GeoJournal 58: 207–215, 2002.
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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Contested places: Squatting and the construction of ‘the urban’ in Swiss cities
Sabin Bieri
Department of Geography, University of Bern, Hallerstrasse 12, CH 3012, Bern, Switzerland
(E-mail: [email protected])
Key words: housing, squatting, Switzerland, urban social movements
Abstract
This paper examines urban social movements through a case study directed toward housing and urban culture in Berne,
Switzerland. Urban movements set the stage for ways of understanding, interpreting, and challenging unspoken norms in
city life. Taking an actor-oriented perspective, I focus on subjective motivations in forming a collective movement and relate
these to a wider context of social change. The study is based on qualitative interviews with former squatters and participants
in the movement.
Introduction
In April 1973, a group of young people squatted a house in
the Bernese University district. The squatters were protesting the loss of affordable living space – a development that
was becoming more common in the city of Berne. The activists were not the former residents of the neighbourhood, but
rather came from different parts of the city. However, their
action captured and represented the uneasiness of a considerable part of the neighbourhood’s population, namely
older residents, who feared they would be driven out of
their accustomed living area. The moral support of the local
residents was quite significant to the struggle for housing.
Because this alliance was so unusual, the event was widely
reported throughout the Swiss press, where even the leading
tabloid expressed a great deal of sympathy for the activists.
Local authorities claimed to sympathize with the squatters’ concerns, but said housing policies gave them a limited
ability to act. As such, the authorities remained inactive and
took no responsibility for negotiations between the squatters
and the owner. The experiment lasted for ten days, when the
site of the first squat in Berne was cleared by the police.
Twenty-nine years later, in the beginnings of April 2002,
a mourning ceremony was conducted, including a funeral
procession that visited a handful of formerly contested
places, including the site of the 1973 squat, which had become a symbol of the struggle for a city worth living in
(Megafon, 2001). Participants in the ceremony asked: Where
is city life and its promise of high density, intensity, diversity and integration of lifestyles? Where is the city as the
breeding-ground of revolutionary politics (Lefebvre, 1990)?
What has become of the spaces of political confrontation and
social interaction (Sennett, 1998)?
In the context of globalisation and neo-liberalism, tales
of the city are rewritten, and the promises of city life need to
be subjected to scrutiny. Beyond the mere idea of integration
and heterogeneity, an urban setting implies the possibility
of innovative projects aimed at overcoming so-called alienated living-spaces (Lefebvre, 1968, Augé 1996). Planning
authorities currently prioritise morally imbued goals such as
neighbourhood-security, inner-city cleanliness and declining
household size – all of which aim to maintain the standards of the traditionally privileged. The tendency toward
privatisation of former public spaces, including measures
of control into these spaces, can be seen as another expression of exclusionary practices in urban environments
throughout the Western world. In response to the state’s
withdrawal from the public sphere and the tendency of planning politics to favour higher social classes, resistances and
movements are emerging; these are directed towards the appropriation of spaces through a variety of strategies, ranging
from maximum use of legal instruments to the performance
of transgressive acts.
My aim in this paper is to outline a number of exemplary cases of urban social movements directed towards
more self-determined living conditions. I do not intend to
cover 30 years of quite diverse branches of urban action in
Switzerland. Rather, this contribution attempts an illustration of certain events in Berne in order to examine squatting
strategies and claims as they have changed over time. Urban
movements set the stage for certain ways of understanding,
interpreting and challenging (unspoken) norms of city life.
Taking an actor-oriented perspective, I will focus on subjective motivations in forming a collective movement, and will
relate these to a wider context of social change. This section
is based on qualitative interviewing with actual and former
squatters. I will argue that social movements contribute to
and determine discourses and practices of urban living, and
therefore construct a ‘sense of place’ (Tuan, 1977, Holloway and Hubbard, 2001), as well as effect a transformation
of ‘imaginative geographies’ (Said, 1978) as they produce
every-day experiences of ‘the urban’ and urban lifestyles.
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I will begin by sketching key terms and providing information on the regional geographical, political and legal
contexts in which the movement operates. The following
section extends on some of the theory on social movements,
but given an abundant field of research, this is bound to be
fragmentary. Central to my argument is the way in which
certain paradigms of social movement theory can inform the
analysis of transgressive acts as they affect as socio-spatial
transformations. In terms of this framework, a selection of
Berne’s squatting-history will be sketched. I will conclude
by an attempt to integrate theoretical insights with recent
developments of the movement.
Squatting, legal frameworks, and power
In its conventional meaning, ‘to squat’ means to ‘to huddle
up’ or ‘to crouch’. It has, however, made its way into the
pertinent dictionaries and encyclopaedias in its figurative
sense as the activity of moving into a vacant house without
legal tenancy. Squatters usually take buildings aiming at a
relatively long-term use if they are motivated by the search
of a dwelling, or, in a rather spontaneous and improvised
sense as a means of bringing particular socio-political issues
to public attention (Pruijt, 2003).
