

of an “anti-squat” industry. The purpose of “anti-squat” agencies is to arrange short-term

rental contracts which offers very limited rights to tenants so that the property is kept

occupied but also can be cleared quickly, without any hassle to the owner (Mayer, 2013a). In

October 2010, a nation-wide squatting ban entered into force, rendering squatting a criminal

activity. While all squats became illegalized in the Netherlands, some squats still seize

opportunities and create a space for themselves in this hostile legal context.

The purpose of this study is to examine the survival strategies of squatters after the

criminalisation of squatting in 2010. This research argues that illegality is implemented

unevenly between cultural squats and political squats. This uneven implementation is in the

form of difference in criminalisation. Different levels of criminalisation results in a different

set of survival strategies in these two types. First, the research will inquire the extent of the

enforcement of the squatting ban. Mainly drawing on the entrepreneurial and creative city

literature, the research will test whether if illegality is unevenly implemented between squats

which have economic contribution to the city and those who do not. In other words, the

research looks for differences in the criminalisation of squats by comparing different forms of

squatting. The assertion of economic contribution is mostly done by referring to their role in

improvement to the city’s creative image and creative economy. While making such

arguments may help establish a good relationship with authorities, having priority on

neighborhood community and engaging in political activism elicits hostile approaches by


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local and national governments. Second, the research will examine the kinds of discourses the

squats strategically adopt in order to increase their chances of survival. The discursive

position a squat takes can prove to be key to the impression they give to both the authorities

and to the public, which in return effects their chances of continuation. Third and finally, the

research aims to explain how squats actively campaign in order to gain public support, get

attention or gather resources. Being illegal political subjects makes it difficult for squatters to

make claims from the government and have a voice in public. In order to be taken seriously as

a group, they may need to mobilize support and take action to draw attention to themselves.

This research will compare two squats in Amsterdam. One of these squats, Midwich, is

inhabited by artists and has its origins in the cultural fraction of the Amsterdam squatting

movement. This is particularly important since it gives them the opportunity to identify with

Amsterdam’s creative city agenda. The other one, Brookhaven, also offers cultural services

but also acts as a social center engaging in political activism and being part of an activist

network. While Brookhaven is far from the radicalism of political squats in 1980s, they are

not reluctant to be contentious when they think it is necessary, and they retain their subversive

identity.

This study confirms the general literature on squatting by affirming that squats are subject to

increasing hostility by the state with an agenda of creating space for the generation of

economic wealth. Moreover, this research contributes to the literature by taking this argument

one step further and asserts that this hostility is selective; the state tolerates and helps squats

which serve a desirable function in generating economic value, while specifically targeting

those which are contentious by disposition and have secondary or no interest in generating or

facilitating the generation of economic capital.

B) Research Questions

The research, then, is interested in the puzzle of how some squats remain in a better position

regarding the squatting ban, therefore employ a different repertoire of strategies to cope with

criminalisation.

The purposes discussed above lead this thesis to address the question below:

What are the strategies employed by squatters to keep their space in the city when they are

rendered illegal?

This main question will be answered by expanding it to the following sub-questions:


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- How does the enforcement of the squatting ban vary among different types of

squats?

- What are the discursive strategies of squatters in a legally hostile context?

- What are the mobilization strategies of squatters in a legally hostile context?

To answer these questions, a theoretical framework will be set by reviewing a relevant body

of literature in the second chapter. In the third chapter, employed research methods will be

discussed. Chapter four will give a short historical account to explain the divide of the

Amsterdam squatting movement into different agendas, while also providing information

about the current legal context. The fifth chapter will lay out findings of the research and

allow the comparison of the empirical data. The sixth and the final chapter is reserved for

conclusions.


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Chapter 2 : THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter will review key insights from various bodies of literature to address theory. The

chapter will discuss theory under four main parts: a typology of squatting, law as a social

activity, urban entrepreneurialism/creative city paradigm and the strategy of identification.

The first part will give a descriptive framework of squatting by breaking it down into distinct

types. The second part will inquire the uneven application of law by briefly canvassing a

theoretical point of view which regards law as a social activity. The third part will explore

theory on urban entrepreneurialism and the emerging creative city theory as a result of

neoliberal urbanism and how this sort of urban governance effects urban social movements,

which the squatters are a part of. The fourth part will address the concept of neoliberal

citizenship and how marginalized populations use the strategy of identification to survive and

thrive in inhospitable contexts.

A) Types of Squatting

Urban squatting, as squatting on terrain, is an act of ‘adverse possession’ (Katz, 2008). The

use right of the property is claimed by someone else other than the owner; once a property is

squatted, the squatter has a variety of choices on what to do with it. Although the first purpose

which comes to mind is fulfilling the need of housing, that is only one of the reasons why

squatting takes place, for there are other factors as well. The most detailed typology of

squatting is compiled by Hans Pruijt (2013): he explains the diversity in squatting by listing

five configurations. These are: deprivation based squatting, squatting as an alternative housing

strategy, entrepreneurial squatting, conservational squatting and political squatting.

Deprivation based urban squatting is done by the urban poor who have very limited options

when finding a dwelling is considered. Working class people with very low income, socially

disadvantaged people, immigrants with little economic and social capital can be named as

deprivation based urban squatters. This configuration involves minimum choice, it is done

because of a desperate need of housing. However, this does not mean that deprivation based

squatters are alone in this attempt. They may get help from activists who have experience in

squatting and who can guide them through this process. Squatted houses are may be in

derelict condition, but squatters with housing deprivation take whatever they can get.

Squatting as an alternative housing strategy is the second configuration in which the priority

is housing. Unlike the previous configuration, the need of finding shelter is not immediate,

and squatters have other choices. Squatting is merely an alternative to renting. This type can


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apply to young people with middle-class origins who are usually unmarried and have no

children and who choose to spend money on other things rather than paying rent. Therefore,

they avoid the stigmatization that comes along with the previous configuration. While people

who squat as an alternative housing strategy can get help from experienced squatters, this help

is less needed than it is with squatters who have immediate need of housing. Quality of

dwellings are average and can even be very good, since they make good alternatives to be

chosen over renting a house.

Entrepreneurial squatting, the third type, has different motivations. Here, the main purpose is

not housing, but creating a space for small business or social activities. Squatters take a

building and open it for public, turning it into a social/cultural center or a workspace. Squats

which operate as artist workshops, restaurants, theaters and alike are part of this

configuration. While these squats can run more or less like any other establishment, it needs

modest amounts of resources to sustain itself and it does not have to deal with bureaucracy.

Conservational squatting has one fundamental aim: to protect a building or an area from being

transformed. Squats which fit into this configuration occupy buildings so that the building

cannot be demolished or a renewal project on the area cannot start or continue. Conservational

squatting can also be done to preserve the social functions of buildings against gentrification.

Political squatting, the last configuration, applies to people who are involved in squatting for

neither entrepreneurial nor housing purposes; for them, challenging state power or the

political system is the first reason. Squatting is not an end in itself but a way of challenging

authority and disrupting order. By squatting buildings, these activists can reflect their critique

on housing policy of the government or act against real-estate speculation. While it also

serves the purpose of housing, squatters with political motivations are more interested in

having an impact on status-quo power relations.

While Pruijt’s typology gives us a good understanding of how squatting can be categorized

according to the diversity of incentives and interests, this thesis highlights that the categories

discussed above are ideal types. The cases studied in this thesis show that squats can have a

combination of motivations as their reason of existence. In fact, even individual squatters

within the same squatting action may differ in motivation, or the degree of their dedication at

least. One of the main arguments of this thesis is that different combinations of squatting

types result in differences in enforcement of illegality. A certain theoretical insight on law is

needed, however, to make this argument.


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B) Law as a Social Activity

As stated before, although an all encompassing squatting ban entered into force in 2010 in the

Netherlands, it is possible to observe that squatting is still possible and many squats continue

to exist. Moreover, existing squats are not effected from this criminalisation on an equal level.

What is true for all squats which are not secured beforehand, however, is the uncertainty of

their future situation. With the new law, squatters seem to be stuck in a legal limbo. When I

was interviewing a squatter, the issue of residence address registration came up. I asked her to

what address she was registered, she replied: “Me, I’m registered here. I’m officially a

squatter. It is still illegal but.. That’s the Netherlands”. It is evident that illegalisation did not

mark the end of squatting, for the new law is not a divine intervention; it needs time to be

realized; it is not enforced to the full extent for everyone and it has its openings for

interpretation. This makes it very difficult to take law as something which is outside and

above society; it is in fact something embedded in it, a social activity:

“[L]aw is a social activity (Weber, 1986) and as such, it constructs itself (Latour,

2002). In other words, it produces and transforms itself at each moment of its

elaboration and application. From this perspective, law is a shifting, unstable subject

that leads to a systematic work of interpretation by those who are in charge of writing

as well as applying it.” (Buillon, 2013: 232, quoted in ETC Dee, 2013)

Therefore, law is not a uniform effect. It is reconstructed within each instance of its

application. This gives the people who are in charge the power of discretion. Therefore,

officials can choose to target some squats with full enforcement of criminalisation, while

tolerating or actively supporting other squats, creating an uneven implementation of illegality.

The legal situation with squatters in the Netherlands and especially Amsterdam is a grey area;

it is a liminal legality (Menjivar, 2006). This unevenness in the application of illegality is

based on a certain form of urban governance. As it will be shown in the later chapters of this

thesis, squats which serve Amsterdam’s entrepreneurial and creative city agenda differ in their

chances of survival. The following part of this chapter will discuss these urban governance

strategies to provide further insight.

C) Urban Entrepreneurialism and the Creative City Paradigm

The term “urban entrepreneurialism” is first used by David Harvey (1989) to explain a shift

from Keynesian managerial urban governance into an urban governance which is more

directly involved in the market.


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“[T]he "managerial" approach so typical of the 1960s has steadily given way to

initiatory and "entrepreneurial" forms of action in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years

in particular, there seems to be a general consensus emerging throughout the advanced

capitalist world that positive benefits are to be had by cities taking an entrepreneurial

stance to economic development. What is remarkable, is that this consensus seems to

hold across national boundaries and even across political parties and ideologies.” (p. 4)

Suffering from major cutbacks by their central governments, cities had to get money from

other sources in order to sustain themselves. Fiscal restraints pushed cities towards a pursuit

of private capital, however, since private capital is rather volatile and unlike state subsidies, it

needs to be enticed. In the meanwhile, international capital flows were becoming more and

more free from the control of nation states. Cities had to be more commercial in order to get a

share of the circulating global capital.

“Deindustrialisation, widespread and seemingly 'structural' unemployment, fiscal

austerity at both the national and local levels, all coupled with a rising tide of

neoconservatism and much stronger appeal (though often more in theory than in

practice) to market rationality and privatisation, provide a backdrop to understanding

why so many urban governments, often of quite different political persuasions and

armed with very different legal and political powers, have all taken a broadly similar

direction. The greater emphasis on local action to combat these ills also seems to have

something to do with the declining powers of the nation state to control multinational

money flows, so that investment increasingly takes the form of a negotiation between

international finance capital and local powers doing the best they can to maximise the

attractiveness of the local site as a lure for capitalist development.” (p. 5)

This type of urban governance was called urban entrepreneurialism, also referred to as

neoliberal urbanism. Mayer (2013b) identifies four key dimensions of neoliberal urbanism.

First, there is an increased role of private actors in the planning and development of cities.

Investors and entrepreneurs around the world provide the required capital for urban

transformations, therefore assuming leading positions before the local government in such

matters. Second, as some cities do economically better than others, their inner areas are being

rapidly gentrified. This gentrification can take form of ‘improvement’ of poor neighborhoods

by creating incentives for people with higher income to move there. While urban landscape is

being transformed by gentrification, social housing projects and disadvantaged groups are

increasingly replaced by gated communities and living/working spaces for the more affluent.


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Third, the pursuit of private investment has led the cities to compete with one another in

attracting international capital. As cities finance themselves by the money flows coming from

global investors, high income inhabitants and tourists, they came up with new schemes of

marketing themselves. City branding and advertising are the obvious examples; cities present

themselves as places of culture, festivals, entertainment and authenticity in order to appeal to

international ‘clients’. Fourth, as the urban economies of the North shift from manufacturing

to a service economy, these cities host more and more middle class residents while also

keeping a service economy which has working class people catering them. These cities seek

to bring tourists and also ‘creative classes’ in, developing a set of policies to make themselves

fertile grounds for cultural generators. This way, artists and people of alternative culture flow

into the city, changing ‘dull’ neighborhoods into lively, interesting places.

The literature suggests that this neoliberal trend in urban policy shows little variance

according to political standpoints. In other words, neoliberal urban governance seems to

permeate through ideologies, becoming more widespread. Neoliberalism seems to have

moved beyond being “a dream of Chicago economists or a nightmare in the imaginations of

leftist conspiracy theorists; it has become a commonsense of the times” (Peck & Tickell,

2002: 381). Even in countries with advanced welfare systems and governments with left-wing

political agenda, a local economic interventionism with an entrepreneurial stance was on the

rise:

Cities have found that the increase in unemployment, underemployment, casualization

of labor and new poverty cannot be handled with traditional welfare state policies,

which were designed to treat such problems as transitory phenomena in a basically

full-employment society. [...] [T]he effects of the repeated recessions and the new

risks created by the labor market confront the local state with a new challenge, because

central governments everywhere have reduced their subsidies. Thus, local authorities

have had to explore alternative and innovative ways to keep their cities functioning.

(Mayer, 1998: 68)

Therefore, while cities used to direct their policy in a direction where it aimed to achieve a

balanced distribution of growth, now the intervention targets urban development and private

entrepreneurship. What is remarkable is that the fundamental purpose of this intervention is

securing private capital accumulation and economic growth. All other policy fields are

reoriented or somehow incorporated to the economic development agenda. Specifities or

urban regimes, histories or cultures matter little in this process. In fact, not only welfare


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policies are pushed to the background, public functions are increasingly being privatized. This

way, some roles of the local state are being transferred to private businesses and other non-

state actors, especially regulating the production of space (Souza, 2006). This is particularly

appealing to the political Right since it means even more state retrenchment, but Left is also

sympathetic towards the idea since it is a way of giving people the opportunity the ‘exercise

power for themselves’ (ibid). This also applies to the northern European cities including

Amsterdam; these cities have less power in sustaining social housing and welfare programmes

in this new economy (Fanstein, 1997).

The creative city discourse is often employed by entrepreneurial cities. The idea of creativity

is seen as an untapped resource of attracting investment and boosting regional economic

development. Creativity was always a nice feature of urban environments, but it was not

regarded as a crucial factor of drawing global investors, tourists and affluent residents into

cities before the introduction of Richard Florida’s concept of creative class as an asset to

urban economies. In addition to the traditional conceptual trinity of economic, human and

social capital, Florida comes up with a concept of ‘creative capital’ which he asserts as a key

form of capital in new urban economies. He distinguishes creative capital from other types of

capital, especially the human capital theory:

“Gradually, I came to see my perspective, the creative capital theory, as distinct from

the human capital theory. From my perspective, creative people power regional

economic growth and these people prefer places that are innovative, diverse, and

tolerant. My theory thus differs from the human capital theory in two respects: (1) it

identifies a type of human capital, creative people, as being key to economic growth;

and (2) it identifies the underlying factors that shape the location decisions of these

people, instead of merely saying that regions are blessed with certain endowments of

them.” (Florida, 2003: 8)

Above, Florida suggests that creative capital theory is useful in unlocking the economic

potential of creativity and pinpointing why some locations are particularly attractive for

creative people. He confidently argues that “places that succeed in attracting the retaining

creative class people prosper; those that fail don’t” (Florida, 2002: 17). This new theory

argues that cities which can make use of their creative potential as well as cities which can

allure the interest of creative people are the new winners in the global economy. Florida

identifies what he calls ‘the core group’ of creative class as follows:


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“The distinguishing characteristic of the creative class is that its members engage in

work whose function is to “create meaningful new forms.” The super-creative core of

this new class includes scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and

novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, and architects, as well as the “thought

leadership” of modern society: nonfiction writers, editors, cultural figures, think-tank

researchers, analysts, and other opinion-makers. Members of this super-creative core

produce new forms or designs that are readily transferable and broadly useful, such as

designing a product that can be widely made, sold, and used; coming up with a

theorem or strategy that can be applied in many cases; or composing music that can be

performed again and again.” (Florida, 2003: 8)

The creative class, for Florida, is looking for specific features in a city before deciding to live

and work there. They are concentrated in what he calls ‘creative centers’. These centers

possess and help further increase Florida’s 3Ts of economic development: technology, talent

and tolerance (ibid). These creative centers have talented people and also technological

capability and the creativity to turn it into economic wealth. These were places where there is

openness towards immigrants and great diversity (Florida, 2005a; 2005b). Having these

features not only draws creative people to a place, it also gets the attention of companies.

Eager to benefit from the pool of talented people in a particular locality, companies invest in

that area to gain a competitive edge while creating jobs and economic growth according to

Richard Florida’s theory.

