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From Bad to Worse: Algorithmic Amplification of Antisemitism and Extremism

By The Anti-Defamation League, Center for Technology and Society

The question of who is accountable for the proliferation of antisemitism, hate, and extremism online has been hotly debated for years. Are our digital feeds really a reflection of society, or do social media platforms and tech companies actually exacerbate virulent content themselves? The companies argue that users are primarily responsible for the corrosive content soaring to the top of news feeds and reverberating between platforms. This argument serves to absolve these multi-billion-dollar companies from responsibility for any role their own products play in exacerbating hate. A new pair of studies from ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) and TTP (Tech Transparency Project) show how some of the biggest social media platforms and search engines at times directly contribute to the proliferation of online antisemitism, hate, and extremism through their own tools and, in some cases, by creating content themselves. While there are many variables contributing to online hate, including individual users’ own behavior, our research demonstrates how these companies are taking things from bad to worse. For these studies, we created male, female, and teen personas (without a specified gender) who searched for a basket of terms related to conspiracy theories as well as popular internet personalities, commentators, and video games across four of the biggest social media platforms, to test how these companies’ algorithms would work. In the first study, three of four platforms recommended even more extreme, contemptuously antisemitic, and hateful content. One platform, YouTube, did not take the bait. It was responsive to the persona but resisted recommending antisemitic and extremist content, proving that it is not just a problem of scale or capability. In our second study, we tested search functions at three companies, all of which made finding hateful content and groups a frictionless experience, by autocompleting terms and, in some cases, even auto-generating content to fill in hate data voids. Notably, the companies didn’t autocomplete terms or auto-generate content for other forms of offensive content, such as pornography, proving, again, that this is not just a problem of scale or capability. What these investigations ultimately revealed is that tech companies’ hands aren’t tied. Companies have a choice in what to prioritize, including when it comes to tuning algorithms and refining design features to either exacerbate or help curb antisemitism and extremism. As debates rage between legislators, regulators, and judges on AI, platform transparency, and intermediary liability, these investigations underscore the urgency for both platforms and governments to do more.

New York: The Anti-Defamation League, Center for Technology and Society, 2023. 36p.

Performing Whiteness: Central and Eastern European: young people’s experiences of xenophobia and racialisation in the UK post-Brexit

By Daniela Sime, Naomi Tyrrell, Emmaleena Käkelä, Marta Moskal

The state-induced anti-immigration environment and the normalisation of xenophobia in political and media discourses have led to the increased othering of European migrants in the UK through new forms of social stratification, especially since the Brexit Referendum of 2016. For young people who migrated to the UK as children from Central and Eastern Europe, Brexit has represented a major rupture in the process of their identity formation, adding new insecurities in the context of increasingly uncertain rights. Based on a survey with 1,120 young people aged 12–18 who identified as Central or Eastern European migrants, followed by focus groups and case studies, we report on young migrants’ everyday experiences of xenophobia and racialisation. We explore the coping and resistance strategies young people used to integrate themselves in these racialized hierarchies. Drawing on insights from emergent theories of racialisation and whiteness, we add new evidence on the direct consequences of these experiences of marginalisation on young people’s sense of belonging and their own attitudes towards other ethnic groups.

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES2022, VOL. 48, NO. 19, 4527–4546

Rooted in racism and economic exploitation: The failed Southern economic development model

By Chandra Childers

Summary: Southern politicians claim that “business-friendly” policies lead to an abundance of jobs and economic prosperity for all Southerners. The data actually show a grim economic reality.

Key findings

The share of prime-age workers (ages 25–54) who have a job is lower than the national average in most Southern states.

  • Median earnings in nine Southern states are among the lowest in the nation, even after adjusting for lower cost of living in the South.

  • Poverty rates in most Southern states are above the national average. In Louisiana and Mississippi, nearly 1 in 5 residents live in poverty.

  • The child poverty rate in the South is 20.9%—higher than in any other region.

These statistics reflect an anti-worker economic model whose signature policies are low wages, low taxes, few regulations on businesses, few labor protections, a weak safety net, and vicious opposition to unions.