Drawing on Castells, Pruijt indicates that squatting, similar to other social movements, is addressed by public
authorities either through repressive or integrative measures. The former includes closing ‘legal loopholes’ to deter
squatting (Pruijt 2003:134) as in the UK or The Netherlands, or prosecution of squatters where it is illegal, as
in Germany. Integration implies either institutionalisation
– seen as the inevitable end of a movement’s life cycle by
some authors (e.g. Castells, 1983) – or co-optation, where
selected elements of the movement are embraced by the coopting institution, while perceived problems are redefined
(Pruijt, 2003). In Switzerland, local governments have adopted different ways of dealing with squatters. Referring to the
property right as guaranteed by the constitution and specified
by the Civil Code2 , political debates on the issue of squatting
are usually settled quickly. The Civil Code states as follows:
Art. 1: “The proprietor of an object is authorised to dispose
of it within the gates of the legal system.”
Art. 2: “He is entitled to claim the object from whoever detains it as well as to fend off any unjustified impact.”3
In other words: due to the liberal protection of property
rights, any legal claims from squatters are rejected; at the
same time, initiatives suggesting a principal discussion on
the status of squatters as criminally liable subjects have repeatedly been rejected on these grounds.4 Thus, the issue
of squatting takes place in a legal blank. On the one hand,
this provides for a creative use and advantageous interpretation of the legal framework, but on the other hand leads
to an increased vulnerability of squatters, because of the
unpredictability of the situation. Given the intense pressures
created by the scarcity of affordable living space, some cities
have acquiesced to squatters and have offered temporary-use
contracts (Zwischennutzungsvertrag); these were pioneered
in Geneva in 1989. The practice has shown, though, that
the seemingly tolerant legal framework can be dodged by
treating squatting as ‘breach of domestic peace’, an offence
that is prosecuted upon complaint, leading to a confusing
situation for activists. The ostensible tolerant attitude of
the public authority can therefore be undermined by privileging the right of the individual owner to indict activists
for trespass. Another strategy applied by proprietors to evict
squatters is by arguing that the building is unsafe.
The experience in the 1980s has shown that owners in
Berne tended to react rigorously to squatting in one of their
buildings. As one of our interviewees and a member of the
city council recalls, owners generally felt offended, judging
the situation as an utter frivolity and rejecting any kind of
interaction with people they perceived to be intruders; this
occurred even when the city offered to mediate. Fearing
some sort of ‘epidemic’, owners said that even if the concerns of young people were warranted, the responsibility to
do something about it would lie with the community and not
with individual citizens.
The Swiss case points to the interplay between local
authorities, legal channels and the state in a system of semidirect democracy that can be activated to promote both
repressive and integrative strategies. At the same time the
case studies reveal how squatting as an act of transgression immediately brings in the question of power and how
it works in terms of these struggles. Owners whose houses
are squatted not only feel personally offended, but fear for
the social status of their class as a whole. What seems to be
at stake is the ability of the privileged to ensure a functioning and convenient order that the system had traditionally
provided.
Although groups of squatters are inclined to take up the
needs and claims of social minorities, squatting is a strategy
restricted to the socially privileged who can afford to be
registered in the criminal records. This excludes, among
others, anyone who does not have the Swiss nationality, as
they risk the loss of their permit of residence. An exception is provided by the so-called ‘Sans-Papier’-movement
as a form of insurgence; this movement came to prominence in Switzerland in 2001 when activists started squatting
in churches.5 While squatting can be an answer to the increasing dominance of corporate organisations that has been
accompanied by reduced accountability of local authorities
(Chatterton, 2002), in most cases it forms part of a larger
movement committed to criticizing traditional values and to
promoting justice, identity politics and social change. While
Chatterton celebrates squatting as a ‘collective and creative
use of urban space that sketches out possibilities for radical
social change’, Harvey (2001) insists on the crucial need for
social movements to address issues of a more broadly based
politics. If a given social movement is to generate meaningful dynamics of social change, it must engage in efforts
to translate their particular actions into more abstract and
general social processes. It is the transcendence of struggles
that generates a creative tension between particularity and
universality.
Movements are groups of people engaged in a struggle
‘over the shape of everyday life’ as Don Mitchell puts it
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(2001:XIII). Such an approach to social movements addresses questions about how power produces cultural values
and norms, as well as questions about the ways in which
cultural change is negotiated. These confrontations are analysed as symbolic struggles, opening an area of debate over
so called ‘appropriate’ and desired forms of living within
specific boundaries. Upon these social and geographical
boundaries, the implicit values and norms regulating everyday life are revealed. These regulations function best upon
the general assumption that they are ‘natural’, somehow
organically grown and an inherent part of social life – an assumption that precludes the idea of change. Transgressions
are an effective means of uncovering the constructivist, historical and ephemeral nature of systemic regulations; they
therefore shape the possibility of transformation. It is in
this sense that Cresswell (1996) analyses the transgressive
acts of groups engaging in resistance. Cresswell’s approach
seems especially helpful for another reason: the disruptions
he looks at produce situations that are ‘out of place’; they are
events designed to challenge the prevailing spatial order and
the way it generates and distributes power. Transgressions
connect to the concept of place and the ways in which power
is spatially organised. Sarah Radcliffe points to the deep
intertwinement of society and space, finding ‘the groundedness of power’(1998, p. 219) in its quotidian dynamic
of social-spatial interaction, including material as well as
non-material (ideological, representational) dimensions.