Therefore ‘creative cities’ are important places for private capital accumulation, since theory

suggests that transnational companies are keen on drawing from the supply of talent. Indeed,

what is referred by the entrepreneurial city is a combination of two investment strategies:

attracting global financial capital/business services and the creative class. These two strategies

are not mutually exclusive. Producing convenience and spaces for the creative class has also

become a good way to attract competitive and innovative businesses to a city. Oudenampsen

(2007) highlights Amsterdam as a good example of the entrepreneurial city:

“The Global City (Sassen, 2001) refers to the concentration of internationally

operating financial and business services in some prominent Western cities.

Amsterdam is trying to compete in this order of merit by completing a ‘five star’

business district along the South Axis. The Creative City (Florida, 2003) refers to the

concentration of creative activity such as design and advertising in cities able to create

a favorable climate for the well-educated or so-called ‘creative class’ setting up in


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business. In order not to fall behind in this too, Amsterdam has now christened itself

‘Creative City’ and creativity has been called ‘the motor of Amsterdam’s economy.’

These two trends can be seen as the Entrepreneurial City’s investment strategies. In

both cases, local government, with the help of ‘supply side economics’ (i.e.

government subsidies), actively supports the economic sectors considered strategic.”

(p. 113)

While these entrepreneurial urban policies serve big businesses and the top end of the labor

market, vulnerable and less economically attractive populations are disregarded and they

rarely take part in the new planning regime, if at all. These groups are identified as risks to the

cities’ economic development (ibid). In fact, not only they are neglected as social groups,

several repressive measures were adopted against them.

Since the image of cities is now playing such an important role in attracting global

investment, stern anti-homeless and anti-squatter policies have been drafted, and

regular raids are now carried out at the showcase plazas of all major cities. In order to

drive out beggars, homeless people or squeegee merchants from the center of the cities

(where they concentrate for a variety of reasons: the public space for their social

relations, the institutions which service them etc.), these groups are being constructed

as "dangerous classes" or "enemies of the state" (Ruddick, 1994). Social policies have

been replaced by punitive and repressive treatments. (Mayer, 1998: 3)

Thus, social groups whom are formerly targeted by welfare policies had a change of treatment

by the authorities. Entrepreneurial cities have less and less room and fewer rights for marginal

populations, squatters included. Their labelling as “dangerous classes” stems from the threat

they pose to cities’ attractiveness and image, they ‘damage’ the urban charm; they are not

desirable by urban professionals and middle classes, therefore they become a push factor for

international capital.

The state imposes a definition to these marginal populations not only verbally, but using its

institutions to actively banish them from the city. Indeed, the state, through its institutional

endowment, has the power of definition. Dikeç (2004) calls these acts of definition the

“statements of the state”.

What the state is and what it does are important. But equally important is what it says,

what it states. The statements of the state have the force of law, power of designation,


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constitution and regulation; they not only normalise and render ‘obvious’ certain

definitions and designations, but also materialise them. (p. 196)

Urban planning, functional assigning of spaces and regulations are all examples of such

statements. They normalise some definitions while excluding or even cast out others. The

most powerful ‘statement of the state’ in the case of this thesis is the criminalisation of

squatting. While Dutch squatters used to be a part of an order with more or less legitimate

existence, they were outlawed and were denied part in that order. The activity which is

referred to as ‘squatting’ was reduced to something little more than ‘trespassing’, and

squatters became ‘criminals’. Their ‘voices’ were rendered into ‘noises’ (ibid).

This, however, is not equally true for all groups. Indeed, neoliberal urbanism is a very

selective regime in eliminating its obstacles. Together with the creative city paradigm,

entrepreneurial cities begin to see some ‘liabilities’ as assets. This is especially true for

producers of counterculture and other movements which provide the cities with authenticity.

“There is thus a delicate balancing act on the part of urban policy-makers who seek to

harness alternative or countercultural movements in the city marketing discourse and

urban development strategies. To maintain place uniqueness and distinctiveness, the

local state and private capital have to support “a form of differentiation and allow

divergent and to some degree uncontrollable local cultural developments that can be

antagonistic to its own smooth functioning” (Harvey, 2001, p. 409). This means the

local state “can even support (though cautiously and often nervously) all manner of

‘transgressive’ cultural practices precisely because this is one way in which to be

original, creative and authentic as well as unique”. (Harvey, 2002, np).” (Colomb,

2012).

For squatting movements, this poses a specific problem. As explained in Pruijt’s typology

earlier, squatting involves a diversity of purposes. Since neoliberal urbanism aims to

incorporate initiatives which act as producers of subculture to its own agenda (attracting

middle class residents and global investment, city marketing etc), some squats may receive

subsidies or even become a part of the official city while other squats encounter punitive

measures by their local and national governments. While city governments recognize a certain

value in squats which are able and willing to be incorporated to the creative city discourse,

other free spaces, especially squats which host political activism have to cope with repressive

policies and even criminalisation. This uneven hostility causes a divide within the squatting

movement, particularly between entrepreneurial squatting and political squatting.


17

“Neoliberal urban policies thus on the one hand manage to hijack and incorporate

alternative and subcultural activism including the creativity of squatters (who, in the

process, may find it difficult to maintain their political autonomy), while on the other

they entail intensifying repressive strategies, stricter laws, tougher policing, and hence

more evictions and fiercer criminalisation of squatting. Often local authorities

implement both strategies simultaneously, which tends to sharpen the differences

among and create collisions between cultural and political squatters. As a result,

radical political action and alternative cultural production that before had been part

and parcel of the same movement increasingly become differentiated and sometimes

even opposed to each other. [...] This hostile environment has been making radical

oppositional politics far more challenging than in the past.” (Mayer, 2013: 5)

Amsterdam squatting movement was one of the movements which experience such a

differentiation within. As Justus Uitermark (2004a) states, Amsterdam squatting movement is

“extremely heterogeneous”, and shifts in political context effected the movement unevenly.

This also moves the research to the next set of questions on the difference in strategical

responses of squatters in a politically hostile environment. While some squatting

configurations are in a better position to identify with urban governance norms and assert

deservingness by claiming to be ‘good’ urban citizens, others may not be able or willing to do

so. The following section of this chapter will discuss the concept of neoliberal citizenship and

the strategy of identification with norms of urban governance as a means of survival in the

city.

D) Neoliberal Citizenship and the Strategy of Identification

The act of de-legitimizing certain groups in the city is not randomly performed. Neoliberal

urbanism has a specific criteria on whom to banish and whom to grant the right to the city.

Basically, those who are deserving the right to the city are the ones who are in accordance

with its neoliberal agenda. Those who are capable of adding economic value to the city while

conforming to dominant discourses and the existing order of things get recognition; those who

are not endowed with the required qualities or are not willing to display their characteristics

which are promising for the economic development of the city are excluded from what is

called ‘neoliberal citizenship’:

“The ascendancy of private property rights has been coupled with an increasingly

dominant form of neoliberal citizenship (Hindess, 2002; Ong, 2006). The “good”

urban citizen is conceived as a person who can make a contribution to the economic


18

vitality of the city. Rights to the city are accorded to those who can demonstrate their

value as economic subjects. This provides them with the “right to have rights” to the

city (Arendt, 1973; Benhabib, 2004; Somers, 2009). This recognition facilitates access

to key resources and spaces within their urban worlds and provides legitimacy to make

rights claims in the city. By contrast, those who cannot reveal their utilitarian value

become targets of discipline and banishment. They may protest their marginalized

status but they ultimately lack recognition as fully deserving members of the

community. They do not have “right to have rights” to the city. (Schipstal & Nicholls,

2014:1)

The selective recognition of this type of citizenship depends on the economic contribution the

subject makes to the city. While these groups may expose inequalities and the unfair treatment

against them, they are still denied the rights they assert deservingness to. Whatever protest

they may engage in, their voice is suppressed by the ‘statements of the state’. This is highly

related to the question of how these groups will respond to this dual process of recognition

and banishment. Will the subjects under the effect of this process continue to be political and

disrupt the existing order of things in order to expose the ‘wrongs’ of the system and demand

equality? Or will they choose to conform to the norms and find their voice by presenting

themselves ‘good neoliberal citizens’ who are capable of economically contributing to the

city? Walter Nicholls (2013) argues that strategies of outcasts to gain recognition by dis-

identification fails in achieving the legitimation they need. While discussing this in the

context of undocumented immigration, Nicholls states that recognition is earned not by dis-

identification but identification with national norms. He calls this “the strategy of

identification”:

“Dis-identification and dissensus did not result in legitimating this political subject’s

rights to make rights claims in public but the exact opposite: it reinforced the

perception of this group as a threatening and polluting foreigner that needed to be cast

out of the country. Making undocumented immigrants into a legitimate subject

therefore does not result from dis-identification but identification. In contexts of

heightened anti-immigration hostility, the road to recognition as people deserving

rights depends on the ability of undocumented immigrants to publicly demonstrate

identification with the national community.” (pg. 90)

Although this argument is made for undocumented immigrants can be applied for squatters as

well. Schipstal and Nicholls (2014), in a case study in Berlin, demonstrate that even in


19

politically hostile environments, squatters can assert deservingness to their right to the city by

adopting the entrepreneurial / creative city discourse, forming good relations with the middle

classes and local authorities, displaying themselves as good urban citizens capable of adding

value to the city. They argue that discursive and mobilization strategies vary by political

opportunities. Squats with more political opportunities can afford using more contentious

strategies while the ones with less political opportunities have to deploy strategies of full

identification. This research, like Schipstal and Nicholls’, aims to highlight variances in

strategies, but it focuses on the effect of squatting types instead of local political

opportunities.

E) Literature Gap

This research intends to contribute to the general knowledge on how squatters cope with

criminalisation and a hostile legal environment. First, the research takes a theoretical typology

of squatting, however, it stresses that categories within this typology are ideal types and they

come in combinations in the real world. Moreover, taking law as a social activity, the

research seeks to stress the uneven implementation of illegality depending on the type of

political economy of cities, more specifically, the neoliberal entrepreneurial city. This thesis

makes use of the Nicholls’ (2013) strategy of identification as a key theoretical concept when

explaining discursive strategies of squats in inhospitable contexts (Schipstal & Nicholls,

2014). However, it contributes to the literature by going further and discussing variations in

active mobilization when discursive strategies are inefficient or insufficient. This study also

offers a new perspective by comparing squatting configurations themselves instead of local

political opportunities. The research also aims to contribute to the literature on the survival

strategies of urban outcasts (Wacquant, 2007) and other marginalized populations, as well as

how they claim rights in inhospitable contexts. The Netherlands is especially important as a

research case since unlike many other countries, like The Netherlands and UK used to have a

legal framework which allowed squatting on a broad scale and only recently this possibility

was eliminated through criminalisation. While this by itself is not something to be cherished,

the fact that these legal changes are very recent (2010 in The Netherlands, 2012 in UK) gives

the researcher an opportunity to observe the effects when they are fresh. This way, this study

can hopefully inspire further research but also evoke critical insight in this field in the future.

The aim of this chapter was to provide a theoretical framework for the research by reviewing

some key accounts and arguments from various authors. The first two parts were descriptive:

they have provided a categorization of squatting and a theory which offered awareness on


20

how the law is embedded in the social and therefore subject to change in each instance of its

application. The latter two parts outlined a process: the rise of neoliberal urbanism meant a

shift in urban governance and brought about a new urban politics. This new entrepreneurial

approach in urban governance sought to seize new opportunities for capital accumulation after

the retrenchment of central state subsidies. Adopting the creative city discourse was one of the

most prominent strategies of entrepreneurial cities. From this new political context emerges a

neoliberal citizenship, which changes the opportunity structure of outcast populations, forcing

some groups to adopt the “strategy of identification”, which is identifying with the dominant

discourse and the norms of the existing order of things rather than expressing their difference

from them. Lastly, the chapter addressed some of the gaps in the literature. The importance of

the points made in this thesis and how this study can inform and inspire further research have

been discussed.


21

Chapter 3 : methods

This chapter will go over the research methods used throughout the thesis. It consists of six

parts: operationalization, data acquisition, data processing, field access, ethical considerations

and limitations.

A) Operationalization

In order to match the research questions with empirical data, a proper operationalization is

required. This research seeks to answer the crucial question of whether the enforcement of the

law differs according to squat types. At this point, enforcement should be operationalized.

This thesis takes enforcement of the law primarily as being charged with squatting, on the

grounds of Article 138a of the Dutch Criminal Code 1. However, the challenges some squats

face more than others are not limited to this legal hostility. Other state institutions are also

used in order to evict or discourage squatters. Building safety inspections, covert surveillance

and charging fines are all included in these challenges which are experienced unevenly.

The discursive strategies are operationalized as framing (Benford & Snow, 2000; Snow et al.,

1986). Framing refers to how actors perceive the world and simultaneously construct realities.

Through frames, squatters, like other collective actors, make the world ‘meaningful’; it is a

lens through which the events subjectively come into being. According to Benford and Snow

(2000), framing is an interpretive act but it is by no means passive.

“Frames help to render events or occurrences meaningful and thereby function to

organize experience and guide action. Collective action frames also perform this

interpretive function by simplifying and condensing aspects of the “world out there,”

but in ways that are ‘intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to

garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists’” (Benford & Snow,

2000:614).

Therefore framing goes further than just interpretation but it also becomes a plan of taking a

discursive position in order to benefit from support and also repel adversaries. Discursive

strategies refer precisely to these discursive positions (community participation, creative

hotspot etc.) squatters take in order to increase their chances of survival in their political

context.

Mobilization strategies are operationalized as the engagement in active campaigning in order

to raise public awareness and support, draw media attention or get resources. Such strategies

include petitions, media stunts or disruptive means like demonstrations and occupations.


22

Together with discursive strategies, mobilization aims to show how much support squats

have, as well as reach out to people as possible in order to propagate their frame and their

claims.

“A campaign is a sustained, organized public effort making collective claims on

targeted authorities. Unlike a onetime petition, declaration, or mass meeting, a

campaign extends beyond any single event—although social movements often include

petitions, declarations, and mass meetings. A campaign always links at least three

parties: a group of self‐designated claimants, some object(s) of claims, and a public of

some kind. The claims may target governmental officials, but the “authorities” in

question can also include owners of property, religious functionaries, and others whose

actions (or failures to act) significantly affect the welfare of many people.” (Tilly &

Tarrow, 2009: 7).

Mobilization revolves around the three parties stated in the quote above. Squatters make

claims to their local governments with the purpose of becoming legal, while reaching out to

the public to increase the magnitude of their claims. Again, this highlights a process: squats

face different levels of enforcement, therefore they employ distinct strategic combinations in

which the discursive and mobilization strategies are differently balanced.

B) Data Acquisition

The empirical part of this research was conducted in five weeks. Qualitative methods were

used for data acquisition. These methods include participant observation, in-depth interviews

and document analyses. These three methods come together and ‘form’ the world which is

being researched by providing empirical data.

Participant observation proved to be very helpful in collecting data, but it is even more

valuable a method in acquiring the sense of the world which was being researched. By doing

participant observation, I had the opportunity to observe the routine behavior of squatters,

their intrepretations and reflections of the world as well as their norms and codes. Being co-

present with squatters allowed an “empathetic understanding of the daily routines and

subjective meanings of the researched” (Emerson & Pollner, 2001). Most of the time I acted

as if I was a member of the community, but everyone was aware that I was a researcher.

During my fieldwork I have participated in one campaign meeting, two squatting information

hours (KSU), two local district council meetings, one court hearing and more than twenty

events scheduled in the squat sites (like workshops, parties, screenings etc.). I had a notebook


23

with me at all times, and I kept field notes throughout my time on the field. This provided me

with a lot of details to answer my research question. Small things like posters and schedules

on the walls, people’s attitudes towards others and even how the sites are looked after can

reveal a lot when combined with other data. Keeping field notes was crucial especially in the

beginning, because in the beginning much of what I saw was unfamiliar to me and was worth

writing down to the notebook. Later on the researcher may get familiar with many details so

that he would consider them not worth registering, or begin to forget important ones

(Goffman, 2001). I used color coding to classify my observations into relations with the local

government or strategies.

The most of the data collected for this research was acquired with in-depth interviews. 12

interviews were conducted during the data acquisition for this thesis. The interviews consisted

of semi-structured questions and their average length was forty five to fifty minutes. All

interviews were conducted in English. They were all recorded on tape and later transcribed.

The positions and occupations of the interviewees are diverse. Ten interviewees were people

who are actively involved in the squats; this group included squatter residents, one ex-

resident, and non-residents who had leading positions in squats’ activities. Squatters who had

active roles in the campaigns and presentations were given priority in respondent selection,

however, due to the limited number of such people, other squatters and volunteers who could

give contextual information as well as data on strategies were also interviewed. One interview

was conducted with a member of the Executive Board of Amsterdam City Central District

(Stadsdeel Centrum). This person was a key figure in the negotiations between Midwich and

the owner of the squatted building, DeKey. Another was made with a lawyer who had

expertise in squatting court cases in order to learn the legal details about the current situation

with squatting.

