The Autonomous Life?: Paradoxes of Hierarchy and Authority in the Squatters Movement in Amsterdam (Contemporary Anarchist Studies) - Hardcover

Kadir, Nazima

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1784994103 ISBN 13: 9781784994105

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2016

Synopsis

The autonomous life? is an ethnography of the squatters movement in Amsterdam written by an anthropologist who lived and worked in the community for over three years. Nazima Kadir occupied four different houses and took part in two successful anti-gentrification campaigns. She was evicted twice and jailed once. From this unique perspective, she systematically examines the contradiction between what people say and what they practice in a highly ideological community of the radical left. The squatters movement defines itself as anti-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian, yet it is plagued by the contradiction between this public disavowal and the maintenance of hierarchy and authority within the movement. This study analyses how the contradiction is reproduced in micro-social interactions, examining how people negotiate minute details of their daily lives as squatter activists in the face of a funhouse mirror of ideological expectations. Taking a unique critical perspective informed by gender and subaltern studies, The autonomous life? contributes to the literature of social movements through a meticulous analysis of the production of power and hierarchy in a social-movement subculture.

About this title

Review

This is far and away the best ethnography of a squatters movement, or really any European anti-authoritarian movement, I have yet to come across. Nazima Kadir's bold interrogation of the concept of "autonomy" alone is well worth the ticket. But the book is much more. Combining vivid and sensitive ethnography with a willingness to ask challenging and fundamental questions about contemporary anti-authoritarian ideas, this book does everything good anthropology - the best anthropology - should do. I hope it provides a model for the ethnography of social movements in the future.' David Graeber, Professor at the London School of Economics, activist and author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011) and The Democracy Project (2014)

About the Author

Nazima Kadir is an Urban Anthropologist based in London. Prior to squatting houses in Amsterdam, she received awards from the Fulbright program and the National Science Foundation -- .

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1784994103
• ISBN 13: 9781784994105
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 232