Securitization of Property Squatting in Europe [Paperback]

Housing is no longer about having a place to live  but about state pressures to conform, norms and policies regarding citizenship, and practices of surveillance and security. Breaking new ground in the field of urban politics and international relations, Securitization of Property Squatting in Europeexamines and critiques legislative initiatives and examines governmental attempts to reframe urban property squatting as a crime and a threat to domestic security.

Using examples from France, Netherlands, Denmark, and Great Britain, Mary Manjikian argues that developments within the European Union  including terrorist attacks in London and Madrid, the rise of right wing extremist parties, and the lifting of barriers to immigration and travel within the EU  have had effects on housing policy, which has become the subject of state security policy in Europes urban areas. In Denmark, squatting has often had an ideological, anti-state character. In Paris, housing policy can be viewed as a type of identity politics with squatters as transnational actors who pose a transnational security threat. In Great Britain, the role of the press has created a drive to criminalize squatting. Events in the Netherlands present two competing notions of what housing is  a human right, or an economic good produced by the free market.

Introduction: Housing, Neighbors and the Politics of Fear 1: How We Talk About Squatting 2: Squatting and Anti-Squatting in Britain 3: Incorporating the Enclave of Juliana Christiania 4: Grenoble, 2010: Failed Attempts to Securitize the Roma Squats 5: The Last Bastion of Squatting in Europe or the End of Dutch Tolerance 6: Politics of Securitization and Desecuritization

Mary Manjikians book brings the property question to the heart of critical debates on security. Manjikian offers a set of fascinating cases across Europe that illuminate important dynamics of contemporary securitizing practices. Thel/