The full list of interviewees are below:

Name Squat/Institution Position

Rogier Brookhaven Squatter

Nigel Brookhaven Squatter

Emma Brookhaven Squatter

Leia Brookhaven Volunteer

Garrett Brookhaven Volunteer

Laura Brookhaven Volunteer


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Marcos Midwich Squatter

Siobahn Midwich Squatter

Mary Midwich Squatter

Victoria Midwich Squatter

Marcel Voor-Recht & Recht voor

Allen

Lawyer

Boudewijn Stadsdeel Centrum Member of the Executive

Board – D66

The relationship I had with the interviewees was in a form of research partnership (Weiss,

1994). We have worked together in producing information to be used in this thesis. This

partnership worked as a division of labor: while it was my job to specify the areas of

discussion and direct the trajectory of the conversation, the interviewees have provided me

with knowledge which is not generally available to others. I have done my best to keep the

interviews in a way in which the questions would directly target what I wanted to know, but

interviews were not so rigidly structured that it comprised exclusively of questions and the

answers. The position of the interviewees and the relationship I have with them had effects on

the interviews, for example, it was more possible to have a rigid structure with an ‘official’

feel when I interviewed Boudewijn Oranje from the Central District; we sat down in his office

to do the interview we scheduled a week ago. The interviews I had with the squatters did not

have that ‘official’ feel, for they are young people, and even if the ones who were not were

‘young in spirit’. This is not to discredit the usefulness of the interviews I had with squatters

in terms of data; they were extremely useful. However, the flow of the interviews were more

casual, since giving a very serious and official impression creates an undesirable distance and

uneasiness with squatters. Lastly, I consciously decided that I would not do all the interviews

in a short time period like a week, but spread them over to a longer period since there were

new developments on the situation of the squats. One of the interviewees, Leia, said this to me

at the end of our interview: “Yeah, so many things are happening right now, if we had the

interview a week ago, it would have been a different story”. This shows that the decision I

made proved to be a good one; it also allowed me to readjust my questions with the new

developments and the information I acquired from previous interviews as well as my

observations and document analyses. The fast changing political field also brought some

restrictions. The most obvious one was the Eastern District’s refusal for an interview once the


25

criminal court case had started. In addition to this, respondents may have thought that it would

be unsafe to reveal information about an unstable future, which makes interviews yield less

data.

The third pillar of my research techniques was document analyses. The documents which

were useful in acquiring data for this research includes flyers, websites, posters, a campaign

manifest, a blog, a petition, a government policy, law documents, an eviction letter and

various newspaper texts. While these documents are available for access by everyone, they do

not have too much significance on their own. What made them invaluable to this research

was the fact that the documents and other data from interviews and observations spoke to one

another so that they ‘made sense’ in a resourceful way. After all, there is no absolute, ever-

lasting meaning of a text, they gain meaning in surrounding contexts (Hodder, 2005;

Apthorpe, 1997). Some documents were also complementary about past events. Interviewees

may forget to mention some details, or may not remember things in the past clearly.

Documents which can give a good account about details of the past are essential, for they

allow the researcher to confirm what the interviewees said, as well as help him readjust the

questions in a way which helps him to ‘straighten the facts’. Blog posts were particularly

important in this; blogs serve as historical accounts which were written shortly after the

recorded events. This aspect of documents makes them reliable. Finally, document analysis is

an excellent method for understanding the relationship of the researched group with the state.

Documents are ‘artifacts of modern knowledge practices’ (Riles, 2006); they are useful in

understanding how authorities produce knowledge on squats and how they choose to act upon

them.

C) Data Processing

Once the data was collected, it needed to be processed properly so that it could be used

efficiently for this research. Qualitative data may not require extremely sophisticated sorting

techniques like quantitative data, however, it definitely needs to be processed in order to make

it fit into the framework of the research. Passages from interview transcriptions were sorted

and categorized to match with operationalized variables (contextual data ,discursive

strategies, mobilization strategies, government relationship). In the beginning, I used the

Atlas.Ti software to sort the quotes, however it felt more comfortable to do it manually,

therefore I printed out the interviews and used color coding with highlighters. This way the

flow of the interview was more visible and it had more continuity. I used a similar color

coding method to sort the documents according to their appropriate use (contextual data,


26

discursive strategies, mobilization strategies, government relationship). This way, I have

classified the documents by their main purpose as evidence, but I also marked different

paragraphs or sentenced within the documents to make use of them later on. Many documents

were in Dutch language; in order to make them feasible for analysis, I used translation

software for rough translations; if it did not make sense or some of the important details

seemed to be lost in translation, I asked for Dutch colleagues to explain it to me. Some

documents were not in electronic format, therefore ineligible for software translation. I have

worked around this problem by digitizing these documents by scanning them and using an

OCR (optical character recognition) software to change the text characters into editable

format. After doing this, I used the translation software.

D) Field Access

Accessibility was one of the most serious challenges of doing this research. Negotiating entry

proved to be difficult on various frontiers. Each end had a different challenge. I have begun

negotiating access about one month before I started with the empirical part of this research.

What is really interesting is that problems of entry were also very telling about the situation of

the squatters after the squatting ban entered into force.

Access to Midwich was relatively smoother. I was looking for an artistic squat and I was

browsing through the international online squatting portal Squat!Net 2. I reached them by

sending an e-mail and I received a reply from one of the squatters, Marcos, saying that he

would like to do an interview and I was welcome as a researcher. However, I later found out

that Marcos’ welcoming reply did not speak for everyone in the building, except one other

squatter who contacted me herself after I made it clear that I wanted to interview everyone in

the squat. This difficulty in gaining entrance was more because of the loose organizational

structure of Midwich than the fear of exposing themselves in a hostile legal environment. As

it will become clear in the following chapters of this thesis, Midwich was not in an immediate

need of mobilization, and they did not have a tight collective organization. Thus, negotiations

were made more on an individual level, I had to convince squatters separately. The spatial

structure of the squat also made it difficult for me to contact the squatters. The public area and

the residential area of Midwich are clearly separated, and it was not possible for me to go

inside the residential part of the building except a few instances when I conducted interviews.

The only chance of contacting them in person in order to ask for an interview was to run into

them in an event in their garage gallery which they used as their public area. Therefore I

gained entry by finding them on social media and convincing them for interviews. I found one


27

ex-squatter, Siobahn, who recently moved out by tracking her down, almost like a detective,

cross referencing online photos with Facebook profiles of possible people of interest. Some

people I contacted did not want an interview, saying they could not make time for it, or

simply saying “I do not want to do an interview”. However, the ones who agreed were very

relaxed about my questions and were very willing to help. I also interviewed a member of the

Executive Board in the district which Midwich is in (Stadsdeel Centrum). The interview was

very resourceful and provided me with a lot of valuable data on Midwich’s situation. The

district was glad to help and made an appointment right away when I asked for it.

Just like with Midwich, negotiating entry to Brookhaven was simple and complicated at the

same time. Before I actually made contact with people there, the only thing I knew was that

Brookhaven was facing an eviction threat in the following months. When I was at

Brookhaven for the very first time, there were no events so the gates were closed. I had to

wait outside for my contact to let me in. Having very little knowledge about their dire

situation, I asked the first person who arrived: “Excuse me, do you live here?”. He gave me a

very skeptical look and replied “Perhaps.”. Then I asked him if he knew my contact, and if it

is possible for him to let me in so I can talk to her. It was a tense experience at first, much

unlike Midwich. A crucial asset was a mutual friend of mine who got me in contact with them

in the first place. He was well trusted by Brookhaven, so that made it much easier for me in

terms of access. However, I also put effort in strengthening my relations with them. I have

some proficiency in tango dancing, so we arranged a workshop where I taught tango basics at

Brookhaven. I also visited the site frequently, even though I had no interviews schedules that

day or there were not any events of interest to this research, so that people did not forget who

I was. Contrary to Midwich, Brookhaven faced a more immediate threat of criminalisation, so

they were almost in constant mobilization. This required them to be copresent in particular

places, resulting in the formation of strong tie relationships on which they can rely on

(Nicholls, 2009). This made it easier for me to snowball my way into entry into the field.

After I made my initial contact, I had appointments with four of the squatters shortly after. I

found out later that the fact that there was a researcher interested in Brookhaven was

circulating in their e-mail traffic. Yet, some of the skepticism towards me remained even at

the latest stages of my time at Brookhaven. This was understandable. After all, they were part

of an activist network and having people around digging into their activities involved risks.

They were also running a campaign which was obviously against both the interests of the

company that owns the squatted property and the interests of the district government. Indeed,


28

when I asked the district government (Stadsdeel Oost) to schedule an appointment for an

interview with someone who could provide me with information on Brookhaven’s situation,

they replied saying that the situation of Brookhaven is ‘politically sensitive’ and it is not in

their best interest to do an interview until after Brookhaven’s eviction takes place.

E) Ethical Considerations

Doing this research requires the researcher to take ethics into account. Although the squatting

ban is a relatively recent law and squatting is still a well-known practice, it is still

criminalisation and this puts the people who are being researched to risk. This is also a

problem which puts our research partnership in danger, after all, respondents would not risk

themselves for the sake of social research (Weiss, 1994). Therefore it is my responsibility to

ensure that none of my respondents were damaged or put in a difficult position because of this

research. For this reason I kept the true identities for my respondents who were at legal risk

confidential. In the respondent list located at the Data Acquisition part of this chapter, every

person whose “squat/institution” is listed as Brookhaven or Midwich was given a pseudo-

name for ethical reasons. The names of the squats themselves were also changed for their

protection. They were all notified of this before I got their consent for the interviews. The

truth is, there was a dilemma in doing such a research. It is sometimes challenging to weigh

the benefits and disadvantages to the respondents (Shanmuganathan, 2005). Some squatters

have expressed that they actually wanted their stories to be heard, they felt that what is done

to them was unjust and they appreciated this research. After an interview with one of the

respondents, Victoria, I felt very grateful for her cooperation and her friendliness. I asked her

if there is anything I can do to help with their situation. She said “you are already doing

something by doing this”, referring to my research. Although I prefer not to disclose their real

names, I hope that this research will help squatters by providing a ‘generic’ case as an

example.

F) Limitations

One of the serious limitations of this research is its small sample. There are various reasons

for the low number of respondents. First, the number of people who had knowledge to assist

me in this research was low in the first place. Although many people may seem to be present

in squats during the events, only a handful of people have comprehensive knowledge of the

situation, let alone the details of their strategies. Second, this number got lower because of the

accessibility problems mentioned earlier in this chapter i.e. loose organisational structure of

Midwich and the precarious situation of Brookhaven. Nevertheless, the the exchanged


29

conversations are by no means limited to the transcribed interviews. I have spent a lot of time

at the squats and I have kept my notepad with me at all times. I had countless conversations

with people there off the record, and I have noted down details I thought was relevant. There

were no inconsistencies among interviews and the notes from my conversations.

One other limitation was the fact that I did not know the Dutch language while doing a

research in the Netherlands.While all my respondents could speak English very well,

sometimes they had trouble finding the right words to express themselves in English. I had

respondents saying Dutch words instead of English ones when they were carried away in the

interviews. This was of course, a very minor problem. The real problem surfaced when I was

attending campaign meetings, court hearings or district council sessions. At the campaign

meeting, we were a rather smaller group in which everyone knew I was a researcher, so they

were very kind to switch to English for me during the meeting. However, I had to ask people

to explain what was being discussed in court and district council sessions, since not everyone

there could have known that there were non-Dutch speakers and they had no reason to speak

English. Similar issues arose when analyzing documents. I used the translation software to

translate them, but there were times when the text was too long, and it was simply too much

work to be asked from someone to translate it in its entirety for me. Again, I had to settle for

explanations and not the whole content for such texts. However, once I had a Dutch colleague

or a friend explain it to me, it was easier to fill in the gaps in the translation the software

provided.


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Chapter 4 : Historical / Present Context

The purpose of this chapter is to provide context so that a connection with the theory and

empirical data collected for the thesis is better established. The chapter consists of two parts.

The first part will give a historical background of the Amsterdam squatting movement to

explain the origins of the difference between squats like Midwich and Brookhaven by going

over the fragmentation of the movement and how authorities have changed their attitude

positively towards some parts of the movement while not towards others. The second part will

focus on the legal context of squatting in Amsterdam.

A) The Rise and Dissolution of A Movement

The origins of the squatting movement in Amsterdam goes back half a century before. In that

time the movement had achieved a lot of success, but it also saw its own decline and a

fragmentation that followed after.

Towards the end of the 60s, a housing shortage was one of the greatest problems of

Amsterdam. At the same time, there was a widespread urban renewal process taking place.

These urban renewal projects were aggressive and they were taking neighborhoods apart in

order to rebuild them. Along with this urban renewal process there was huge property

speculation. There was a big demand for housing and a lot of houses were vacant because of

this speculation. The demand from young people, resistance to aggressive urban renewal and

encouraging regulations gave the activists the opportunity to take action. This action took the

form of squatting. As it added more people for its cause, the movement created its own spaces

and events, forming an infrastructure and an identity (Uitermark, 2004b). The movement grew

quickly despite its confrontations with authorities, while having sizeable public support

(Owens, 2008).

By 1980s, the squatting movement was becoming a major force in urban politics. They knew

how to get the spotlight on them by engaging in disruptive actions to make their point.

Examples to such actions are riots at the coronation of Queen Beatrix in 1980, street protests

against the construction of a new town hall and the city’s attempts to host the Olympics.

Indeed, 1980 was a very active year for the movement; especially in Amsterdam, there were

fierce riots initiated by squatters (Pruijt, 2003). When the government fought back with more

violent means, squatters themselves have more or less replicated the tactics and the military-

like formation of the law-enforcement personnel (Uitermark, 2004b).


31

During 1980s, the movement experienced stagnation. It had less success compared to before,

and public support was also waning away. In the meanwhile the movement was diverging into

different agendas (Owens, 2008). There was a decline in the left-wing protest in the

Netherlands overall. Some structural changes can be named as the reasons: dwindling

resources for social movements, easier access and more necessity for younger people to find

jobs and new regulations which required students to finish their studies quickly (Pruijt, 2013).

By then the main disagreement within the movement was between political and cultural

squatters. Squatters were trying to come up with reasons to explain their decline; political

squatters blamed the elevation of the cultural element over political opposition, which drained

the movement of its essence and power. On the other hand, squatters which preferred culture

over politics contended that following strict ideology has ruptured them from the wider

public. They asserted that creativity was the way of getting back the support they had lost, it

was to become the new essence of squatting rather than oppositional politics (Owens, 2008).

The cultural squatters also resented political squatters’ almost military style of organization

during the confrontations and their overall hierarchical structure. Political squatters, in turn,

have accused some cultural squatters of lacking political vision and declaring them as

“traitors”. This disagreement turned into a violent conflict within the squatting movement,

resulting in the defeat of political squatters and their withdrawal from the scene. Political

squatters did not fully regroup after the evictions of some key political squatting sites. (Pruijt,

2013).

After this internal battle over the definition of the movement, the movement itself was

fragmented. Far from having a uniform agenda, endeavors to mobilize the movement on a

national or urban scale was not well-received.

“Since then, it became increasingly true that each squat had its own `story'. The

demands to legalize squats or to cancel demolition plans would be framed in terms of

the monumental value of the squatted building, the effect of demolition plans on the

social functioning of neighbourhoods or the dodgy character of the owner and his

plans. The goal now is to retain the squat as long as possible and all activities by the

squatters generating public and political support and engaging in juridical fights are

directed towards this end. This does not imply that squatters have lost their ideals but

the weakening and fragmentation of the movement have made it unlikely that the

political demands take precedence over the need to retain the squat. The basic need to


32

retain the building forces squatters to channel their activist activities, as far as

squatting is concerned, into a particular direction.” (Uitermark, 2004b)

So the movement had lost most of its oppositional edge if not all. While the priority of the

movement was to engage in confrontations with the state with little political compromise,

now it had to struggle with court cases, regulations and building plans in order to keep what

they have.

Justus Uitermark (2004a) identifies four distinct frames which were developed throughout the

history of Amserdam squatting movement. First, there is the “save the city” frame which is

opposed to the destructive consequences of urban renewal on the social fabric of the city.

Squatters were not content with the government’s top down plans which reduced housing and

displaced people. Second, there is the “uncompromising housing shortage” frame, which

again is critical of government policies, but housing is in the foreground rather than

aggressive urban transformation. Third, a frame was developed which saw squatting as

something else than just confrontation with authorities but an alternative way of life and

argued that squatting allowed new possibilities; Uitermark calls this the “free space” frame.

The fourth and final frame is the “breeding place” frame, which was similar to “save the city”

frame in its interest in effecting the urban fabric but also differed from it because it was not

seeking any confrontations with authorities but rather convince them that squats were places

which produced culture and contributed to the socio-cultural development of the city.

In 1990s, only two of these frames were still salient enough to keep their magnitude in

political discussions: the housing shortage frame and the breeding places frame. However, the

housing shortage frame, which is more confrontational and political in its nature, was not of

any interest to the policy-makers, while the breeding place frame was promising in promoting

‘creative Amsterdam’ as an attractive city for investors, affluent residents and tourists. This

especially hold true for the present.

