When are squatters likely to be militant? - PowerPoint Presentation

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When are squatters likely to be militant?The regulation of residential squattingin England and France

Dr. Jane BallNewcastle Law School, Newcastle UniversityJane.ball@newcastle.ac.uk

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When are squatters militant?Studying outsiders in England and France

There is a move from individual squats to larger collective, militant or overt squatsDealt with by public and criminal law responses rather than private law onesWhy is that? Is that better or worse?Reviewing the law using possible evidence-based

theories about outsiders:

Foucault - power

Lindbeck and Snower – economic power

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This paper concerns housing squats:Bouillon’s typology

Bouillon conducted interviews in squats in Marseille 2000-2005Squatters are extremely variable types of peopleShe identifies two types of squat:The ‘housing squat’ or ‘squat of necessity’ and The ‘squat of activities’ or ‘squat of conviction’

The latter were less successful

Collective housing squats are an established and conventional form in France although there are recent crackdowns

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A ‘squat of

activities’ In Tarragona4Slide5

Squatters as outsidersFoucault and the power relationship

Squatters are generally agreed to be societal outsiders (Green, Becker, Reeve, Cohen, Cooper) ‘folk devils’Foucault can be used for evidence-based explanations of cause and effect (Hunter and Nixon)Foucault (1971) said that the position of outsider is the product of a power relationshipThe madman in a play is stigmatized and silent BUT

There is a sudden switch when the madman is the only character on the stage telling the truth

Collective squats today promote moral causes to create such a paradigm shift in perception.

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Squatters as outsidersInsider outsider theory and economic power

Insider outsider theory provides evidence of the processes of exclusion from housing :Lindbeck and Snower

for employment, but applied to housing

In housing this is

the result of barriers to access to homes and barriers to eviction – transaction costs

These barriers protects insiders – tenants and home owners

If these barriers are too high, then outsiders cannot access a home, become increasingly stigmatized and deteriorate quickly

Squatting is a response to this, often a cold hard choice of

necessity

This theory suggests that the stigmatization

can be addressed by an awareness of how barriers work

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Insiders and the response of outsidersFrance has suffered from

insiderness in the housing market and from militant collective squats much longer than England (Ball, 2011)Insiderness

d

escribes:

a dysfunctional housing market where there is a kind of sclerosis of the market, which adversely affects everyoneconditions where there are too many barriers to access to housing but also too many barriers to exit from housing (i.e. difficulty evicting people

)

The homeless are the bellwether for the system as a whole

Outsiderness

,

here describes the self-help responses to

insiderness

of squatters in collective squat.

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The individual squat and the private lawoccupying space (1)

The main (but limited) power for an individual squatter lies in:The difficulty of eviction (transaction costs)Getting on with neighbours and caring for the home

An ancient law granting

squatters title

in England and France after a long apprenticeship has common roots in Roman law:Practical in the wilds of the Roman empire (

usucapio

).

In France this is very difficult to obtain

In England this is becoming difficult to obtain:

High

cost criminalization (widening discretion for police?)

limiting

of private –law

remedies

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The individual squat and the private lawoccupying space (2)

This is a moral battle , because the State can make it easier or harder to get access or evict Traditional Justifications:Economic use of land/mitigating homelessness/ labour evidenced by repair

The existence of squatters’ title creates

public order

in the long term (Savigny)This supports property owners because of the long-term difficulty in evidencing ownership ‘the diabolical proof’

Low visibility, rewards getting on with neighbours, cheap to public authorities and high public order value

It is the job of the state to act impartially between claimants

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The collective squat and the public law (1):greater difficulty in eviction

Why do squatters abandon the incentives of the private law?The collective squat increases public costs of their removal:Groups are harder to evict than individuals (transaction costs are higher) and this is expensive

Groups allow continuity with less effort – they can work in shifts to continue occupation.

Continuity also ensured by advertising presence on the net.

Group squats propose moral purposes and provide useful squatted social centres, appealing over the heads of neighbours to an international audience.

A deliberate policy of confrontation rather than slipping away before eviction raises the public profile.

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Turning full circle: Public law expensively doing the same as the private law

The State tries to replicate what squatters do in seeking out empty propertiesIn France a largely failed policy of spotting and requisitioning empty property since 1945In England, the Empty Homes AgencyVery high cost of evictions to displace collective squats, so evictees carry a sense of injustice around Europe

Impartiality

of State

threatened by compensation to landowners who lose title (ECHR) incentivizing crackdownIn very large squats in transitional economies , title bestowed on whole areas by public decree (de Soto)

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Conclusionoccupying space

Limiting squatting involves the state in higher public costs than the old law, instead of impartially adjudicating on each claim on its meritsIt also creates social divisions and a fissile state of indignation Insider-outsider theory proposes that a level playing field will improve things:Effective, correct, and appropriately timed eviction after fair adjudication

Improve

access, reduce stigmatization and free up money to spend on homelessness

If the private law of squatting did not exist, you would have to invent it.

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