In sum, insurgent actions highlight the ways in which
conflicting geographical imaginations come to terms with
one another. They confront liberal ideas about access to and
the use of space as compared to the right to prevent specific
forms of appropriations and representations of particular
spaces (Massey, 1996). By way of a historical overview
of squatting in Berne, these movements are interpreted as
insurgent forces aiming at the transformation of specific
social structures. As activists transgress socio-spatial borderlines, they undermine the power-sustaining symbolism of
the given order. In so doing, they reveal its deeply cultural
nature, opening an opportunity for change.
‘The urban’
Formal definitions of ‘urban’ in terms of size, density, infrastructure, mobility, commuters, locations of production and
services, legal status or historical development can easily be
obtained in the literature of urban geography and sociology.
What is at stake in this article, however is a notion of the
urban referring to social interaction as determined by, and
at the same time shaping, the spatial environment in which
it takes place. For an environment to qualify as urban, there
is a symbolic dimension to be taken into account. Squatting
works most effectively on this level, challenging hegemonic
geographical imaginations. The definition that is needed in
order to reflect upon the urban dimension of the problem is
one that puts aspects of the socio-spatial intertwinement at
the forefront. Questions to be asked point towards the perception and the experience people gain as they deal with the
city. Literature on the city is largely negligent on this while
focusing predominantly on formal aspects of ‘the urban’.
For early sociologists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber
and Emile Durkheim ‘the urban’ emerged in the context
of the establishment of the middle-classes and their principles of rationality and the capitalist mode of production;
the sociologists’ interest was guided by the notion of the
city as an object reflecting processes of modernity. ‘The
urban’ therefore was characterised by its sociological difference to ‘the rural’. With the erosion of the differences
in political organisation, economic production, corresponding lifestyles and material form, a definition of ‘the urban’
became increasingly blurred. In contemporary, western societies analyses of cities necessarily extend to analyses of the
society as a whole (Saunders, 1987). More recent attempts
to develop a coherent basis for urban sociology are rooted
in the Chicago School, where ‘the urban’ was defined as an
ecological system with its specific processes of segregation
and succession. Drawing on Georg Simmel, Louis Wirth
(1938) emphasized the specific cultural patterns associated
with an urban human settlement defined by its size, density
and heterogeneity. As a further development, Saunders identifies Pahl’s urban sociology as the theoretical concern over
the distribution of scarce resources and the struggle between
different class interests on the allocation of these resources.
Finally, Castells’ concern with the state and the state-related
issue of consumption represents a fourth attempt to theorize
the city. Although Castells conceived of space as inseparable
from society, his occupation with social movements did not
provide a theoretical framework focusing exclusively on the
city. ‘For him, the city is a space within which interesting
things happen. . .’ (Saunders, 1986, p. 251).
Sociological work on cities has usually made a clear
separation between social and spatial aspects of cities, leaving the spatial dimension to geographers. This was however
done by implicitly assuming space as an absolute category,
a container in which social action takes place (Löw, 2001).
It was in the 1980s that constructivist approaches to space
and place entered theoretical debates in sociology, unleashing research activities towards a theoretical understanding of
socio-spatial processes. Much of this ‘spatial turn’ is owed
to the work of radical geographers such as Edward Soja and
David Harvey, who have elaborated the ways in which spatial organization lies at the heart of the system of capitalist
production. These theories, however, are highly abstract, and
they lack an answer as to how changing economic structures operate through spatial patterns and social relations. By
way of concrete empirical analyses, Doreen Massey demonstrates how social relations are moulded through spatial
locations (e.g. Massey, 1994). Finally, Anthony Giddens is
concerned with the spatial quality of social order and its analysis. Somewhat paradoxically he arrives at the same point as
Weber, Marx und Durkheim in recognizing cities as important sites of the pre-capitalist, stratified societies and nodes
of their transformation. Today, according to Giddens (1984),
‘locales’ of social relations are ‘created environments’ – be
it the countryside or the city. Social life, in this sense, has
transcended not only temporal, but also spatial limitations.
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Nonetheless, Giddens insists on the importance of the spatial
quality of social processes
By way of recognizing the complex linkages of social
and spatial categories, I have chosen a rather pragmatic way
of dealing with ‘the urban’ as the socio-spatial reference for
the phenomena I want to address. This approach is guided
by the insight, that, while economic structures and the way
they constitute and are constituted by spatial parameters are
important, they cannot provide for fully satisfactory understandings of the role of urban movements. Instead, I consider
it crucial to address the urban in its symbolic dimension.