“Breeding places are now very much the concern of the local government, especially

because it conceives of Amsterdam as a creative city that competes with other cities by

providing a special creative and vibrant atmosphere. Some squatters nicely fit into this

ideal and hence might be co-opted in one way or another (Uitermark, 2004). In

contrast, the housing shortage is not of prime concern to the government and demands

to retain social housing are likely to be ignored. Since the municipality is now keen on

attracting high-income households, social housing is now considered a burden rather

than an asset. Besides, social housing is now, at least formally, the responsibility of


33

privatised housing corporations, which are not accountable to the local government

and have to sell dwellings to break even.” (Uitermark, 2004a)

It can therefore be said that the triumph of cultural squats over political squats was

consolidated with the government’s uneven approach to the two distinct segments of the

movement. The city government has been trying to change Amsterdam into an appealing city

since its times of crisis in the 70s, when there was declining population, high unemployment,

escalating crime and deteriorating streets and buildings (Owens, 2008). This plan of change

was only compatible with the goals of cultural squatters, more specifically, the breeding place

frame. Towards the end of 1990s, the city consulted to experts in order to ‘revitalize’ the city.

European Cultural Commentator Trevor Davies stated that Amsterdam needed to facilitate

subculture, especially using its artistic potential. The city heeded this counsel, acknowledging

that affordable space for artists and cultural entrepreneurs was shrinking while there were

more and more offices and apartments were being built around the city. Cultural initiatives

had to be supported in order for them to flourish and give Amsterdam the creative image it

needed (ibid).

The Breeding Grounds (Broedplaatsen) Policy was devised exactly for this purpose. The

policy was created in 1998 and its purpose was to support and encourage cultural tasks

performed by squats. It was part of a bigger agenda to make Amsterdam a ‘diverse city’

(Uitermark, 2004b). The program reserved “41 million euros for the production of between

1,400 and 2,000 workspaces and living/workspaces for individual artists and groups of artists

and cultural entrepreneurs” (Pruijt, 2004: 700). However, this should not be misinterpreted as

city government’s fondness of artists per se. This motive is clear in the policy framework

itself:

“Companies such as MTV, Sid Lee, fashion designers or the Apple flagship store

establish themselves in Amsterdam partly on the basis of the image sketched above.

Art factories boost the rise in new creative activity that originates and develops from

the art factories. They not only form part of professional networks, but also of

informal circuits that are important for creativity. The presence of creative talent is

characteristic of Amsterdam, and is crucially important for the city and its

international reputation. The city has high-level educational programmes, museums

and galleries that attract the best creative individuals. In order to keep these creatives

in the city, affordable living and working space is needed. This is something that the

city is continuing to work on.” (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2012)


34

This shows that especially right now the policy seems to be interested in gaining advantage in

interurban competition rather than supporting the artists for the artists’ sake. Affordable living

and working spaces are created with the purpose of appealing to mega multinational

companies to invest. This also means an inflow of urban professionals who work at those

companies, increasing the number of middle class residents in the city.

B) Legal Context

Squatting in Amsterdam became very widespread and grew into a large movement because

there were legal grounds for it. The favorable legal context dates back to 1971, when the

Dutch Supreme Court decided that the right to domestic peace also applies to squatters.

Before this decision, squatters had no rights whatsoever and squatting was legally the same

thing as trespassing. Squatters could be evicted immediately by the police (Pruijt, 2003). After

1971, it became illegal for the police to clear buildings without a court order. The right to

domestic peace meant a turnaround for squatting. As long as the building was vacant when it

was squatted, it was available form long-term use by squatters. Squatters invited the police

inside after the break into the building and showed them that the building was indeed not in

use. From then on it was the owner’s responsibility to start his own juridical procedure to

evict them. However, it was not possible for the owner to take the squatters to court until he

knew their full names, so that bought the squatters time. Later, a law was introduced, making

it possible for owners to take anonymous squatters to court. In 1994, another law entered into

force, making it illegal to squat buildings which were vacant for less than a year (ibid). Still,

squatters were not helpless against the owners, and there were many long-term squats in

Amsterdam thanks to the favorable legal grounds.

These favorable legal conditions did not secure the squatters from evictions. Illegal evictions

happened, after which the squatters could legally object to the eviction afterwards but could

not claim their rights back on the house because they only had that right when they were de

facto living in the house; that right was gone when the building was cleared. Within the law,

there are three ways in which the squatters can be evicted. First way is a civil juridical

procedure. The owner can start his own procedure against the squatters, and take them to

court over the use of his property. However, if the building is proven to be vacant prior to

squatting, the owner has to have some sort of interest which has to be in conflict with the

interests of squatters. This meant that the owner could not just order an eviction saying that

the house or the building is his property and he wants it clear of squatters. The owner either

had to have plans which he should have the means to execute them (money, permits etc) or he


35

had to have buyers or renters who themselves had plans or were planning to live there. If there

was such a conflict of interest between the owner and squatters and the former’s interests out-

staked the latter, the court decided for an eviction. The second way is the technical way. If the

squatted building is not safe according to the safety regulations, or is against planning laws of

their local government, this can also be a valid reason for eviction. The local government

sends safety inspectors to check for fire hazards, emergency exits or the overall durability of

the building; if the building is not cleared for these regulations some time is given to fix the

problem, and if not, there is an eviction. It must be noted that this is the quickest and easiest

way of evicting squatters since it does not involve any court cases by default. The squatters

could always legally object to the eviction, but it is very difficult to actually stop it since it is a

technical matter and not debatable like the conflict of interests in a civil case. The final way is

the penal way; eviction on the grounds of the criminal code. Evictions with criminal grounds

were made with the argument that the building was already in use when it was squatted.

Therefore it was charged as trespassing. The 1994 law that made it illegal to squat buildings

or houses which were vacant less than a year was also part of this penal way. Squatters

receive a letter of eviction from their district public prosecutor stating that they are residing

illegally on the premises, and they are given one week to clear the property or take the

eviction decision to court. If neither of these is done within the given time, the building is

evicted by police force. Non-compliance or active resistance may result in prison sentence up

to two years or a fine depending on its degree.

The squatting ban that entered into force in 2010 is a major change in the third way, the

criminal grounds for eviction. The law basically renders the act of squatting itself a crime,

including merely being present in a squatted property. The interesting fact about this new law

is that it is designed in such a way that it also applies backwards. This means that even the

squats which were established before the law have been illegalized if they have no security

beforehand. With this legal change, squatters became criminals almost overnight. After the

legislation, around 300 squatted houses were announced to be evicted right away in

Amsterdam alone 3. Except some cases in which they already had security, no squat was

technically safe from this new law. Not every squat is evicted right away, indeed, there are

many squats which still exist despite the law. That is because they are not charged with the

crime of squatting (Article 138a), but there is officially nothing to stop them from being

charged with the crime. No squat is safe. Like one of my respondents told me, the new law

allows you to “pick them like cherries on a tree”.


36

Chapter 5 : The Tale of Two Squats

Drawing on the empirical data collected, this chapter will demonstrate to what extent the

squatting ban is enforced on the two cases selected for this research. Making the argument

that the uneven enforcement of the law effects their discursive and mobilization strategies, the

chapter will put forth data which will allow a comparison between artistic squats and activist

squats. After being located in Pruijt’s squatting typology, each case will be examined in three

sections. First section will explain the legal situation of the squats and their relationship with

the officials. City and district governments evaluate the purposes these squats can serve for

the creative city agenda and act accordingly. Second section discusses the discursive

strategies of the squats and looks for similarities with and differences from the strategy of

identification. The third section reviews how both cases employ mobilization strategies to

complement their discursive positions and delay evictions.

A) Midwich

Squatted in 1983, Midwich is one of the oldest squats in Amsterdam. Midwich is located right

next to Dam square, the most central location of Amsterdam city. It is a building with five

floors including the ground floor. There is a garage on the ground floor where events like

concerts, art exhibitions and parties are organized. The floors above are the living quarters.

Therefore Midwich is a combination of Pruijt’s (2013) configurations ‘entrepreneurial

squatting’ and ‘squatting as an alternative housing strategy’. There are nine people who live in

Midwich, all of which are either artists or receiving training in arts. Having been through the

fragmentation of the squatting movement, Midwich was and is part of the cultural segment of

the squatting scene. While in the beginning it hosted political activists, in time the activist

people have declined in number and gradually disappeared. This seems to have happened

through an active selection process:

“[W]hen it first started out there were more political activists in there. And that sort of

changed. Gradually the people, the group dynamics changed. The people became

more.. If you have more artists, if the majority becomes artists.. Because it’s an

internal election system also. The democratic vote on who get’s to live there. It’s not

like “we have an open space, you can go in”; it’s democratically voted.” (Siobahn,

Squatter)

In time, activists were replaced by artists. When I asked Siobahn if artists got consciously

picked to live there by the squatters of Midwich, she replied “Right, with their own certain set


37

of skills.”. Over the years, Midwich has gained a ‘cultural squat’ identity by accepting artists

as its residents.

In its history of thirty one years, the building had various owners and squatters had legal

battles against them over the use right over the building. The current owner of the building is

DeKey, one of the largest housing corporations in the Netherlands.

A1) Relationship with authorities / Legal Situation

Midwich is located in the Central District in Amsterdam; the street it is on is about a hundred

meters to Dam Square, the heart of the city. This area is being renovated under an urban

transformation project called Project 1012, the number being the post code of the area. This

project was initiated in 2007 by the cooperation of the city government with the central

district government (Stadsdeel Centrum). The purpose of the project is to make the 1012 area

“safer, more elegant and more liveable 4”. Boudewijn Oranje from the political party D66 and

the Executive Board of Stadsdeel Centrum explains the aims of the project as the following:

“It has two main goals: one is to break through the criminal infrastructure, and goal

two is to change the economy in that area. We are halfway now. And what happened is

that.. Those two goals overlap with each other. We saw that with our normal ways of

taking care of the area and to pick out the criminals.. They were so clever and the

structures were so complicated.. And with the tax law, and the criminal law and with

the way we could give permits.. So we lost power in that area. So what happened now

is that all the government agencies who has to do something with that area combine all

their actions. We make good analysis about women trafficking, or money laundering.

The tax office and we giving permits, and the criminal law we are all together to take

action. And the second one is the mono-economy.. The amount of souvenir shops,

mini-super markets, gambling holes.. And we had an enormous amount of windows,

500 windows for the brothels. We had 76 coffeeshops, that’s more than the whole city

of Rotterdam. In just a very small area. And the analysis is that if you combine a lot of

those functions in one area, it causes criminal background.” (Boudewijn Oranje,

Stadsdeel Centrum)

What Mr.Oranje says is interesting especially because he states defeating crime and upgrading

the economy of the area as overlapping purposes. As Mayer (1998) puts it, certain activities

are criminalised and their performers are declared ‘enemies of the state’ and they are banished

from the city with the purpose of achieving economic development. What Project 1012 aims


38

to do is to rid the area of its criminal infrastructure by intervening while combining the power

of government institutions. It also plans to change the area by diversifying its economy. It

does so by financially aiding new entrepreneurs to start up with their businesses. This is done

primarily by buying out the former businesses which fostered criminal activity and

subsidizing the new businesses which replaced the old ones by providing them affordable

rents for a certain time period. The state took a very active role in changing the area:

“And we stopped the grow of souvenir shops and gambling holes. The higher the

impact is, the more straight action we take and more money we spend. So we tried to

get a normal infrastructure. There are now new initiatives that people go to, people

who would have never gone to that area before. It was only a aimed at prostitution and

gambling et cetera. So we bought out the functions we didn’t like and to start new

businesses, the rent is in the beginning low. Low rent, and later they have to pay more.

And you see all the new initiatives people from Amsterdam start there. So the area is

changing, we try to get more people live in that area, because if you see how many

people visit that area and work in there and live there, you see that the amount of

people living there is quite low compared to the other groups. So we try to get more

residents in. We try to get the economy more mixed. And that you have people going

to places where I never went to. It’s very strange, it’s a very beautiful area that people

in Amsterdam never went.” (Boudewijn Oranje, Member of the Executive Board)

Therefore, the overall purpose of Project 1012 is to make Amsterdam’s city centre a more

safe and attractive place for tourists and residents. It is an attempt by the local government to

make the central district of Amsterdam a ‘lure for capitalist development’ (Harvey, 1989).

One year after the project had its start, DeKey purchased a whole block of buildings in

Spuistraat, including Midwich. By that time the city government was already interested in

making that block of buildings a part of Project 1012. The squatters of Midwich were aware

of this and they made plans on the use of the building in order to retain the squat. The

squatters’ plans involved various alternatives, most of them were creative hotspots. This

caught the attention of both the local government and DeKey, the owner. The initial plans

were to make Midwich an ‘art mall’ where there would be exhibitions but also art pieces for

sale. It would be made viable for commercial purposes:

“There would be an art mall afterwards. DeKey would make this whole block into

houses for rent. But, but the art mall like the garage, but then bigger, and workshops

like.. Workshops for artists, like it is now, but affordable for rent. So the city council


39

has also saved an amount of money to make this happen. So that we don’t have to rent

for maximum price. Then we needed to renovate and we needed to make place for

more people because this is rather a big place.” (Mary, Squatter)

The district government along with the city government liked this idea since it served their

agenda of promoting Amsterdam’s creative image, while DeKey would increase the rent

value of its property. Going in line with Florida’s (2002) theory on creative class and its

contribution to city economies, both the district council and the housing corporation saw

value in Midwich as an artistic incubator. In the meanwhile, squatters would get to stay since

they were already artists. It was a situation where everybody was going to win. However, in

2008, when the global financial crisis hit the real estate sector, DeKey was one of the housing

corporations in the Netherlands which went to the edge of bankruptcy. The corporation

suffered from mismanagement before the crisis and was not prepared for a financial

meltdown. So they have switched to crisis management by immediately having a change in

their board of directors and starting to sell their properties in order to minimize risk and get

money in the short-term:

“Then the crisis hit and then especially DeKey which was the social housing company

that took the highest risks was punished also at the highest level. So there was the huge

problem. So a new board of directors came in and what they did was get rid of all

those projects they bought, and they had a financial problem; at the same time the

social housing had to continue. The money has to come from one place or another.”

(Boudewijn Oranje, Stadsdeel Centrum)

These new developments changed everything. Unlike the old one, the new board of directors

decided that they should go into full damage control. The plans discussed with Midwich came

to a halt and the negotiations were stopped. DeKey put Midwich along with the whole block

of buildings adjacent to it up for sale5. The corporation also started a civil juridical procedure

against squatters for eviction.

Shortly after, the law which criminalized squatting has passed by the parliment. A criminal

prosecution has never started for squatters of Midwich, but the new law gave DeKey a

legitimate reason to completely shut off the demands of squatters and end negotiations

permanently:

“But since the new squat law in 2010.. Now we are all criminals; even you are a

criminal now because you entered a squat. So the most direct consequence of the law


40

for us is that in our efforts, in our negotiations with DeKey to get a permanent location

here.. In the first few years we were regarded as tenants, or as ‘people’.. And since that

law, we were only treated as ‘squatters’. Thus, as criminals. And for the owner that

was also the moment that they didn’t want to negotiate with us anymore. For them it

was easy; probably they never had an intent to negotiate with us, and they played a bit

of a charade maybe. But then since that new law, they think ‘ok now we don’t have to

act anymore, we can say that they are criminals. We don’t do business with them.’”

(Marcos, Squatter)

One of the striking facts is that the ascribed identities of the squatters are very volatile to

dramatic changes. The former board of directors of DeKey saw squatters as a decent party to

negotiate with because they saw economic value in a creative hotspot. The new board of

directors, however, wanted to make money quicker by selling the building, and squatters had

no place in their plans. Suddenly, with the help of the new legislation as well, squatters were

considered as ‘criminals’ by DeKey. The district government, however, still had plans for

Midwich and their criminalisation as a squat did not lead to their withdrawal. The Stadsdeel

started negotiations with DeKey; used its power and made resources available to keep the

squatters there and make Midwich a creative hotspot:

“I have three things I can do: I can make a ruling that the plan can’t be executed, I can

buy them out, or I can talk them out. More, I can’t do. Talking, money or rules.”


Talking DeKey out of their financial plan was not possible; they had decided to liquidate

Midwich since they needed money as soon as possible. That left the district government with

the two other options to stop Midwich’s eviction: rejecting DeKey’s building permit or

buying the building. The building permit was of importance because the market value of a

building is considerably higher with a ready plan. Moreover, when an owner is ready with the

execution of the plan, he gets the upper hand for an eviction in a civil court case. However,

the plan DeKey applied for was sound and the district council had no valid reason to reject it:

“They applied for a building permit, DeKey. And the building permit was in

accordance to our rules in general. So we could not refuse the building permit.

