Dos okupas del grupo La Dragona de Madrid. Foto: Alvaro Garcia for El Pais
It’s an exciting moment in Madrid politics, and not in the way we’d prefer. The right wing has regained power in the last election, at both the city and the provincial level. (Due to a split in the left, naturally.) So the social movements that made up the backbone of the Madrid municipalist movement – Ahora Madrid, Madrid Mas, whatever it’s now-to-be-forgotten formation was named – will be challenged to go back to the streets. The new rightwing city council of the Popular Party includes the ultra-right wing party Vox. They are already pulling the plug on autonomous spaces that the city controls. And the new mayor has vowed to evict all the okupas they can find.
So here comes SqEK to analyze the situation...
First Callout for SqEK Madrid
Call for Papers and other forms of participation in the SqEK (Squatting Everywhere Kollective) conference to be held in Madrid: October 23-27, 2019.
Deadline for proposals July 15, 2019. [This is to plan for accomodations and facilities; more about intent to attend. – ed]
In our 10th anniversary as an activist-research network (https://sqek.squat.net/ and https://radicalhousingjournal.org/2019/sqek/) we keep meeting once a year, at least, in a self-managed conference. This means, above all, that we try to keep it as low-cost as possible, and no registration fees are charged. If available, free or cheap accommodation will be also provided for those who request it. In addition, we will collect donations from participants with permanent jobs to sponsor those without sufficient resources to attend. Even if you don't attend, you can donate to support the contribution of precarious activist-scholars. We expect that all the participants will cooperate with the organisation and development of the encounter.
Regarding the contents, we will focus on Squatting for Housing on the first day, Squatting and Migration on the second, and Squatting and Gender on the third. Please, submit your proposals according to these topics, although other subjects might be accepted too in case there are not sufficient contributions for the main ones. If there is an available time slot, we will also discuss draft papers to be submitted for the special issue on Squatting and Urban Commons (to be published by PaCo, Partecipazione e Conflitto, journal).
As usual, we will start on Wednesday evening with a welcoming event. From Thursday to Saturday, we will have morning, afternoon and evening activities TBD. Sunday morning will be dedicated to evaluate the meeting and discuss about current projects, the future of SqEK, etc.
Every morning will be dedicated to present and discuss papers, activist experiences, posters, videos, etc. Every evening (6-9 pm on Thursday and Friday, 5-8 pm on Saturday) will consist of a presentation by local activists and a collective debate. In between, we will visit different squatted spaces across the city-metropolitan area.
In order to have a fruitful meeting for all the participants, we will ask local activists what kind of contribution they want from our side. For example: a press conference to support their struggle against an eviction threat, to record a video clip with a similar purpose, to help painting banners or designing posters, etc. We will also ask for permission to record the debates and collective interviews to be held during the meeting.
If you are interested in participating, please fill in the following form and submit it to miguel.martinez@ibf.uu.se, laurabarrio28@gmail.com and alastugar@gmail.com by July 15, 2019, the latest:
http://www.miguelangelmartinez.net/?2019-SqEK-meeting-Madrid-23-27-Oct
This blogger will sadly not be in town… but will be coordinating events from New York City, a solidarity live stream.
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