The Autonomous Life? is an ethnography of the squatters' movement in Amsterdam written by an anthropologist who lived and worked in a squatters' community for 3.5 years. She resided as a squatter in 4 different houses, worked on 2 successful anti-gentrification campaigns, was evicted from 2 houses, and was jailed once. With this unique perspective, Kadir focuses on how people in this overtly anarchist movement constantly disavow while silently maintain hierarchy and authority. Specific squatter skills and particular performances of hostility are classified as squatter capital. Kadir systematically examines the contradiction between what people say and what they practice in a highly ideological radical left community Kadir's observations are directly born out of an intense ethnographic and personal encounter with the world of the squatters which sharply contrasts with social movement studies, which has primarily been written from the disciplinary perspectives of political science and sociology and has ignored micro-dynamics.
Using a unique critical perspective informed by gender and subaltern studies, Kadir contributes to social movements literature through a meticulous analysis of micro-social dynamics of power in the internal dynamic of the squatters movement.
- ISBN10 1628924993
- ISBN13 9781628924992
- Publish Date 5 November 2015
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Imprint Bloomsbury Academic USA
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 256
- Language English