Because the plan they had was a good plan. Because they need the plan to sell it. At

that time they wanted to develop it themselves, but now they want to sell as soon as

possible. But when you apply for a building permit, the value is much higher. And


41

then squatters or people who have rental contract have no title to stay anymore. Then

the value is higher.” (Boudewijn Oranje, Stadsdeel Centrum)

That left the only option for the district council: money. The district council, along with the

city council of Amsterdam, had already reserved 1,1 million euros in order to subsidize

Midwich as a living/working space for artists. A very large part of this subsidy came from the

district council, while the city council also made additional subsidies available from the fund

of the Breeding Grounds (Broedplaatsen) Policy.

“We said, or at least the majority in the local council said “OK, we want to subsidize

the rent of the current users of Midwich. That was 900,000 euros. But it’s for ten years

only, eh? To subsidize the rent. Then later on they (Amsterdam City Council) put

another 250,000 to it. So this is a lot of money, 1,1 million!” (Boudewijn Oranje,

Stadsdeel Centrum)

More specifically, they have thought of a work-around to maintain it as living/working space

so that the squatters could continue to live there while the ground floor becomes a business:

“Well the initial plan was to actually subsidize the creative aspect of the building. And

that would probably mean an art market. That’s what was put in a legal document, a

city council document. They are not allowed to subsidize housing. They are not. So

they fixed it in such a way that would.. They would subsidize the business aspect, the

artistic business aspect of the.. garage. Like we said with the plan before.. Because if

you have low rent or no rent for instance, for a while for the business downstairs to

start up. And you are making money. And if the money you are generating is put back

into the house, that would lower all the rent. It’s a work-around. Yeah. Let’s just leave

it at that. So the city council would not be subsidizing housing, they would do their

part, they would subsidize the creative economy.” (Siobahn, Squatter)

Here, the primary motive of the district becomes most apparent. Their support for Midwich

was not an approval of squatting. However, they spent time, effort and money to find ‘work-

around’ to indirectly subsidize the housing of squatters so that they could stay in the building

and make it an effective living/working space. This way Midwich would be a good

contributor to the creative economy. So the massive amount of money reserved by the district

council was more of an investment in the ‘super-creative core’ of Florida’s (2003) creative

class rather than a mere subsidy.


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The street of Midwich, which is a part of the 1012 area

When DeKey put Midwich on the market for sale, this plan failed. Later, BOEI, a non-profit

organization which is specialized in renovating old industrial buildings and preserving old

buildings, declared that they are interested in buying Midwich. BOEI was willing to make

plans with squatters and let them stay. This was good news for squatters since they would

finally be able to realize their plans into a creative hotspot, generate income and pay rent to

BOEI, therefore legalizing Midwich permanently. The district council was pleased with this

and they acted as a third party to facilitate negotiations between BOEI and DeKey. They also

made the 1,1 million euros they reserved available to subsidize the deal, so that the property

would end up in BOEI’s hands and Midwich would finally become the creative

living/working space. Unfortunately, even with the subsidy of the local government, the

money BOEI offered fell short of the price DeKey set for the building. Right now, the

ownership of Midwich belongs to DeKey, while squatters continue to use the building. The

crucial detail is that the state never charged Midwich with the crime of squatting. There is a

court order of eviction, however, since the eviction order is not on criminal grounds, DeKey

either has to find capital to execute construction plans or find a renter/buyer who can to evict

the squatters.

In short, the central district of Amsterdam made an attempt to transform the area into a place

where more middle class people would become residents and start businesses. To do this, the

district government, along with other government institutions, took a very active role in


43

repelling certain activities by declaring them a part of criminal infrastructure and facilitating

their replacement by new business initiatives. This way they would also revitalize the

economic development in the area. While doing this, they also aimed to elevate Amsterdam’s

image as a creative city since this was a powerful motor of generating economic value. By

that time, Midwich was already a cultural squat which mostly comprised of artists. Therefore

this new context offered both the district and the squat an opportunity: Midwich squatters

would secure their location despite the recent illegalization of squatting, and district council

would have a creative hotspot which was believed to generate economic development.

A2) Discursive Strategies

The discursive position Midwich takes is in alignment with Amsterdam’s creative city

discourse. Their framing is is chosen in such a way that it allows them to identify with

multiple aspects of the creative class which also establishes them to be desirable urban

citizens. It is also very successful in capturing the sympathy of both Left and Right politics,

which had earned them the valuable support of the district and the city council. They adhere

to two main discourses which allows them to appeal to a wide spectrum of political parties:

diversity and economic value through creativity (or creative economy).

Before moving on to some of the answers I got from my respondents at Midwich, I would like

to quote Richard Florida about the people he conceptualizes as the ‘creative class’:

“The creative class people I study use the word "diversity" a lot, but not to press any

political hot buttons. Diversity is simply something they value in all its manifestations.

This is spoken of so often, and so matter-of-factly, that 1 take it to be a fundamental

marker of creative class values. Creative minded people enjoy a mix of influences.

They want to hear different kinds of music and try different kinds of food. They want

to meet and socialize with people unlike themselves, trade views and spar over issues.”

(Florida, 2002: 20)

When I asked what the argument of Midwich is, the purpose of Midwich beyond its

residential purposes, I also heard the word diversity often from squatters of Midwich. They

believe that they make the city a better place by contributing to its diversity and giving it more

color; places like Midwich frees the city from its dullness.

[when asked about Midwich’s argument] “Diversity. And also something like.. You

need some kind of balance and since it’s quite monotonous, like all the big cities are

becoming more and more monotonous, you need like a counter image. Creativity, but


44

also something like stubbornness or something different, a different way of living. A

critical way of living. I mean we are not really politically active, but.. Yeah, just a way

of living. As in a group, you know. All of us, the people who live here are somehow a

bit weird, you know? Not taking the path most of the people understand and do take.

We are all a bit like searchers, or freedom lovers, or.. alternative. We want to do it in

our way.” (Marcos, Squatter)

The squatters of Midwich are critical, but ‘in their own way’. They believe the existence of

Midwich and other alternative places creates diversity in the city, and that is something that

Amsterdam needs. They do not claim to be political activists, however, they do think that they

help the city with their alternative lifestyle which contributes to its diversity. They argue that

it does not have to create immediate economic wealth, but it is by itself something valuable.

“OK, it’s in a very busy city. Most of the world is turning into sameness. And

especially like.. The money makes..Can I just use like little words there? Ding ding

ding. We need diversity in a city. And in a city.. If you are living in a village you can

choose to leave or not, but in a city, especially Amsterdam but all cities.. actually all

villages as well should have room for all kinds of people. And not just the ones that

decide the law by having loads of money that are not even real. You know. A city

needs diversity. And especially this particular place, Midwich.. What would it be

without it.. You see people taking pictures and “woow”.. If you see the plans of

DeKey, it’s like a humongous dentist’s office. It’s like horrible. It’s unbelievable, and

the government, or DeKey or the moneymakers don’t see the value it has.. The indirect

value. And they talk about.. “get rid of the whores, get rid of the...” No, get rid of the

all white washing and ding ding shops. Do the right focus and leave the.. Authentic

bits of a city. And especially something that has been around for so long that turned

into a landmark.” (Victoria, Squatter)

Such a discursive position establishes a notion of deservingness by elevating Midwich over

other places which in their opinion lacks ‘authenticity’. A direct discursive move here is

claiming to be different from repetitive and unauthentic places. They frame themselves as a

unique landmark which is not to be compared with ‘humongous dentist offices’ or ‘ding ding

shops’. Moreover, the emphasis on diversity seems to have got the Left wing politicians on

their side. Politicians who have more of a social justice standpoint over economic value

believe that even the most central areas of the city should have affordable places for lower

income residents and initiatives, and should not be exclusive for the affluent. Mr.Oranje,


45

himself being a member of the centre Left political party D66 answers when I ask him why

Midwich deserves to stay:

“Because if you look at the inner city and how it develops, it was a very cheap area.

For example I bought a house in Jordaan. My father did. And in 40 years time, that

house has been 200 times more expensive. The inner city was in the 70s till the

beginning of the 80s, last century, wasn’t a popular area. People were going elsewhere.

And in 30 years time we have a new golden century. So what’s happening now is that

the inner city is becoming more exclusive and new initiatives have a hard time to start

in the inner city. So the surrounding.. as you see the map on my wall, the city on the

west side and the east side, which were not very popular areas.. And now you see the

most new developments in those areas because those areas are still cheaper.”


Succinctly, the emphasis on diversity is a key part of Midwich’s discursive strategies,

especially when appealing to Left wing political parties. However, diversity is not the only

aspect of Midwich’s discourse. A crucial element of Midwich’s discursive standpoint was

their added value to the city’s creative image and their contribution to Amsterdam’s economy.

This was particularly important since Right wing political parties were also sympathetic to

this idea. I was very surprised when I heard that the Right wing political party VVD (People’s

Party for Freedom and Democracy) which was one of the parties which is responsible for the

legislation of the squatting ban in 20106 in the first place and is well-known for its critical

standpoint against squatters in fact voted in favor of Midwich when the issue of reserving

subsidies was being discussed in the district council:

[on VVD] “They voted for us! They supported us! And that’s also because of the angle

we chose, is.. The way we live and work here is essential for the new economy. And

the.. Especially for the creative economy. And the creative economy that has been

stated in a few research documents. That should be one of the assets of Amsterdam.

Exactly. You have a few of those researchers and philosophers and this.. there is a few

books and researches that showed that. The alternative scene. And partly because we

knew that it would sound good for them, also for a party like the VVD, you know, the

creative economy. And we also have the policy of Broedplaatsen. Broedplaats would

be like an autonomous freezone or an incubator..” (Marcos, Squatter)

Midwich was very much aware of the academic literature on creative economies and they also

knew that the city was influenced by this trend. So they have seized the opportunity; the fact


46

that they were artists have opened up the possibility of presenting themselves as urban

citizens who are willing and able to contribute to the city’s economy and prestige. This way

their voice is also legitimate to political parties like the VVD:

“I think what the VVD wants as a party in the city is not that you complaining. And

only complaining. I know this, during all the sessions that I was there, that a lot of

people, if something happens, for instance, if a road gets deformed or if there is a

zebra coming.. People come to complain. But what we did was.. Yeah, we went to

complain, but hey, here is an alternative. You don’t have to think about this, we

thought about it. This is.. We already did. This is what we want to do. And that is what

the VVD liked in us, I think, as a group. Again, the creative economy part. Still, the

commercial value. Making it attractive. Because there are people in the VVD who see

value in breeding grounds for a setting for bigger things.” (Siobahn, Squatter)

The above quotes show that Midwich is consciously deploying a strategy of identification

(Nicholls, 2013). Firstly, they claim to assume responsibility and reveal their utilitarian value

on their own. They do not just possess creativity but qualities of ‘good’ urban citizens who

take initiatives by themselves to contribute to the economic vitality of the city (Schipstal

&Nicholls, 2014). Secondly, they directly identify with the creative city discourse of

Amsterdam. The recognition of Broedplaatsen policy coupled with their self-representation as

a Broedplaats (even though they are not officially so) in their online pages are good examples

of this discursive identification. The increased commercial value is also vital to their

discourse, which also included the advantage Amsterdam would have in interurban

competition. The fact that Amsterdam brands itself and lot of effort is made to ‘market’ the

city to tourists, business and potential residents using its unique and authentic feel is also

important since it gives the squatters of Midwich a valid reason to criticize any attempts for

their eviction and advocate their value in Amsterdam’s city marketing. Squatters argue that

what makes a city attractive is not generic apartments and offices but its uniqueness which is

created by collectives like Midwich. Keeping Midwich as it is means maintaining

Amsterdam’s unique character which gives it the upper hand over other places:

“It is good for the economy. That’s what I’m telling you as well, it’s indirectly good

for the economy. What are you going to do? Well, forbid forbid forbid. You take

everything away and you still want to sell Amsterdam as Amsterdam. People don’t

come here for tulips and luxury apartments.” (Victoria, Squatter)


47

Some squatters in Midwich do not truly believe in this tight connection between creativity and

economy. The act of presenting oneself as citizens with ‘creative capital’ who have a good

potential of generating economic value do not seem realistic to them. However, believing in

this discourse and applying it are different things in their situation. Even though they do not

sincerely think that there indeed is a ‘creative economy’, they do recognize the strategic value

of adhering to such a discourse because identifying with the norms of Amsterdam’s urban

governance increases their chances of retaining their place in the city:

“And then it was kind of a fashion to make the relation between art and economy. That

art can really evoke a good economy. If people go to the theather or a gallery, they

spend money, they take the train, they drive the car, they have dinner sometimes they

book a hotel.. And it’s an economy as well. And so.. Actually I think if you look at it

like that, it’s kind of lame if you try to value art or culture in that sense only. But it is

the thing that we have to go with because people tend to think of everything in terms

of euros.” (Mary, Squatter)

Combining these two important elements, diversity and creativity, Midwich made a lot of

effort carrying their message to the local government. They did this by visiting politicians in

Stadsdeel hearings but also inviting them to Midwich to hold presentations:

“The city council supports us but it’s not like they just took us like ‘OK, we’re going

to support you.’ I mean that involved a lotta lotta lotta work, and plan writing, and.. I

mean I’ve been to so many meetings, holding the same speech every time you know

and trying to gain support.” (Marcos, Squatter)

“Yes. They came here, and we went a lot of times to their meetings. Also to have our

say. Just rehearsing all the time and repeating all the time.. The same story with new

ingredients or with a different light.” (Mary, Squatter)

One of the most important advantages Midwich has is their garage on the ground floor of the

building, which they mostly use for art exhibitions but also film screenings, concerts and

parties. The garage was not always in theirs to use; it ended up in their possession in 2011.

Having an art gallery was a very important asset for Midwich, it was almost the perfect

opportunity for them to materialize their discourse. The squatters found out that the rental

contract of the garage had ended, and they asked DeKey if they can use the garage.

Surprisingly, DeKey’s reply was positive, and the garage became a part of Midwich.


48

“A letter that ended the rental contract ended up in our doorstep. We took and read the

letter and we knew about it, and we went to the new owner of these group of buildings

and we were in contact with them of course. We said hey, we see that this room is now

available, can we use it? They said ‘ok, you can use it’. [...] So kind of a cool jest by

them.. It surprises me because it’s not in accordance with the rest of their behavior I

would say.” (Marcos, Squatter)

The garage/gallery made it possible for Midwich to have a public face; before the garage they

only had the living quarters upstairs. Their only reach outwards was an elegant and colorful

painting on the facade. Being almost the same age with the squat itself, while the facade is a

part of the character of Midwich, it only allowed a one sided interaction with people. People

took photos and marveled the painting. The garage, combined with the facade is what made

Midwich truly an entrepreneurial squat by connecting it to the wider audience. It was a space

where squatters could display their artworks but also host other people’s art projects and other

events.

“[T]hat’s only made possible 2 years ago since our last owner DeKey which was really

our crucifixion.. No really that was horrible, but when they bought it, we could

actually have the garage from them, because they didn’t want trouble with us. That

was like the only thing. They were like “oh you silly squatters, you can use the garage,

we don’t care.” And now we made a really big success, now we have a face outwards,

because before that wasn’t possible. It was just the façade. Most of the people who

have been living all this time were artists, you know, so it’s still indirectly a greater

thing, but man I’m happy about that garage. It’s so good for freaking everyone. It’s a

lot of shit for us because it’s shitloads of work but it’s still.. All the people come there

and it’s so happy and it’s fucking free, you know? And if you’re really like a not

talented artist.. You can have an exhibition! That must be fantastic eh?” (Victoria,

Squatter)

“The people in the building have always been creative. Some people.. have always

done that but separately in their own ways with being part – connected with projects..

Well if you don’t tell anybody about it. If you don’t show it? “Ah, I’m a musician, I’m

in a band.” “Where are you going to play?” “Well, I’m not.” Hahaha, you know? In

my house. In my bathroom. Yeah, very good. I’m very good, you know? Yeah, ok.”

(Siobahn, Squatter)


49

It is also an important detail that the garage was turned into a space open to public while

Midwich became a part of the plans of the 1012 project:

“[W]e had the opportunity finally, and we were arguing about it for a year. It was a lot

of work to put it into this state. It was a really old mess, it was so much. It looked like

shit, and while we were doing that.. For a long time I’ve never seen so much

enthusiasm, you know? It’s also combined with the 1012 plans with the council. To be

like this art hotspot or whatever. When finally we just agreed on starting as a gallery

and we had to open it sometime. And it all falls into place you know? Things tend to

do.” (Victoria, Squatter)

The garage was in a very deteriorated condition when the squatters of Midwich took it, but

they have invested a lot of effort into making it look good. One of the interesting details I

noticed when I was in Midwich was the striking difference in tidiness between the living

quarters and the gallery. The living quarters, if the phrase could be forgiven, was a bit of a

‘mess’. With nine people sharing the same place, no matter how spacious, there was an

abundance of objects lying around, the interior itself lacked maintenance. It was a cosy

untidiness. The garage, however, had beautiful brick walls with professional lighting, and it

was always kept tidy. When there was not a particular exhibition which made use of the walls,

there were sheets of papers which were orderly lined on the wall. On these sheets it was

possible to see the past activities which were hosted in the garage. It is like a timeline

including art exhibitions, workshops, concerts, screenings and other events alike. It was out in

the open for everyone to see how the garage is a valuable place for cultural and artistic

activities.