Urban space is perceived differently by actors, based on their
distinct social position, and thus the power relations in which
they are situated. Struggle over spaces always involves the
power to define the meaning and subsequently appropriate
uses of these spaces. This implies instability, and therefore
the potential for change in the meaning of spaces. Transgression is a way of alluding to the shifting nature of urban
spaces.
In the context of this paper, ‘the urban’ refers to a specific
experience of living in a place characterised by high density
and heterogeneity of social relations, cultural backgrounds,
and political practices. In terms of the life rhythm, social
interactions and the range of opportunities available, the city
stands for intensity as well (Valentine, 2001). An urban situation is marked by its potential to bring about innovative
projects on the grounds of the diverse attitudes, experiences,
life styles and mental frameworks. The urban refers to a particular social practice that produces and is produced by way
of giving meaning to particular places and social arrangements. Henri Lefebvre created a markedly useful metaphor
of the city as being an ‘oeuvre’, a ‘piece of art’ in which all
citizens participate (cited in Mitchell, 2003, p. 17).
I suggest that, particularly in Switzerland where national identity is usually connoted with a rural, mountainous
landscape with the respective construction of a specific
human character (fair-minded, modest, hard-working, unpretentious, and virtuous), we have to deal with a general
anti-urbanism and a rural romanticism. Thus, the mentality
of the ‘little town’ and the ideology of smallness are portrayed by local authorities, whereas the public opinion meets
the notion of the urban with certain reluctance.
Berne: a capital between urban claims and rural
dominance
When J.R.R. Tolkien invented ‘the Shire’, he must have had
Switzerland in mind. At least, one is tempted to draw a parallel to certain, rather commonly used (self) representations
of the Helvetic Confederation. Berne as the country’s capital
features characteristics such as smallness, solidity (despite
the city’s desperate financial situation) and modesty, rather
than the ambitions of a global city such as Zurich. As a result
of the federalist structure of the Swiss State, the balancing of
regional and therefore often rural interests has been highly
prioritised within politics. This implies that the politics and
aspirations of a single region or a city were and are regarded
with suspicion.
With its approximately 130,000 inhabitants, Berne occupies the fourth position within the ranking of the Swiss
cities behind Zurich (338,000), Geneva (175,000) and Basel
(166,000). Situated in central Switzerland, the Bernese
context is characterized by an affinity to the neighbouring
French speaking part of the country as well as its patrician
past. As the country’s capital, Berne is expected to perform
a bridging function between the linguistic regions, regions
that are also separated by differences in public opinion and
political positions. As a trait of the Swiss political system,
instruments associated with the semi-direct democracy give
rise to a variety of political opportunity structures for social movements to express their ‘meaningful voice’ (see for
instance Miller, 1995).
Since 1993, Berne’s local government has been dominated by a coalition of socialist-green parties, which extended
their supremacy by taking over the seat of the junior partner
in the executive after the elections in 2001. In their dealing
with urban social movements, the red-green-coalition had
promised accommodation. Commentators agree, however
that there may have been a change in style, but there was
none in substance. Berne is surrounded by a local state (‘canton’) that is constituted predominantly by rural communities.
Political decision-making in Switzerland is a rather complex
process involving local, regional and national competences,
depending on the matter. This means that the city of Berne
is frequently overruled when it comes to issues where the
canton has the power to decide. For instance, if the city
parliament cannot agree on the budget, the canton, led by a
conservative executive, is authorised to prescribe the budget
to the city. This represents a tremendous diminution in the
city’s autonomy, but one that has happened twice in the last
five years. This makes the political position of the capital
not only delicate in its own surroundings, but produces reluctance in terms of Berne’s self representation as an urban
place.
With its size and political setting, Berne seems unlikely
to be a breeding place for urban spirit. However, in the
past 30 years, despite decreasing numbers of inhabitants,
Berne has maintained a specific ‘urban’ identity; the social
movements dealt with in this article are an important feature
of this new identity. As discourses on cleanliness, proper
behaviour and order have sprawled since the late 1980s, especially with a growing drug problem, measures of control
and repression have increased.6 I suggest that, among other
factors, rigorous measures by authorities and the police challenge the making of different claims and interests on public
spaces. Incremental cleavages entail taking sides by the public and degrade the basis for a mutual understanding and
open debate in terms of the right to the city.
New social movements and urban movements
Research on social movements was initiated by Karl Marx
and his model of history as a series of class struggles. In
his eyes, the French Revolution of the late 18th century was
the first social movement in a modern sense.7 Turning away
from this largely influential philosophical and large-scale
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approach, social movements entered the research agendas
in the 1930s when US sociologists were confronted with
the turmoil of the emergence of fascism and communism
in Europe; these sociologists concentrated on ideological aspects of collective behaviour and viewed collective political
action as a threat to the given order (Eyerman and Jamision, 1991). Herbert Blumer from the Chicago School was
the first to outline the positive potential of the new forms
of social interaction. In contrast to his social-psychological
focus directed towards the individual, Talcott Parsons elaborated a structuralist-functionalist approach drawing on the
classic work of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. The combination of the two views resulted in a framework that has
come to be known as the ‘collective behaviour approach’,
balancing the micro-orientated symbolic interactionist approach with the macro-orientated structural functionalist
approach. This perspective dominated research on social
movements until the 1960s (Eyerman and Jamison, 1991).
