ABSTRACT
Which are the significant types of squatting? Squats are hardly dedicated to one single and exclusive activity. Squatters can sleep, work, study, meet their peers, raise children, rest, and even promote public events for outsiders in the buildings they occupy. Classifications of squats are problematic if they do not account for all the nuances of every case, its urban-metropolitan context, and its change over time. The names attached to the different types of squats and the political use that might be made of them entail practical consequences too—in the eventuality of a lawsuit, for example. This chapter critically examines attempts to categorise urban squats and suggests new comprehensive classifications. Rather than merely focusing on the activities or functions accomplished by squats, my approach aims to relate the types of squatting to the most relevant socio-spatial and historical conditions of possibility examined in the previous chapter. Accordingly, I highlight the distinctions between squats for housing and squatted social centres, on the one hand, and tactical and strategic squatting, on the other, in order to clarify the political dimension of squatting practices and movements. Besides this, I move from a focus on the differentiated motivations of squatters towards the most probable outcomes they produce. The discussion of the literature also invites a focus on the overlaps and intersections between different forms of squatting. Splits among squatters when it comes to dealing with the local authorities and policies are also among the main distinctive features of squatting. Finally, I present a case study of the interactions between migrants and squatters in the city of Madrid in order to show how waves of protest and other contextual features are articulated with the types of squatted spaces effectively produced.