In short, Midwich possesses what could really be called an effective discursive ‘arsenal’.

Their disposition as artists gives them the ability to identify with the city’s creativity and

diversity discourse which is appealing to both Left wing and Right wing political parties in

the local government. Squatters present themselves as responsible urban citizens who are

capable of coming up with their own solutions and showing their utilitarian value, primarily in

economic terms. They consciously use the strategy of identification by claiming to be a key

asset to Amsterdam’s creative economy. Knowing that Amsterdam city government seeks to

encourage places in which arts and culture flourish while also maintaining a diverse social

fabric in the city center, they frame themselves in a way which appeals to the city officials. At

the same time, Midwich transformed the garage on their ground floor into a gallery, which


50

was crucial in their attempts to present themselves as an active creative initiative and while

also having a public face.

A3) Mobilization Strategies

When mobilization strategies are considered, Midwich does not seem to have made a large

effort. Squatters do not engage in activities like media campaigns, demonstrations or rallies.

Neither do they resort to disruptive strategies in order to raise awareness or get attention.

Their negotiations and presentations are rather in the form of isolated interactions. Claims are

made to city officials on the basis of their discursive legitimacy, however, there are no serious

attempts of mobilizing a crowd which represents their public support, even though they do

have a lot of people who acknowledge them. Nevertheless, Midwich is not completely idle

when it comes to attempts of mobilization.

One of the actions of Midwich which is aimed to reach out for public support is their petition.

Midwich squatters have created an online petition7 the purpose of which is to show people’s

support in stopping Midwich’s possible eviction. On the petition web page, Midwich is

described as a ‘successful public art space’ and a ‘creative incubator’. The petition text states

that Midwich is under the threat of eviction and that the city council is negotiating with the

owner in order to stop it. Following the description text, an online signature is requested to

protect Midwich which has been offering ‘cultural value, diversity and a colorful life’ in

Spuistraat for more than 30 years. The link to this online petition is posted in the social media

accounts of Midwich and people were asked to share it so that it would spread to a wider

circle. A banner is hung on top of the entrance of the building saying: “Sign the Petition! Save

Midwich!”. It is also possible to get flyers at the gallery on the ground floor.

Squatters do not have high expectations from the petition. Although they also think that it is

good to be able to show the number of people who are in favor of them.

“Well the petition, you know, what can you do. It’s.. The petition is more to.. Trying

to quantify somehow all the support we have. And doesn’t really work but still.

(Marcos, Squatter)”

[when asked how long the petition existed for and its purpose] “I think a year and a

half. How did it came to be? I think.. Just as another outreach, just to see how many

people would be interested in showing support. To register. Because we had all these

people in Midwich.” (Siobahn, Squatter)


51

“I’m actually very very careful with all my e-mail addresses in the lists. For

invitations, when I have my premiers. Most of the time, very specific. And when we

had this petition, one evening I just made a choice: “OK, send them to all the

contacts.” That’s something I would never do. So it’s an act of fear I guess.” (Mary,

Squatter)

In addition to the petition, one considerable effort to raise public awareness about Midwich

was a song. Composed by one of the squatters, the lyrics of the song are written to present

Midwich as a place “full of art and music”, “free and creative”, “located in the heart of

Amsterdam”. It also describes Amsterdam as a city where “diversity exists” and states that the

city is not “the game Monopoly”. Again, this is a production which includes the main

discursive elements of Midwich, but this time for a general audience to know, using a catchy

tune:

“[T]he good thing with the song was that everyone in the house can play an instrument

or you know, film something or have a creative.. To get their outlet with this. But the

song was like.. I hope that will still come and we’ll make a youtube hit. It’s about

awareness, you know.” (Victoria, Squatter)

Overall, Midwich does not have many strategies of mobilization. They are not campaigning

on a broad scale, and do not engage in episodic mobilizations like street demonstrations or

media actions. Instead, they choose a more passive way of mobilization, they make an online

petition, spread it through social media, and they make a song which is also available online

and shared by people on the internet. Some effort is made to make the public a part of their

struggle, but it does not seem to be of much importance since Midwich is able to take steps

through official channels. The city government is already trying to help them stay by

reserving subsidies and negotiating with the owner. Their strong discursive frame is sufficient

in making their voices heard by the city officials. They do not expect to go further than where

they are by mobilization.

B) Brookhaven

Brookhaven is a social center which was started by squatters occupying a former animal

shelter in the Eastern district of Amsterdam. The beginning of Brookhaven is the summer of

2011, almost one year after the squatting ban was legislated by the parliment. The building

itself comprises of two spacious floors, it is also surrounded by a large yard. While the ground

floor and the yard is used for organizations and activities like parties, festivals, concerts and


52

workshops, the upper floor includes the private quarters of squatters. By this criteria,

Brookhaven is a combination of Pruijt’s (2013) configurations ‘squatting as an alternative

housing strategy’ and ‘entrepreneurial squatting’.

However, the core group of people who live in and operate Brookhaven are very active in the

squatting scene. Not only are they located in a network of activists, they also help people who

are in search of housing in Amsterdam by holding squatting consulting hours (KSU) every

week. They are also not reluctant to be critical of the city and the district governments.

Indeed, the critical character was established at the beginning of Brookhaven:

“[O]ur core business was not running a social center, because we did it. But our core

business was to upset some important people. Get on their nerves, with the ultimate

goal to realize a legal activist center which belongs to us and which was to be

sustained for the future.” (Rogier, Squatter)

This aspect also qualifies Brookhaven as a political squat. Brookhaven is not like the militant

and radical political squats which were constantly looking for confrontations with the state.

Nevertheless, squatters do voice their critical remarks on authorities by resorting to non-

violent and quite innovative ways. Their critique is not an all out attack on the authorities,

since Brookhaven is also trying to maintain some ties with the local government to have them

listen to their claims. Brookhaven is also a hub in an activist network. Posters and flyers of

demonstrations and anti-systemic protests can be found on the walls; such events are also easy

to come by in the online blog and their pages on social media. Therefore, Brookhaven is a

composition of three configurations from Pruijt’s (2013) typology: squatting as an alternative

housing strategy, entrepreneurial squatting and political squatting. The squatted property

belongs to a partnership called OCP, which comprises of three housing corporations which

run a redevelopment project in the Eastern District of Amsterdam.

B1) Relationship with authorities / Legal Situation

Brookhaven is located in the Eastern District of Amsterdam, in a neighborhood called

Oostpoort. In 2004, a redevelopment project8 was initiated on this area by the Eastern District

government. It was an urban renewal project which covered a very large area. The project

includes new houses with higher rents, a shopping street with global brands selling luxury

goods and clothing, underground parking lots and a pedestrian mall. The district government

made contracts with OCP to redevelop the area, selling the grounds to them. The execution of

the project was aggressive and modernistic. It was not a plan of renovation; first, almost


53

everything which stood in the area was demolished. After the whole area was wiped clean, the

developer started rebuilding from scratch. This is a very direct attempt by the local

government to ally itself with private capital to change the area with the purpose of economic

development. As Harvey (1989) argues, the local government switches to an active

‘entrepreneurial approach’, in order to create ‘innovative ways to keep their cities

functioning’ (Mayer, 1998). The execution of such grandiose plans show that the city is in

need of creating spaces of capital accumulation and economic growth. The animal shelter,

before it was squatted, was also included as part of the project. At the time, the building was

not in use and was in full deterioration, but its monumental status prevented OCP from

demolishing it. While the project was proceeding, in 2008 the financial crisis erupted and

construction at the area which the animal shelter was located in came to a standstill. This left

the animal shelter standing with a large wasteland around it, where nothing was being

developed. The building stayed empty for some years until the squatters saw it as an

opportunity to occupy it and make it habitable.

Before squatting Brookhaven, the activists were running a social center somewhere else in the

district. This social center was located on the ground floor of a block of apartments which

used to be social housing but were being transformed into apartments for rent on private

market:

“[W]e started in 2007 with a squat in Derde Oosterparkstraat. And I have to tell the

story a bit because it’s related to what Brookhaven today is. But at that time there was

a housing corporation which was hosting social apartments. And they were also going

to be demolished for mid-segment, higher-segment rent. The tenants were living there,

they were surprised by the decisions. And then started to go to the renters

organization, to the politicians and no one would really help them. And then they went

to the KSU, and asked for help. And there a group was formed, and together with the

tenants we squatted a few apartments. And one of the ground floor apartments was

really run down, so we transformed it into a little social center, which grew out to be

the neighborhood bar in a way.” (Rogier, Squatter)

The relationship between Brookhaven squatters and the district council was not good even

before Brookhaven was squatted, since squatters were struggling against the plans of the

housing corporation approved by the district by occupying social apartments to protect the

original residents. Later, the district offered to find the squatters an alternative place when

they cleared the building. When the eviction drew close they reminded the district


54

government of their promise, but could not get any results. This caused a distrust against the

district government and the vacant animal shelter became more and more of an attractive

option:

“So we had a quite successful struggle against, but again we lost. Because the

neighborhood center was running so well, it was acknowledged by the housing

corporation and the city council. And in the process of.. they promised to provide us

with a new facility or a new place. When we were threatened with evictions, we told

the city council ‘hey, you were supposed to give us something.’ They were, in order to

do our stuff, which was a social center. So that we could do it somewhere else. But

when we demanded this they couldn’t remember any promises. So we said to them

“we want to have this old animal shelter”. And they said “well that’s impossible, you

can’t have that, it’s run down, its dangerous and so on”. So we knew that we were

going to get evicted, and we knew also that we wanted to have this place.” (Rogier,

Squatter)

From the very beginning, the district government was not happy to see squatters in the middle

of a redevelopment project which considerably increased the value of the housing stock in the

area. By 2011, the area redevelopment project run by OCP went bankrupt more than once, but

the district council wanted to see the project done, so they have also invested money to

finance OCP so that construction would continue. This marks the case of the Eastern Disrtict

different from the Central District’s. The Central District of Amsterdam provided subsidies

and reserved funds to buy out undesired functions in the 1012 area; here we see the Eastern

District directly co-investing into a redevelopment project, which means they have a vested

interest in its completion. The district government also needed to maximize the returns from

its investment. The idea of having activist squatters running a social center next to expensive

housing was not appealing at all neither for the OCP nor the district council. Considering the

shopping street at the next block and the luxurious apartments which were yet to be built

around Brookhaven, such a place just was not the right fit. Their image as a social center with

free and affordable voluntary service as well as well as their disposition which was not

exactly in line with middle class values had the potential to scare off buyers. Without the

buyers the developer was not going to acquire capital and possibly the end date of the project

was going to be delayed even more.

“They are scared shitless that they cannot sell their houses, because there is an

anarchist or whatever squatting group or something like this.” (Nigel, Squatter)


55

“[T]he houses that are closest to Brookhaven in the planning, they are like the biggest

villas of the whole project. So that’s the richest most yuppie people, they are going to

live right there, haha. Next to the vegetable gardens.” (Emma, Squatter)

Brookhaven is far from an anarchist squat, but the owner and some politicians in the district

council are aware of their activism and simply do not want to deal with them. Unlike

Midwich, Brookhaven does not have an alluring look from the outside; unless one goes in

there and meets the squatters himself, the place may indeed look a bit shady. Moreover, the

project has been in development for so long and it is of paramount importance to both the

district government and the project developer that it is finished as soon as possible:

“They don’t want squatters. Also the most expensive houses will be right next to

Brookhaven. They are still to be built. Right now your view on us is probably that we

are capable people of organizing things but that is not the general image of squatters.

People look at it from outside and it’s shabby and dirty. It’s like giving the bad kid

their candy. And if they let us do it, some people really lose their face. For some it’s

really a career thing. “ (Leia, Volunteer)

Brookhaven was subject to many obstructions from both the local and national state, which

were either attempts for preparing the grounds for their eviction, or were by themselves

discouraging. One of the most important obstacles Brookhaven faced was the building safety

inspections conducted by the local government:

“[H]ere they tried to get us out immediately kind of with all these inspections and

blah-de-blah. But that didn’t work and the longer you’re here, the more you’re

growing and the more risk you are actually, for them.” (Nigel, Squatter)

“Yeah. The safety inspections were crucial. With every inspection they tried to get us

out. And if there is one inspection which says this is unsafe and then you can’t do it,

then we would have been out.” (Rogier, Squatter)

If an inspection detects a safety risk in the building, the residents have up to two weeks to fix

it, otherwise the building is evicted on the grounds of being too unsafe. Brookhaven’s

structure lacked serious fire safety material. Regulations forbid inhabitance in buildings if

they are unsafe, so this was the quickest way to evict squatters without the hassle of juridical

procedures:

“It’s also partly easier because it is more white-washed in the sense because you can’t

argue with it. If you say “I’m going to evict because I’m the Stadsdeel and I don’t


56

want squatters” than that’s politically insensitive. You say “It was a fire hazard. We

are doing it for their own good. We cannot be responsible. We like them but it’s not

safe.” With safety, you can never argue. So that’s also why it is easier.” (Laura,

Volunteer)

The squatters however, acted quickly and installed a fireproof roof and an emergency exit in

the building, eliminating the threat of eviction by safety standards.

After this, another attempt by the local government was to issue a building stop which meant

a high fine in case of any kind of modification in the structure:

“[T]hey also said “next to this, you’re going to get a building stop.” So for every

screw, and nail that goes into the wall, for every piece you get a 25,000 euros, going to

a max of 1 or 2 millions or something. So its like 40 screws would make a million,

right? That was crazy.” (Nigel, Squatter)

The building stop was discouraging and it made it even more difficult for squatters to make

the building inhabitable. Nevertheless, Brookhaven managed to continue despite such efforts

from the local government.

The earlier attempts of clearing Brookhaven of squatters died down afterwards. At that point,

the district council was less aggressive in taking measures to clear Brookhaven. As it will be

explained in the following pages of this chapter, this was achieved mostly by the active

mobilization by the squatters. When the owner company OCP stated that they wanted to make

the animal shelter a sales office of the project, some politicians in the council have stated that

they will do what they can to talk with OCP so that they would look elsewhere for their sales

office.

“Well, they kind of did when at one point all those neighborhood people were going

there, we made it so. They wrote a letter to the OCP, like ‘please look into other

possibilities so you can have your sales office at maybe somewhere else, so these

people can stay longer’.” (Nigel, Squatter)

However, even though the district council showed partial support for Brookhaven, this was

temporary. No attempts were made by the district government to keep squatters there

indefinitely. When OCP cancelled their plans to renovate the animal shelter themselves

because of its high cost, the building was put up for sale. The district did not offer any

financial support when Brookhaven declared that they wanted to buy the building, even when

they found a third party sponsor who agreed to let the squatters stay. The support by the


57

district council was only partial and the squatters were never taken seriously as an interested

party:

“Everything which is related or remotely related to us, they block off. And there is no

reasonable argument to that. It’s just the argument of us being squatters. [..] Well they

talk with us because they want to know what we are up to, but.. Yeah, when we talk

it’s only about us leaving. Or us solving the parking space or something like that. But

they would never, not one time or one moment would be willing to actually talk about

the future plans or anything like that.” (Rogier, Squatter)

“[T]he relationship was basically that there are a few parties which are sort of

supportive of Brookhaven. Some of them are really supportive, they say “we are going

to present your issues at the council”. And there are parties like the PvDA who kind of

pay lip service to the fact that.. They say “we’re going to help you” but in the end,

when push comes to shove, they usually don’t.” (Garrett, Squatter)

The district council viewed Brookhaven as a temporary initiative which seized the

opportunity of vacant premises when the redevelopment project was halted because of the

crisis. It was not extremely inconvenient until the project was ready to proceed. When the

redevelopment of the particular area around Brookhaven approached, it was time for them to

go. In the last week of April 2014, Brookhaven received an eviction notice from the district

public prosecutor, which stated that they were dwelling on private property in violation of

Article 138a of the Dutch Criminal Code. Three weeks before the actual eviction letter was

delivered, Brookhaven received a letter from the mayor of Amsterdam. In this letter the

mayor stated that the squat was allowed to exist until then since the plans for the property

were not yet clear, but “the situation has changed”. The mayor ‘requested their cooperation’

with the district council and OCP, and added that this request applied when their eviction is

announced.

At the end of the letter, the mayor also stated that Brookhaven could try their chances with

another place if they applied for one through the Breeding Grounds policy. There are two very

important points in the offer made at the end of the mayor’s letter. First, it is made very clear

that Brookhaven’s only chance of achieving a legally secure place is through adopting a

creativity discourse of a cultural squat. The city has an institutionalized way of integrating

such squats, and Brookhaven could apply for a place through Policy Broedplaatsen.

Maintaining their identity as an activist squat was not an option if they chose to go in this

trajectory. Second, even if they chose the official way and readjust themselves to be eligible


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with a policy which looks for characteristics of creativity and commercial value, they would

still have to move to another location. This is crucial since it shows that the problem is not

just discursive, but structural factors are also in effect. They occupy a land which is of major

importance to a project of which the co-investors are a private company and the district

government. It seems that they both want to get the maximum return out of their investment,

and do not want to take any chances with so many houses around Brookhaven waiting to be

sold.

