Reclaiming Inclusive Politics : Squatting in Sweden 1968-2016

Squatting, or the use of property without authorization, can take many formsin different contexts. It has been used as both a means in a struggle for amore just city by redistributing resources, and a goal in itself. In Sweden,the first squatting attempts occurred in late 1960s, in the same period asmany other squatting attempts in Northern and Western Europe. Theobjective of this paper is to outline the history of squatting in Sweden.Currently, there is no systematic and comprehensive research on this matter,and aside from presenting a historical outline of squatting, the ambition is topresent a typology of goals or main motivations behind squatting in Swedenbetween 1968 and 2016. The analysis is qualitative and based on dataproduced by and about squatting activists and gathered from national andlocal news media, alternative leftist news media, thematic magazines,documentary films, material produced by the studied groups (pamphlets,Internet-based websites and blogs), a transcript of a debate on the topic ofsquatting in Sweden including activists involved in squatting, along withprevious research on the topic. It is argued that it is important to studyshort-term and demonstrative squatting as it has the ability to uncover howsquatting is used as a technique, and thus contribute to a betterunderstanding of the phenomenon. I distinguish between the goals ofproviding housing, preserving areas from clearance and demolition,protecting areas from environmental threats, creating free spaces foractivities, and criticizing national (welfare) politics. Furthermore, it ismaintained that despite its short-lived character Swedish squatting has beencontinuous with a low frequency, and overtly political in its character, byreclaiming the rights to housing and more egalitarian distribution of societalresources