Due to the influence of the civil rights movements and
the students’ riots of the late 1960s, American sociologists
began to criticize the functionalist logic of the collective
behaviour theory, which devalued action as reactive behaviour without strategic capability. As a result US sociologists
scrutinized the costs and benefits of taking part in social
movements, grounding their concepts in actors as ’entrepreneurs’ who make rational choices. By calculating risks
and benefits on the basis of accessible material and symbolic
resources, the collective movement was conceptualized as
purposeful and straightforward action (Dellaporta and Diani
1999). Critics have pointed out that the emphasis on resources normally held by influential social groups leads to
the oblivion of the resistance that comes from marginalized
actors. By exclusively focusing on the rational choices pursued by the social movements the role of emotions has not
been taken into account adequately, as critic s have stated
(Dellaporta and Diani, 1999).
Despite their insights, however, analysts of political processes have failed to generate an explanation for the innovative nature of social movements and the new spaces created
and occupied by contemporary movements of youth groups,
of women and of homosexual or minority ethnic groups
(Dellaporta and Diana, 1999). In Europe, criticism of the
deterministic Marxist models raised new insights concerning the ‘New Social Movements’. New Social Movements
are characterized by their decentralized and participatory
organisational structures, as well as their critical attitudes
towards ideology and solidarity structures. As Alberto Melucci (1989) states, material claims are no longer central
to the agenda of the New Social Movements. The guaranty of security and the aspect of being provided for by the
state is no longer demanded; instead, the intrusion of the
political-administrative system into daily life is resisted (see
Dellaporta and Diana). In an attempt to combine theories
of urban social change and social movements, Manuel Castells published his ground breaking oeuvre ‘The city and the
grassroots’. In his analyses of different urban movements in
Europe and the Americas, his previous emphasis on class
structures is replaced by an actor-oriented approach. Al-
though the city retains what he calls the ‘social relations of
collective consumption’, the meaning of the urban emerges
from the struggle of social groups for their proper space and
representation (Castells, 1983).
Even though the exchange between European and American scholars has increased, Calderón criticizes the prevailing structuralist paradigm in the social movement research.
He argues that a structuralist view cannot provide insight
into the social expression brought about by the movements
(Calderon, 1992). Referring to Melucci, David Slater (1997)
uses the metaphor of the ‘nomads of the present’ for the
post 1989 movements which he regards as an expression of
the fluidity and territorial flexibility of today’s mobilizations.
Being connected in terms of space these new mobilizations
stick together as ‘archipelagos of resistance’ characterized
by their global reach as well as their local embedness,
distinction and specifities (Slater, 1997, p. 259).
Social movements theory and research has thus come to
include post-materialist approaches that emphasize the values and goals of activist groups. New Social Movements are
argued to envisage a different system in which to place alternative ways of being and rejecting the modernist models.
By way of challenging the symbols of a social order based
on class, they aim to create a reality in which differences
in ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, the grading of
legal statuses or gender are recognized. Activists are usually
young, and often from the new middle classes. If they are not
students, they work predominantly in health or other public services, developing a significant sensibility referring to
the potential dangers of the consequences of modernisation
and the continuous economic growth. Within their age-group
or by way of specific developments such as the refurbishing of housing units, they are likely to be directly affected
by consequences of modernisation. They organise as rather
loose networks in autonomous and decentralised sub-groups
that are committed to consensus-oriented decision-making.8
On these grounds, the movement enters a tense relationship
with the representatives of the traditional model of economic
growth (Brand, 1998; Hellmann, 1999).
Parallel to the research on new social movements has
been the development of theories of urban movements.
These two kinds of movements have been conceptualized
separately. Whereas social movement theory was rather
concerned with types of organization, urban movement research was interested in effects (Pickvance, 2003). Much
of the work done under the umbrella of urban movement
research draws upon Castells writings in the 1970s. These
authors, as Pickvance notes, were committed to challenging
the hegemonic North American social movement theories
and to emphasize the potential for radical change inherent
in urban movements. With the upcoming of ‘new social
movements’-literature, urban social movements were often
treated as ‘old’ social movements and therefore neglected.
However, Pickvance holds that due to the variety of demands
of urban social movements – which can include greater participation rights or non-material features – urban movements
cannot be classified as either new or old social movements
(Pickvance, 2003).