Lastly, Brookhaven was under close scrutiny of the Dutch Intelligence Agency, AIVD. Being

a squat which hosted activists and which was connected to other activist groups, Brookhaven

became a place of interest for the security forces of the Netherlands. Although Brookhaven

never engaged in any activity which posed danger to people, the national government was a

bit overcautious about the activists.

“Well we are activists! And every activist is a political danger for the country. This is

bizarre but this is how it works. How they think. But the thing is if you’re squatting or

you’re some kind of a political activist or whatever, you’re opposing what the guys in

the suits say. And everyone who’s opposing is possibly dangerous for what they think

is their power. That’s how they look at it. And that might be, I mean, what kind of

demonstration or action or whatever are planned here or will be planned here.. You

know it’s like.. The cave of Al-Qaeda, you know?” (Nigel, Squatter)

The interest of national security forces like the AIVD makes squatters uncomfortable, and is

discouraging. AIVD is gathering intelligence on Brookhaven by asking people to be secret

informants. In addition to being daunting for squatters to stay at Brookhaven, this also

hampers their activist agenda since they are never sure if people around them are informants

or not:

“What we find most repressing about the AIVD is that.. They focus on specific people

and then they start asking them if they want to be an informant. Usually they are

young and not too extreme so they just got involved. And these are the people who

will be targeted by the intelligence agency. They say “look, we know that you are

involved and we think that’s fine. But there are other people who are basically spoiling

it because you all have ideals but they do radical things and people can get hurt

because of that. It would be nice if you can get some some information.” [..] You

always know the people who come forward and say “look this has happened to me.”

And this person says “I don’t want this”, and they go and tell their wider group about


59

it. So we know. What we don’t know is the ones who don’t do that. And in terms of

the repression effect, that makes you paranoid. And less trustful, which is not

something you want to do. Because you want to be open to people, to involve people

and not get paranoid. But if you get these recurring stories, and they are not stories,

they are actually people coming forth and say “this has happened to me.” (Laura,

Volunteer)

“[F]or example one girl from the gardens here.. Luckily she told us what exactly she

told the cops from the intelligence. She was at her house, they came by and kind of

forced their way in a little bit, and asked – they told her that they needed input, they

asked her maybe if she could take pictures here and stuff and send it onto them

because they need kind of their spies. And they there was more that they are trying to

get in contact with students or whatever, tell them how bad we are, and then they make

them work for them.” (Nigel, Squatters)

Concisely, Brookhaven had a complicated relationship between the local and national

governments. Neither their existence as a squat nor their activism was desired by authorities,

and the power of a manifold of institutions at their disposal was used to banish

them.Brookhaven never had a civil court case on their eviction. Their eviction is certain and

waiting to be carried out on the grounds of violation of the criminal code. Since they pose an

obstacle to the ‘economic revitalization’ of the area, the punitive and repressive measures are

taken much more swifter than they would have been otherwise (Mayer, 1998).


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The complete and incomplete parts of Project Oostpoort

B2) Discursive Strategies

There are various elements which define the discursive positions of Brookhaven. However,

the emphasis is not made on the creative class; the squatters of Brookhaven are not artists but

mostly activists. They do not have the set of qualifications to adopt such a discourse, neither


61

are they willing to do so. Instead, Brookhaven sticks to a discursive agenda which comprises

of community participation and diversity, along with a critical standpoint against

gentrification. While such arguments are popular with some of the parties of the political Left,

they do not resonate with the agenda of the Right, and even some center Left parties. Thus,

the endorsement they get from the district council is partial, and in the end the priority is

given to city development strategies rather than supporting or encouraging a local initiative

run by activists.

When I directed questions to the respondents about the general argument of Brookhaven, the

responses I got involved criticisms against the increased commercialization of Amsterdam.

They believe that running a non-profit initiative also confronts the commercialization of the

city:

“I think the key message is a sound or a voice against the mainstream capitalism,

commercialist places. Yeah, and people are really shocked, you know, people come

here like old ladies from the neighborhood, and we’re like ‘yeah, do you want a

garden?’. And they are like ‘What? I don’t have to pay?!’. And they are really

emotional about it, some of them.” (Emma, Squatter)

Through creating a non-commercial social center, Brookhaven aims to have an inclusive

environment. This also becomes an argument against gentrification, which squatters believe is

excluding people by eliminating affordable places of residence, work and entertainment:

“Well, it’s an argument against the commercialization of the city. People who are

more materialistic.. There should also be places for bottom up initiatives and not just

what the municipality says what has to happen with a place like Brookhaven. That’s

also a very important argument. Yeah, it’s gentrification. In the city center it’s

already bad, and now it’s taking over the bigger part of the city, and also more to the

east. So if the Oostpoort, where Brookhaven is at, is sold only for.. Well that’s not true

by the way there is also some social apartments. But not so much. There should be

space for.. Not only for the rich.” (Leia, Squatter)

The element of being a non-commercial and a diverse place is a very important part of

Brookhaven’s discourse. They do assume responsibility as urban citizens, but they do not

present themselves as economic contributors to the city; it is not their primary purpose. On the

contrary, being non-commercial is a key aspect of Brookhaven’s discourse. Their

motivational disregard in the economic vitality of the city excludes them from the definition


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of “good” urban citizens (Schipstal & Nicholls, 2014). In one of the manifests published

during their campaign, Brookhaven presents itself as a place the value of which is “not its

financial, but its social benefit”. It is defined as an initiative which is proud to be independent

from state subsidies or any other funding for their activities. Brookhaven acknowledges that it

does make a small profit from selling beverage at their events in addition to donations, and

states that this profit is devoted entirely to the continued existence of Brookhaven as a social

center. Its function as a social center includes workshops, music nights, children’s afternoons

and film screenings among other activities. Squatters also have a garden in their yard which is

parcelled and open to the use of people from the neighborhood. At some point Brookhaven’s

programme shifted to a more ‘party’ oriented schedule and it got more visitors from

Amsterdam’s underground culture. They are trying to maintain a balance between local

involvement and a wider circle of people in the city:

“At the beginning it was very strongly neighborhood. It’s related to the programme a

bit. We had a lot of children’s afternoons, the garden. The garden was very important.

So it was.. And after that it became broader, we didn’t have any children’s afternoon

anymore or stuff like that. We became also in a certain moment like a “party place”.

So the underground thing, you know. Which also gave us a lot of support from all the

people who kind of miss something which Amsterdam has been, you know like all

kinds of weird shits happen all the time. But now we decided to move away from a bit

from all this party thing again, it is just exhausting, we don’t want to be “the party

place”. We want to be a social center, a neighborhood center where all kinds of stuff

happens.” (Rogier, Squatter)

This inclusiveness opened up further discursive possibilities for Brookhaven. In September

2013, Willem-Alexander, the king of the Netherlands has delivered a speech9 in which he

stated that the welfare state of the 20th century had come to an end, and a “participation

society” was taking its place. This society was supposed to be less dependent on the

government and had to “create their own social and financial safety nets”. The speech was

actually written by the Dutch cabinet of which was led by Mark Rutte, the leader of the right

wing liberal party VVD, and participation society had become a catchphrase to express how

the Dutch welfare state took a neoliberal turn.

Brookhaven took the concept of participation society and adopted it as one of the critical

aspects of its discourse. However, having a very distant standpoint from the ideas of VVD,

they used the word not so much as a euphemism for state’s welfare withdrawal. Instead they


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used it in a more literal sense, and presented themselves as a place where everyone could

come and ‘participate’. On the roof of Brookhaven, there is a sentence written with paint

which says: “Here is where you participate!”. Squatters have reflected their critique on the

official use of the word ‘participation society’ and came up with their own benign

interpretation.

“Because this word, actually ‘participation society’, it was the word of the year

actually, last year. Yeah, we have a word of the year. That’s how boring this country

is. But, the king, he gives a speech every year, like how the finances are going and bla

bla. Yeah, yeah yeah. It’s all this official crap, you know? And, this last year he said in

his speech that we are not a welfare state or a caring state anymore but we are

changing into a participation society. And everybody should take care of his own shit.

And that’s basically what it means. The actual definition, I looked it up a while ago,

participation society is something like; society – where people take care of each other

or take responsibility for themselves, each other and the environment in which the

state or the local government only plays a non-existent or a facilitating role. Which is

really interesting because here we have this place, well, we are taking responsibility

for ourselves, for other people, for the environment, but the state or the local

government is really not just having a non-existing role. I wish they had a non-existent

role! But they are only standing in our way.”

Brookhaven was defining itself as a correction of what participation society supposed to

mean. In one of the campaign documents, Brookhaven is defined as “citizen participation in

its purest form”. The text further stated that ‘the government and municipalities are making

greater demands from the strength of their own society’, and the transition period which

includes financial cuts made it necessary for society itself to take initiative, since ‘the

solutions offered by the government was not always in line with what the citizens needed’.

Brookhaven was the realization of the dream, it was participation society embodied.

“The participatory society is fine, it’s nice as long as it’s complementary to what the

government do or the authority wants. As soon as it becomes to be critical of the

authorities do or what they want, then they don’t want to have it any more. They prefer

to get it out of the way because it actually becomes a danger to the interests which they

are in like the contracts, the blamed careers and stuff like that. The government is

screaming that everyone has to do it by themselves but it has to be.. in their way. And

as soon as you don’t do it in their way, your life will be very difficult, you have to be


64

actually very strong to maintain yourself and you chances of winning is really really

small.” (Rogier, Squatter)

The discursive tactic was to take a popular catchphrase and use it in a positive sense.

Squatters knew very well that the official use of the word stood for something else:

“The government insists on participation and as a concept.. And says to the people

‘you should go and do that’ and Brookhaven also identifies ‘look, it’s already

happening here, and there is a sort of example’. But it’s pretty much ‘we have now

decided, as the state, that this is our new model’. This is very top-down, which is kind

of ironic because it is top down about something which is in principal bottom-up. So

it’s like, ‘we at the top have decided that you are going to do things bottom-up’. And I

think that’s what they play with. ‘Look, we are bottom-up. Not because you tell us to,

but because we think so. But actually, in reality, we are doing what you are telling us

to do, but not in the way that you maybe have imagined it, but that’s the deal with

bottom up participation. It doesn’t go the way that the top has figured.’ So that’s kind

of smart and interesting.” (Laura, Volunteer)

Brookhaven also did not refrain from having a contentious discourse. At the top of their

monthly schedule, it says “Squatted since 2011, under siege by evil bureaucrats, capitalist

bogeymen and their apologists ever since. Brookhaven continues in 2014 as a center for self-

organized social and cultural activities”. Moreover, squatters are explicitly critical with the

mistakes of the district, such as having loose deadlines and losing public money while

financing a failing project:

“And the local city government made really bad contracts with the project developer.

So it was public money which was actually going down the drain in court cases with

the project developer. And.. So this became an argument, nothing was happening. So

we just said like ‘Ok, we’re going to start this if nothing is happening. You don’t do

anything about it.’ It was actually the financial crisis in a nutshell again, you know.

The public, the government was bailing out or losing money to private companies, big

time.They were just against us from the very start. I think from the very beginning

they sensed this is no good. Yeah. They sensed from the beginning. I think that they

knew that they had bad contracts, and lost a lot of money, have very much difficulties

to in order to get things going again, and also difficulties in explaining it to the public.

And knew that we put the finger in the weak spot.” (Rogier, Squatter)


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Squatters mostly targeted failed investments of the project developer. These investments did

not pay off in time and the district had to help the developers financially. This became the

subject of severe criticisms by Brookhaven squatters.

“And also, also not just the crisis but next to this also, the MuzyQ over there, the big

building where there is – you can rent places to do musical stuff.. The city council got

so screwed and fucked over with that building, I’m not sure what exactly was the

biggest problem was but the building of it was costing more and more and more and

then the persons that had it kind of couldn’t pay for all the expenses or the mortgage or

something, so then the Stadsdeel kind of had to save it or to back it up..” (Nigel,

Squatter)

“It’s their fault that they lost a lot of money to the project. The council had to take the

developer to court to decide who had to pay for the sanitation of the ground. And that

was after the selling. And the council lost that. The ground was poisoned. The council

lost millions from that. That was just stupid. It was also possible for the project

developer to delay for so many years, that’s because they didn’t make a contract with

the right conditions. Like, ok, if you don’t do it within 3 years, then you won’t have

the right anymore to develop it anymore. That is our critic to the council.” (Leia,

Squatter)

Brookhaven’s discourse was not one of identification. Much of their discursive strategies

contained dis-identification and contentious language. They do not align themselves with the

dominant norms of the entrepreneurial and the creative city, they assert that their aim is to run

a social center without any profit-making agenda. Consequently these strategies by

themselves were not enough, in fact, not deploying a strategy of identification (Nicholls,

2013) made the situation even more difficult for Brookhaven. Moreover, squatters of

Brookhaven were not artists but activists. Unlike Midwich, their skill set made it harder to

identify with creativity, more specifically artistic identity. Squatters’ disposition as activists

gave them no problems with adhering to a discourse of affordability and diversity by

combatting commercialization of Amsterdam. Their purpose was not to stimulate the

economy in their area but establish an environment for community interaction. Hence they

argue that their value comes from not financial but social benefit. Squatters, however, had

problems identifying with the ‘participation society’ discourse as it is. Instead, they have

redefined its meaning and asserted deservingness by presenting themselves as a community

center where people were free to ‘participate’ by engaging in activities like cultivating their


66

own gardens, doing voluntary workshops or music events. This hybrid discursive position

have gained the support of Left wing political parties like Socialist Party (SP) and the Green

Party (GroenLinks) in many instances, but the Labor Party (PvdA) and the Right wing party

VVD kept their oppositional stance. This was mostly apparent in the Stadsdeel council

meetings. The representative from the Socialist Party was the most supportive council

member. He often put Brookhaven forth as a subject of debate to discuss ways to preserve the

squat, while other parties either remained neutral or complained about the expenses

Brookhaven caused in the last three years, mainly because of safety inspections. Whatever

support came from the district was only for the temporary stay of squatters. The local

government took no action except sending a letter to the project developer to delay

Brookhaven’s eviction until the project was ready to continue; no effort was made to keep the

squatters in the building indefinitely.

B3) Mobilization Strategies

Brookhaven was not deemed fit in the area of Project Oostpoort by the local government, and

squatters faced many disincentives during their time there. Their discursive strategies were

encompassing, but they were not in alignment with the creative city discourse and the

discursive position they took did not prioritize economic contribution to the city. Not being

able to achieve tangible results, Brookhaven combined discursive strategies with extensive

mobilization strategies. By mobilizing allies in their network and engaging in activities which

help them reach out for broader support, squatters strived to gain legitimacy and assert their

right to the city. These strategies included political campaigning, public demonstrations, using

media sources and active campaigning to stop third parties from buying the building, which

would lead to a quicker eviction.

One of the mobilization strategies of Brookhaven is demonstrations. Squatters use social

media and the word of mouth to gather people for demonstrations, which results in a large

turnout. This way, squatters can address a larger audience and make their voice heard. The

largest demonstration they had was on October 2013, when they arranged a side rave during

the Amsterdam Dance Event. Squatters have brought a mobile stage with loud speakers,

playing music while walking on the streets from Brookhaven to Rembrandt Square. People

were notified in advance, but since the demonstration was during the Amsterdam Dance

Event where there were parties and other events on the streets during the day, a lot of people

also joined as the squatters passed them by. Squatters were not very fond of the dance event

themselves, so they did the demonstration to create an ‘alternative’ to the main event. Having


67

the attention of the press, squatters used the mobile stage to make a statement. In this

statement they have said that Brookhaven presented a realistic alternative to an urban

development run by officials and rich property owners, that civil initiatives are more

important than the plans of city officials. Squatters asked for public support in their opposition

to the city’s commercialization and social deforestation. Squatters and supporters wore t-shirts

which said ‘Legalize Brookhaven!’, and they also made a video of the demonstration.

“Well we did a demonstration in October. It was with the Amsterdam Dance Event.

We made like an alternative. We made a street rave from Brookhaven to the

Rembrandt Square. This was during the Amsterdam Dance Event, in which there are a

lot of parties in the whole city for a week, but it’s quite commercial and we offered an

alternative to that with our street rave. We went with a lot of cars and music, there

were like two thousand people walking with us on the street. It also stopped the traffic

because it was two thousand people. We put like an art piece and a flyer on the

Rembrandt Square, then made a statement also.” (Leia, Volunteer)

One other demonstration was made with around three hundred people; they walked to the

district council, hoping to influence politicians to talk the project developers out of

establishing their sales office at Brookhaven which required the squatters to leave. The crowd

walked into the council meeting, and asked for the council’s help on the matter. Usually, there

are around at most thirty people from the neighborhood who participate in such meetings. The

arrival of three hundred people was something quite unusual and it served its purpose of

showing how much public support Brookhaven had. As a result, the council implored the

project developer to look for another place for their sales office. OCP complied with this

request and Brookhaven extended its duration of existence.

