Autonomous Life?

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A01=Nazima Kadir
activism
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
anthropology
Author_Nazima Kadir
automatic-update
autonomy
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JPFB
Category=JPW
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
habitus
hierarchy
Language_English
PA=Available
participant observation
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
radical left
SN=Contemporary Anarchist Studies
softlaunch
squatters movement
subcultural capital

Product details

  • ISBN 9781784994112
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 02 Jun 2016
  • Publisher: Manchester University Press
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
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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 over three years. During that time she resided as a squatter in four different houses, worked on two successful anti-gentrification campaigns, was evicted from two houses and jailed once. With this unique perspective, Kadir systematically examines the contradiction between what people say and what they practice in a highly ideological radicalleftcommunity. The squatters' movement defines itself primarily as anti-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian, and yet is perpetually plagued by the contradiction between this public disavowal and the maintenance of hierarchy and authority within the movement. This study analyses how this contradiction is then reproduced in different micro-social interactions, examining the methods by which people negotiate minute details of their daily lives as squatter activists in the face of a fun house mirror of ideological expectations reflecting values from within the squatter community, that, in turn, often refract mainstream, middle-class norms.


Using a unique critical perspective informed by gender and subaltern studies, this study contributes to social movements literature through a meticulous analysis of the production of power and hierarchy in a social movement subculture.

An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA) licence.

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