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Both of these approaches can provide insight into the
squatting movement. New Social Movement theory is useful in understanding the social background, trigger factors,
forms of organisation, strategies of communications, and
chances of success. As a movement that pursues the idea of
a different interpretation of ‘the urban’, I follow Mikkelsen
and Karpantschof in their argument, that even though capitalism remains as ‘a master variable explaining fundamental
tensions in modern globalized urban society’, when bringing
in space, time and interaction the causal chain of ‘structure – consciousness – action’ is reversed (Mikkelsen and
Karpantschof, 2001, p. 623). As the case study demonstrates, people often became squatters after being driven out
of their houses. This raised their consciousness as to the
socio-economic structures that prevented them from obtaining the standard of living that they had previously expected
and led them to develop a contrasting concept of an urban
way of life. As the struggle unfolded, it developed a means
of expression whereby the gaining of a meaningful voice
(Miller, 1995) was achieved through a range of strategies,
as shall be demonstrated below.
Urban social movements in this paper are treated as a
form of the struggle over, and the right to express, particular
cultural identities and the lifestyles associated with them. As
Chantal Mouffe (1996) argues, movements give rise to new
political subjects and spaces of mobilisation. What is at stake
is the right to the city: Who has access to certain places, who
is excluded and on what terms? What is considered appropriate behaviour in specified areas and who determines these
zones? Urban social movements clearly address the issue
of a city of differences, struggling for the right to be, live
and articulate oneself in certain places. As Mitchell (2003)
has highlighted, the right to the city is never guaranteed.
Struggling for a different notion of the urban is at centre
stage when it comes to social justice, and it is, according
to Mitchell, more necessary than ever.
It is one aim of this project to understand the motivations
and beliefs of actors involved in these types of movements
(Johnston, 2000). I argue that the outcome of what is pursued
by these types of movements is more than creating living
zones and the squatting movement is more than a transient
phenomenon of deviant behaviour. By way of taking empty
buildings, squatters raise the question of how social life is
structured and how this translates into the urban environment. Moreover, they are the producers of a specific social
wealth of cities in terms of cultural, social and economic innovations (Schmid, 1998). Creating spaces means calling for
the urban promise of heterogeneity. The struggle for space
positions squatters within an arena in which power and ‘the
right’ to the city are negotiated. They might not have the best
cards to begin with, but their insistence on spaces that allow
for the creation and development of alternative understandings of urban life pave the way for a certain acceptance and
inclusiveness within a city that otherwise conceals its urban
potential.
Brief outline of Berne’s history of squatting
As indicated in the beginning, the implications of the
Forstweg-squatting in Berne resonated throughout Switzerland. The event can be understood as an expression of
unease with the repressiveness and the rigid social control
of almost every aspect of daily life, both of which have
been integral to economic growth and the relative wealth of
post-war Switzerland. In a climate of vigorous and heated
anti-communist positions, these people successfully used the
planned demolition of a small house as a vehicle to link their
Marxist beliefs regarding class warfare and freedom of the
people with genuinely local concerns.
Nevertheless, the 1970s was not the decade of squatting. Although there was a piece of legislation targeting the
conservation of living space, this remained largely a rhetorical statement. As for public action, there was no other
event calling upon neighbourhood concern in the way the
Forstweg-squatting did. The reason for this was partly the
economic crisis, which led to a dramatic change in the housing market: Houses previously occupied by immigrants were
abandoned, since Switzerland overcame the economic crisis
primarily by sending its foreign work force back home; this
created living space outside the competitive housing market. It appears that, in the shadow of the economic crisis,
new forms of living were put into practice quite unnoticed,
generating a gradual transformation of urban culture from
’below’. However, for reasons that have yet to be identified,
the ideology of ‘small town’ reflected in public discourses by
political authorities as well as the public opinion remained
unchallenged by these processes.
The peaceful small-town life in Berne was upset by a
series of riots in the early 1980s. Tensions erupted between
the small-town-mentality and the traditional culture it embraced and the development of so called ‘alternative’ life
styles. Squatting, then, was performed as part of a broader
movement. This movement was positioned not only against
the scarcity of places for alternative forms of community
and as a stage for cultural events, but also in the sense
of a protest against the rigid social order and small-town
boredom in general. The economic growth of the mid-80s
further aggravated the existing housing shortage. The squatting movement had considerable impact during these years,
and it benefited from the joint forces of dispersed social
movements in action at the time. Squatting was professionalized in that activist groups elaborated a repertoire of
strategies and a network aiming at coordination, information
sharing and common strategy development between particular activist groups. In one case, the squatting ‘experts’ would
even provide a house for a group of young punks who had
moved into a three story-building with them. The ideas of
the punk group were quite different from what the leading
activists wished to accomplish, and living together had become too big of a challenge, so the professionalized activists
decided to offer the punks an alternative. The ‘punk house’
was successfully taken, the activists organised the contacts
to officials and the press for the punks; ultimately the new
site outlived the original squat by years.10 This anecdote
213
is an illustration of the professionalization of the squatting
movement during the 80s. Out of the movement emerged
the ‘Wohnnot’-group in Berne. Wohnnot means housing
shortage, and the group’s declared goal was to generate the
political forces in order to establish radical claims related to
housing and bring them to public attention.