“When we went to the city council, with a group of 250, 300 people from the

neighborhood, showing that we have lots of support from the neighborhood, and then

– that’s also how we at one point got gedoged (tolerated). [..] And also that was a big

success, we went there with 350 or something. Normally it’s like a handful of people

sitting there wanting to say something to the people about what actually happens or

what is being decided. But when we came there, there weren’t enough chairs. All the

chairs were full, there was a whole crowd behind. It was totally full, it was amazing.”

(Nigel, Squatter)


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Squatters and supporters walk into the district council

A very similar demonstration was made after Brookhaven received the eviction notice.

Squatters have gathered people at Brookhaven and marched to the district council, this time

they also arranged a brass band which played music as they went there and also inside the

council chamber. In this council meeting, squatters and volunteers have addressed the district

council, voicing their claims about the legalization of Brookhaven. This gathering was

announced a week ago on Brookhaven’s website and social media pages, along with a slogan

“Idealen ontruim niet!” (You cannot evict ideals!).

In March 2014, the district council announced that there was a party which was interested in

buying Brookhaven. The person who was interested was looking for a new place for his

restaurant. The district council has notified squatters that the they will visit the property with

the potential buyer to show him around the premises. Knowing that the sale of the building

means their swift eviction, Brookhaven quickly mobilized people and prepared presentations

for the day of their visit. Squatters have printed small pieces of paper which had information

about what was going to happen that day, but people were asked to keep it discreet and not

share the event online, it was going to be a surprise. When the potential buyer and the district

council members showed up and entered the yard, a crowd came in behind them with funny

costumes, confetti and loud lively music, turning silence into a party at an instant. Later, the


69

visitors were invited inside to the large room where a presentation was held. In this

presentation, squatters and volunteers have presented Brookhaven’s activities and argued that

what they are doing was very beneficial for the neighborhood community. The purpose of this

event was to make the potential buyer aware of Brookhaven’s activities and let him know that

his purchase of the building meant evicting people from their homes.

“The district council said that they have a new owner. And before they buy it they

want to see the place. And we showed them around. The deal was to overwhelm them

with positivity, and also show them what they were going to evict actually in the end.

We killed them with kindness.” (Rogier, Squatter)

“[T]he proposed new-owner came to take a look. And our presentation. Because those

guys didn’t know what we were doing there; so we showed them “you cannot just kick

us out, look what we do here”. (Leia, Volunteer)

The atmosphere that day was indeed very positive and lively. The potential owner was also

informed by the squatters that he would be the reason of their eviction if he bought the

building. Squatters were hoping that whoever was interested in causing their eviction would at

least have a sense of guilt. About a month later, the potential buyer stated that he withdrew his

offers and said that he is no longer interested in buying the building. Once again, Brookhaven

had managed to avoid eviction.

A very innovative strategy used by Brookhaven was to spoof the local newspaper which is

published by the district itself. They got the idea from a group of activists called the Yes Men.

These activists were known with their imitations of corporate spokesmen. While imitating

them, they claim that these companies are engaging in activities which show these companies

as environment friendly or socially benign. What they say is not the truth, but since their

imitation is very successful, the companies they imitate are forced to publicly deny these

benign acts.

“[T]he Yes Men idea is that you present yourself as one of those.. for example Shell

company, and like on a big conference you’re going to present yourself as the Shell

company, saying “ok from now on we’re going into green energy stuff” blah de blah.

And then when this gets in the news, and then they have to tell, actually, the real

persons have to come and say ‘oh, this is not true, we’re not going to do that, we’re

just going into nuclear shit’ “ (Nigel, Squatter)


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The Yes Men came to Brookhaven and did a workshop there; that gave the squatters an idea

to do something which would raise awareness on Brookhaven’s situation as well as gather

more supporters from the neighborhood. They have replicated the format of the local

newspaper but changed the text. This was a satirical way of criticising the district council’s

disapproval of Brookhaven.

“One of them was the Yes Men action, we spoofed the local official city newspaper,

and put our own stories in there. We spread it around like 7000 copies in the

neighborhood. And on the day which the other newspapers did not print; and there was

an invitation on the next weekend that we were kind of officially given the building. It

was the real thing, only the text was different. And it was.. yeah it caused a lot of

laughter. It was putting them in a shitty position and everyone was like ha ha ha. And

it also took.. It was picked up.. The newspapers in the district council were called so

many times, and they were actually asking us, ‘please stop’. And they also had.. they

were forced to make an official statement, so that was one thing.” (Rogier, Squatter)

[I]n that newspaper it also said that they finally saw the light and saw that this place

was so important for the neighborhood that they couldn’t just.. so they decided to give

it back to the neighborhood to the people. So there was going to be the giving of the

key officially here, that’s why the building was wrapped in paper, and one of us was –

he pretended to be one of them, and then the speech and all that and handing over the

really big key you know, like the key of the city normally, but the key of the house.

And also this got lots of people from the neighborhood saying “oh how nice”.. And

then they kind of had to say that like ‘We didn’t! We didn’t give it to them!’ “ (Nigel,

Squatter)

In the spoofed newspaper, the headline said “The Animal Shelter is officially given to the

squatters by Eastern District”. The newspaper wrote that “the district government has decided

that the project developer was up to no good and it was time to give the opportunity to the

people”. In the following pages there was a fake interview with the local alderman who

finally ‘came to his senses’, and stories which highlighted the financial failures of the whole

Oospoort Project.

The most extensive mobilization done by Brookhaven was to unofficially run as a candidate

for the local elections in March 2014. They created their own fake political party named

Lijst620, and ran a campaign before the local elections in the Netherlands. Lijst620 had a

range of political goals. In their party manifest, they have stated that Brookhaven realizes all


71

of these goals. ‘Citizen participation’ was achieved by community involvement and voluntary

work, ‘financial independence’ was achieved through being free of state subsidies,

‘environmental sustainability’ was achieved through practices like recycling and the use of

solar power; ‘diversity’ was achieved through openness to everyone and running an

affordable, non profit social center. The purpose of this action was not to get a seat in the

council but to make people talk about Brookhaven before the election and secure

Brookhaven’s position in the local political debate.

“Yeah, it was amazing huh? I think it creates goodwill, and people see that we are not

just a bunch of assholes sitting there and using drugs but we are capable people and we

can organize things. Yeah, it helped us being taken seriously. For me it was interesting

to hear what the politicians had to say about squatting. It came a bit to the background,

but we put it into the foreground again.” (Leia, Volunteer)

“Also, in this election for example, you can also choose to start a political party. This

of course costs a lot of money and whatever. And then you can maybe if you get

elected you can maybe be there. But then what, you have one seat.. for a couple of

years and still no one is going to listen to you. But it was also because we wanted to be

a subject of the talks for the elections kind of. Instead of being part of the elections, we

wanted everyone from these political parties to talk about us during the elections. It

was kind of a media stunt. And also it would be nice if because of this they actually

have debates about us and actually they would speak out for us like ‘they should stay’

or maybe ‘if you choose us we’re going to get this place legalised’. That would be

perfect.” (Nigel, Squatter)

One essential part of this campaign was to put up posters around the city to make people

know about Lijst620. In addition to Lijst620’s own poster, these also included spoofed

version of other parties’ posters. These parties were represented as if they were supporting

Lijst620. The idea was filtering real ideas from political parties’ agenda in a way which would

be supportive of Brookhaven. Even the VVD, the right wing political party which is detested

by the squatters of Brookhaven was somehow made part of Brookhaven’s campaign. Being a

right wing liberal party, VVD opposed government subsidies, and Brookhaven took this

position and incorporated it to the fact that they are not receiving any subsidies from

government and still manage to continue as a social center.

Yeah and also by spoofing their posters, we took points, real points in their political

agenda, from every party, all the points that are pro us. So the VVD, the neoliberal


72

party.. the poster said ‘Less subsidies, more Brookhaven’. They really have these

shitty posters like “police belong in the streets”. They are a horrible party.” (Emma,

Squatter)

Squatters made an online ‘election guide’ which guided respondents with their choice in the

elections. Again, this was not a real guide but a funny survey which always gave the result as

‘Lijst620’ regardless of which political position one states.

In sum, Brookhaven has employs a manifold of mobilization strategies. They do not have a

majority of the local government supporting them, therefore no solid steps are taken to

legalize Brookhaven. Since they cannot go very far through official means they resort to

strategies of mobilization and active demonstration of wider support.

“[T]he thing with politicians is.. you have to tell them what they should do and you

have to push them and show them that you have lots of support and this is.. You have

to give them their food.. so that they can chew on it. They are not going to chew for

you. Yeah, and you have to tell them ‘listen, we want you to, for example the people,

they will back you up.’ You have to tell them what they should ask the council, what

they should bring in as a proposal, whatever. Otherwise they are not going to do it out

of themselves. It’s weird how.. you have to make, you have to make them work for

you.” (Nigel, Squatter)


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The spoofed posters of the political parties running for local elections, and Lijst620’s own

poster1

The insufficiency of their discursive strategies made regular mobilization necessary to make

their voices heard.

“At a certain point, when it’s been too long, it is kind of a common sense like.. ‘let’s

do something again.’ That’s how we regularly do them two or three times a year or

something like that. That’s the most funny stuff. There is always a goal behind it. And

now the goal is that we present our plans to.. How we get our plans across.” (Rogier,

Squatter)

Since they do not identify with a discourse which asserts economic contribution to the city,

their discursive strategies are not effective enough for Brookhaven’s survival. In addition to

online activity, they do demonstrations, political campaigning, engage in media activism.

They also mobilize against the district governments attempts to sell the building so that they

can buy themselves more time.

1 The real name of the squat was edited out from the posters.


74

Conclusion

The focus of this study was to examine the survival strategies of squatters once they are

rendered illegal. This thesis makes two major arguments. First, the degree of criminalisation

varies according to the combination of different squatting types. City officials do not regard

the whole squatting scene as a whole, but divide it into categories by evaluating various

squatting configurations differently in their usefulness for the entrepreneurial city agenda.

Second, the variety of strategies to claim rights to the city depends on the extent of exposure

to criminalisation. Differences in the enforcement of the squatting ban creates different

incentives in adopting discursive and mobilization strategies for squatters. Consequently,

strategies of discourse and mobilization are distinctly balanced in each squatting type. This

study has selected two cases in Amsterdam which differed in their squatting disposition. One

of them was an artistic/cultural squat, the other was a political/cultural squat. While the

residents of the former squat comprised of artists and people who were receiving training in

arts, the latter squat was a social center run by political activists. Taking these two cases, this

study has specified the research question into three components: the enforcement level of the

squatting ban, discursive strategies and mobilization strategies.

This study has approached law as a social activity; the law is not absolute in its effects and not

uniform in its application. It is altered in each instance of construction and application; a

premise which allows an explanation of variance in the enforcement of the squatting ban.

Drawing on the entrepreneurial and creative city theories, this study have stated that cities are

increasingly assuming an entrepreneurial role and engaging in interurban competition.

Diminishing subsidies from their national governments makes them turn to private capital as a

solution. Therefore, cities pursue global investments, affluent residents and tourists to

financially sustain themselves. The creative class serves as an untapped resource in gaining

advantage in interurban competition, thus, culture becomes a crucial element in attracting

transnational capital and middle class residents. While this occurs, political activism is

squeezed out between policies which target global capital and policies which target culture;

politically active populations face more and more restrictive and punitive measures. In this

context, some squats are exposed to criminalisation much more than others.

Indeed, the squatting ban is not enforced equally on the two cases selected in this study.

Moreover, local governments have different approaches to these cases. There are urban

development projects which restructure both areas the squats are located in. While the local

government makes solid efforts to incorporate one squat to the redevelopment project, the


75

other squat is left out and is subject to not inclusionary but exclusionary measures. The artistic

squat does not face any criminal charges while receiving support from the local government.

Their district council reserves funds for the sale of the building to a third party which agrees

to keep the squatters, and engages in continuous negotiations with the owner of the property

to ensure that squatters stay. The activist squat, on the other other hand, is charged with the

crime of squatting and awaiting eviction on the grounds of that legal violation. The district

council of this squat does not show rigorous effort to help them stay in the premises except

making requests to the project developer to secure the squat’s existence for a little longer. No

attempts are made for the indefinite presence of the activist squat. On the contrary, the activist

squat have faced many obstacles such as safety inspections, buildings stops and fines; they are

also subject to the close inspection of the Dutch intelligence forces due to their activist

disposition. The fact that the Eastern district is a direct co-investor in the redevelopment

project is also a serious structural constraint for the activist squat.

When discursive strategies are considered, the study observes that the artistic squat has

discursive positions like creativity and diversity, which at the same time addresses a mixed

social fabric and economic contribution. The artistic squat strategically identifies with the

city’s creativity discourse and claims to be economically contributing to the city. Therefore

they become desired urban citizens which add value to their city and not just drain resources

from it. This discourse helps them get the support of even the Right wing political parties,

including the party which takes credit for the criminalisation of squatting. Their discursive

strategies are enough to ensure and consolidate the endorsement of their local government.

The activist squat, however, does not identify with the creative discourse and uses a

discursive frame which prioritizes community involvement and social value instead of

economic contribution to the city. They identify with the ‘participation society’ discourse,

although they critically alter it in a way which reflects another perspective instead of only

reduced government expenditure for social needs. Activist squatters also do not refrain from a

stern critical approach to the mistakes made by their district council and the project developer.

The discursive strategies of the activists are not sufficient to earn them legal security, or avoid

eviction in the short term.

The mobilization strategies show great difference when the cases are compared. The artistic

squat engages in little mobilization since their discursive strategies are sufficient to get the

local government on their side. Gathering public support and raising awareness is secondary

to the way the squatters represent themselves to the authorities. Therefore their mobilization


76

strategies are very limited; comprising of an online petition and a song which promotes their

activities. However, the activist squat has a wide repertoire of mobilization strategies. The

discourses they adhere to do not get them where they need to be; their local government

dismisses their right claims to their space. This incites them to gather supporters and make

themselves known in a broader public. Indeed, effective mobilization was crucial for them;

rallying followers has allowed them to delay the eviction and earned them more time, even

though not permanent legal security. The mobilization strategies employed by the activist

squat include political campaigning, public demonstrations, media activism and active

campaigning to stop third parties from buying the property.

Squatters, as other urban marginal groups, are losing their rights to the city. Their voices in

their legitimate rights claims are being turned into ‘noises’ (Dikeç, 2004). The case of

Amsterdam shows that criminalisation is a part of this process, but criminalisation is not

implemented evenly to every squat in the city. In order to find their voice again, squatters

resort to various discursive and mobilization strategies. However, while squatters who

identify with the creative city discourse can get their claims across, activist squats the

discourses of which are not in line with norms of contemporary urban governance cannot

uphold to be deserving citizens of the urban community, hence they resort to extensive

mobilization strategies. Therefore, the uneven implementation of illegality results in a

different sets of strategies employed by squatters. While the strategy of identification secures

squats from criminalisation, failing or refusing to identify with the dominant urban

governance discourse results in being fully illegalized, and even extensive mobilization

cannot achieve more than delaying banishment.

While affirming the arguments made in entrepreneurial city litarature that there is less space

for marginalized populations in the city for the sake of economic development, this research

suggests that dispositions and potential functions of outcast populations before illegalization

have a great impact on the degree of criminalisation and the extent of measures of banishment

once the legal security is lost. Moreover, the thesis argues that discursive strategies of dis-

identification does nor mark the definitive end of such groups’ right claims ot the city, but

further strategies of mobilization are deployed to find strength by numbers to pressure city

governments. However, even effective mobilization does not guarantee security from full

criminalisation. Difficulties originating from discursive dis-identification strategies and

structural constraints may outweigh the successes achieved by large scale mobilization. While

this is informative for the literature on the survival strategies of urban outcasts, such


77

variations call for more further research on the matter. Outcast groups in the city are faced

with a difficult choice: take discursive positions which may result in the assimilation of their

identity into neoliberal norms of city governance, or put great effort into mobilizing while

risking the loss of their rights to the city altogether.


78

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Website References

1 Article 138a of the Dutch Criminal Law: http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelV/Artikel138a/geldigheidsdatum_13-05-2014 2 Squat! Net http://en.squat.net/ 3 “Events in Amsterdam over the last few weeks”, squat!net : http://old.squat.net/en/news/amsterdam101010.html 4 Project 1012: http://www.amsterdam.nl/gemeente/organisatie-diensten/sites/project_1012/1012/ontwikkelingen/ 5 Het Parool, 19.05.2012 : http://i.imgur.com/rEwPqfD.jpg?1 6 Violent protests after Dutch outlaw squatting, NBC News: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39463891/ns/world_news-europe#.U4sfTijSDKM 7 Amsterdam Centrum Online Petition: http://amsterdamcentrum.petities.nl/ 8 BeleefOostpoort: http://www.beleefoostpoort.nl/ 9 Willem-Alexander’s Speech on the Participation Society: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-king-willemalexander-declares-the-end-of-the-welfare-state-8822421.html

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