Squatting and the construction of 'the urban' in Swiss cities

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.

208 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

209 (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.

210 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

211 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).

212 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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