An example of a successful intervention against a large
scale housing development project was the ‘Villetteninitiative’ in the mid-80s. Some squatters moved into houses that
were threatened with demolition for the project, and some
of the actual residents refused to move out. The struggle
ended in the project being realised in a slightly modified
form, and the developer was forced to sell one of the houses
to a housing co-operative. This is the remaining house at the
Effingerstrasse, and it stands as a symbol of resistance to
a monopolizing and razing politics of city development. It
stands alone in a profoundly converted landscape, carrying
a symbolic value that demonstrates the possibility to subvert
imposed social orders (Mitchell, 2000, p. 141)
New strategies of what could be called ‘civil disturbance’
were also launched in the 1980s, such as an advertisement
that was placed in the local newspaper; this advertisement
announced a 5-room-appartment to be let at a very competitive price. The impetus for this act lay in previous
confrontations between housing activists and the owners of
the empty house. The owners had tried to deter squatters
by placing teargas inside. The administrative director of the
owning company defended this method of keeping potential squatters off as being preferable to having to clear the
house from squatters. In turn, activists took revenge by placing the ad, including the telephone number not only of the
city administration, but also the private number of the director of finances of the city, who also happened to be the
administrative president of the owning company.
Squatting and associated housing activism was a means
of a social protest in general and to some extent a self-helpinitiative. A series of squats were made explicitly for their
potential to generate publicity; people sometimes moved
into houses knowing they would be moved out within a few
days. Sometimes these actions were carried out as parallel
squatting, a strategy whereby houses were squatted simultaneously in order to increase the publicity. Most activists at
the time describe their involvement as a kind of ‘falling into’
something. ‘I am not one of them’ one former activist said
about his involvement. ‘The necessity to squat these houses
somehow came to me’, the same man said. ‘Squatting is
not something I would have done, it is illegal.’ Despite the
public attention to the squats and housing problems, participants who really were in search of a place to live described
the events also as being very precarious in terms of their
personal situations. Activism around housing might draw
attention to the problems citywide but also made landlords
more wary of the activists, and it was difficult to find rental
property.
In Berne, the movement of the 1980s cumulated in
the squatting of the Reithalle, a historical building, which
was adopted by the movement as the centre of their cultural and political struggle. The Reithalle – a building in a
very visible position as everyone coming into Berne sees
this remarkable place – remains an outstanding symbol for
the movement’s capacity to imprint their cultural identities
against the dominant and normative model of mainstream
values and politics. The capture of the Reithalle has to be
thought of as the most important and sustainable act in the
course of a very troubled decade. The fact that it stands
there still, occupied by leftist activists and evoking rather
contemptuous comments by parts of the public and the rightwing politicians, is the result of a fragile consensus between
the city and the consolidated movement. The Reithalle is
a symbol, a constant reminder of how a system of social
regulation was undermined. It is a Thirdspace in the sense of
Bhabha, ‘that productive space of the construction of culture
as difference, in the spirit of alterity or otherness’ (1990,
p. 209).
The 1990s benefited from the consolidated self esteem
of the movement, being constantly reflected by the Reithalle. As one participant in the movement expressed it, the
Reithalle had generated a feeling in the sense of: “Dir chöit
üs nid eifach uf d’ Chappe schiisse” (“You can’t just shit
on our head!”). When in the early 1990s the conservative
government lost elections the movement welcomed the leftecologist (Rot-Grün-Mitte)-government with a synchronised
spectacle of parallel squats, publicly reminding the newly
elected government of its promises. Although the authorities
showed a different commitment to negotiation, finding solutions was still difficult. The movement itself, on the other
hand, was shaken by internal differences, and it proved increasingly difficult to identify common goals and to pursue
initiatives.
Conclusion
How can the development of squatting be explained? Why
has the movement apparently eroded even though affordable
living space is constantly and vigorously being turned into
what would be upper-middle-class residences? And, most
important; in what ways has the squatting movement succeeded in transforming the common notion of what is the
nature of ‘the urban’?
Berne shows what Puijt has called the self-defeating
effects of movements (Puijt, 2003). By way of professionalizing their strategies, the squatting movement has gained
acceptance and been offered an enlarged range of possible
actions. Choosing this offer also means moving away from
proven methods of struggle. The movement has adapted to
this by redirecting their strategies. Former activists, as an
example, now post bail bonds for the upcoming generation
of squatters who are in search of a space to realize their wish
of communal living. A small group of still active squatters
is seen by public authorities as ‘moderate’. Upon squatting
a new site they present a ‘letter of recommendation’ signed
by the former owner.
Since the days of the most intense fighting, the city itself
has changed. Pressure has been taken off not only because
the situation of the housing market has temporarily eased,
214
but also because the site of negotiations between public authorities and representatives of the movement has shifted.
