Sites of Dissent: Nomad Science and Contentious Spatial Practice by Alissa Starodub

Author:Alissa Starodub [Starodub, Alissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Political Science, History & Theory, International Relations, General
ISBN: 9781538146354
Google: 4adIEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: RowmanLittlefield
Published: 2021-10-27T20:38:05+00:00

Recalling and Reflecting a Week of Contention

I arrived in the city where my friend Gino lives as everything seemed to have just about become quiet again. All that reminded us of the week of riot and resistance that had taken place here were the windows of banks that stopped being repaired after having been trashed several times in a row. They were now covered with wooden planks. Wherever I went these days, be it the most peripheral neighbourhood or the city centre, thousands of spray-painted tags and posters marked the walls: “Punkto32 stays!” and “Solidarity is a weapon!”

Punkto32 used to be a squatted social centre that had existed for almost twenty years in a popular neighbourhood. When the local authorities announced its planned eviction, the squatters launched a campaign together with local residents for the preservation of Punkto32. With its concerts, its gardening group, its regular collective dinners and discussion events, Punkto32 had been part of daily life in the neighbourhood. It had also been a meeting place for autonomous political working groups. After several demonstrations against the eviction of Punkto32, police arrived one early morning to break through the door of the social centre and demolish its interior as well as several bearing walls.

“Punkto32 is completely empty now? Does someone still live there?” I asked Gino. We were having a coffee on the roof of his house. He sighed: “I told you to come earlier. No, it looks like a ruin. No one will squat it ever again.” Gino showed me several posters that were billposted in the streets of the city. They had been signed by different political groups. One of them was critiquing the eviction of Punkto32 in relation to a critique of gentrification which was expelling popular life and noncommercial meeting places. Another poster contained a text against capitalist social relationships and stated that the eviction of a noncommercial social centre that was self-managed was an oppressive capitalist act and should be opposed.

“What happened here in this one week was not only about Punkto32 as such. It was about all the self-organised, autonomous spaces, it was about our dissent to capitalist relations and hierarchies,” Gino said. I asked him if he could write down for me what happened during this week to turn it into one of the case-study stories of sites of dissent in this research project.

“Writing isn’t really my thing,” he replied, “I’d rather tell it to you and you write it down.”

About two weeks ago, police arrived in several vans to evict Punkto32. It was easy for them to block the narrow street where Punkto32 is. Nobody expected them to come in daytime. Only a few people managed to get out onto the street. They got pushed aside by the cops. I have not been there but those who have, told this story many times and everybody knew that Punkto32 was evicted within one hour anyway. The cops broke into the house and destroyed everything. Then they brought machines to demolish it so that it could not be used like before.

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