ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines the social and political affinities that both squatters and migrants shared by looking at their mutual interactions in a specific urban setting. The author focuses the city of Madrid where he was an active participant in several squatted social centers for six years, although some examples are also taken from other Spanish cities due to their general impact in the public debates about squatting and the images and policies related to immigration. His own observations and research on squatting, since the mid 1990s, in Spain and Europe provides additional evidence and perspectives to this topic. The collection of mass media news over the last two decades and eight semi-structured interviews have been used as empirical sources for the present analysis. He argues that the 'solidarity' approach lingers all over the period of analysis, but other forms of interaction such as autonomy, engagement and empowerment gained political significance due to specific contextual circumstances.