Transgressions not only make borderlines visible, they also
have the power to actually displace them. Many former activists keep fighting through the legal channels, while others
have changed their role and approached the city as purchasers. As co-operatives, they have bought a number of
dilapidated houses that they are now renovating. Some of
the former activists support the next generation of squatters by providing the guarantee for the bank, so the young
people can purchase a house allowing them to live there
as a community. The former squatters are now regarded as
solvent, since they have purchased their houses and realised
a number of innovative living places, this has changed the
face of an entire neighbourhood. Ironically, by gentrifying
this particular neighbourhood from the ‘bottom-up’, former
squatters have prevented it from being gentrified in a large
scale ‘top-down’-way. The neighbourhood is still undergoing gentrification, however, and the city welcomes its new
income – and therefore tax-topography. The former students,
part-time employees, free-lance artists and apprentices now
have well-paid jobs and live in double-income relationships.
Berne is small and small it remains; for example, Berne
would be a single neighbourhood of Berlin or an arrondissement of Paris. Tracing social movements in Berne seems
almost a paradox, per se. However, smallness in dimension
and caution in aspirations has not prevented the city from
developing a distinctively urban character. The squatting
movement of the 1980s and the 1990s has contributed to
this. By opposing the linear development models, activists
forced responsible authorities to reflect upon their understandings of not only how this city should develop, but also
who would be living in it and under what circumstances.
Squatters literally placed their claims in abandoned buildings. Making themselves ‘out of place’ they managed to
involve the question of power within this city – a city that
is accustomed to a quiet flow of things. Struggling for a
different idea of the urban in a Swiss context means creating something for which there is no existing model. As
a result, reactions from the side of the owners and conservative politicians were harsh. They understood that the
movement was not only about some place to live, it was
about how the system worked and how power was distributed. Massive police deployment at various moments gave
an impression of just how threatened the established authorities felt. The squatting movement since the 1980’s has
raised the issue of social justice in Switzerland, creating
new concepts to the self-understanding of a country that
is mainly regarded as a very wealthy place with high rates
of satisfaction among the people. In contrast to this, parts
of the Bernese squatting movement named themselves ‘the
unsatisfied’ (Staub, 2002). Problems associated with social
injustice have become far more evident. Issues related to
‘working poor’, families at poverty risk, single-parenting,
and violence are common in Swiss cities. In this sense, the
movement of the 80s has launched a discussion about issues that were off-limits in the 1970s, but that have become
common knowledge today.
The city and its everyday-life also have changed in the
sense of cultural activities and meeting places. The borders
of mainstream and off-culture have blurred, and the average
person does not perceive the moment of historical achievement created through the efforts of activists in the squatting
movement that are inscribed into many of the new places.
Given the suspicion the notion of ‘the urban’ is still surrounded with, this is no surprise. If discourses on what this
city represents may have changed only slightly, practices
are different. As a former activist suggested, the gains don’t
have to be appreciated as such any more – they have become
self-evident. They just are.
Notes
1 Newspaper
Articles
BLICK Nr. 93, Mai 1972.
MEGAFON Nr. 239, September 2001.
2 Swiss Constitution Art. 26; Civil Code Art. 641
3 Art. 1: “Wer Eigentümer einer Sache ist, kann in den
Schranken der Rechtsordnung über sie nach seinem Belieben verfügen.”
Art. 2: “Er hat das Recht, sie von jedem, der sie ihm
vorenthält, herauszuverlangen und jede ungerechtfertigte
Einwirkung abzuwehren.” (my own translation).
4 A recent example of this is the city of Zug, where the issue was introduced into the political platform in November
2002. See Einzelinitiative Lea Zehnder vom 22. September
2002 “betreffend Besetzen von leer stehenden Häusern oder
leer stehendem Wohnraum regeln statt strafrechtlich verfolgen”. Protokoll des Grossen Gemeinderates vom 12/11/02.
5 Following the example of France, a movement of so called
Sans-papiers (‘paper-less’) emerged in Switzerland, squatting churches in April 2001. The Sans-papier-agitation amalgamates people of different national backgrounds and quite
diverse personal histories in terms of becoming illegal habitants, being forced to illicit employment and a parlous
situation in terms of social security. Nevertheless most of
them came to Switzerland in legal terms and often by way
of a labor agreement. For many holds, that due to increasing
restrictments and legal amendments they more or less unpredictedly were driven into an illegal status – this is why
they refer to themselves as illegalised inhabitants. From the
French-speaking part of Switzerland the movement escalated throughout the country. By this act, illegalised residents
went public, risking their subsequent repatriation. The government defied them a general amnesty, agreed however
to re-examine specific cases. For a detailled enquiry see
Efionay-Mäder & Cattacin, 2001.
6 The Berne case did not reach Zürich’s needle-park dimension, but rigid policing became daily routine on the grounds
of an existing open drug scene. The police campaign was
launched in 1998 and included an intensification of checkings and detention, affecting predominantly non-whites.
7 A very concise overview of the paradigms of social movement research is presented by Kai Hellmann (1999).
8 ‘Basisdemokratische Entscheidungsformen’
9 housing shortage is defined as a situation where less than
215
1% of housing objects are available – the rate for Berne in
89 was indicated with 0,17%
10 Interview with T.R.
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