Why this matters

A long history of anti-worker policies in the South—rooted in a racist agenda—has had devastating consequences for its residents. Business interests and the wealthy have stoked racial divisions to maintain power and ensure access to cheap labor—at the expense of working people.

How to fix it

We must begin to reverse 150 years of anti-worker policymaking in the South—starting with raising minimum wages and protecting workers’ right to organize. We also need to enforce appropriate regulations on business practices, reform a broken tax structure, and strengthen the safety net for Southerners.

The Impacts of Implicit Bias Awareness Training in the NYPD

By Robert E. Worden, Sarah J. McLean, Robin S. Engel, Hannah Cochran, Nicholas Corsaro, Danielle Reynolds ,Cynthia J. Najdowski, Gabrielle T. Isaza

In February of 2018, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) began inservice training on implicit bias for its 36,000 sworn personnel, using the Fair and Impartial Policing (FIP) curriculum. A team of researchers from the John Finn Institute for Public Safety and the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy partnered with the NYPD to conduct evaluation research on the impacts of the training. The evaluation concentrated on the effects of the training among patrol officers assigned to commands in the Patrol Services Bureau, Transit Bureau, and Housing Bureau, whose training commenced in May, 2018 and concluded in April, 2019. We assessed the immediate effects of the training on officers’ beliefs and attitudes: their knowledge about the science of implicit bias and the potential implications for policing, and their attitudes about the salience of bias and discrimination as a social problem, and the importance of policing without prejudice. A survey was administered on the day of FIP training, either prior to or following the training on alternating days. We drew inferences about immediate training effects from the differences in pre- and post-training survey responses. The effect of the training on officers’ knowledge about implicit bias was of moderate magnitude, though many officers’ comprehension of the science of bias was limited. The effects of the training on officers’ attitudes toward discrimination, and their motivation to act without prejudice, were fairly small, though prior to the training, most officers considered discrimination a social problem and felt individually motivated to act without bias. Officers regarded the training as beneficial: 70 percent reportedly gained a better understanding of implicit bias and more than two-thirds reportedly learned new strategies and skills that they expected to apply to their work. Nearly half rated the likelihood of using all five biasmanagement strategies as either a 6 or 7 on a 7-point scale anchored at 7 as ‘very likely.’ We conducted a follow-up survey about officers’ beliefs and attitudes and their actual utilization of FIP strategies, which was administered from June through August of 2019, ranging from 2 to 13 months following the training. Asked whether they attempted “to apply the FIP training in your duties over the last month,” 42 percent said they had not, 31 percent said they attempted to use the bias-management strategies sometimes, and 27 percent said they attempted using them frequently. Comparing the follow-up survey responses to those on the days of training, we also detected some decay in the immediate effects of the training on officers’ comprehension of the science of implicit bias. The impact of police training is likely to be greater when it is supported by other organizational forces, of which immediate supervisors may be the most important. We surveyed sergeants post-training. We found that most sergeants view monitoring for bias as one of their responsibilities, and that they are willing to intervene as needed with individual officers. One-quarter reported that they had intervened with an officer whose performance warranted intervention. Slightly more than half of the sergeants reportedly address issues of implicit bias during roll calls, thereby reinforcing the training. Insofar as officers’ unconscious biases may influence their enforcement decisions, and to the extent that officers apply their training in FIP strategies to manage their unconscious biases, we hypothesized that the training would lead to reductions in racial/ethnic disparities in enforcement actions, including stops, frisks, searches, arrests, summonses, and uses of force. We examined enforcement disparities at multiple levels of analysis – at the aggregate level of commands and the level of individual enforcement events. To isolate the effect of the training from other factors, the NYPD adhered to a protocol for a randomized controlled trial that provided for grouping commands into clusters scheduled for training by random assignment. This experimental control was supplemented by statistical controls in the analytical models. Overall, we found insufficient evidence to conclude that racial and ethnic disparities in police enforcement actions were reduced as a result of the training. It is very difficult to isolate the effects of the training from other forces that produce disparate enforcement outcomes. Training impacts might be a signal that is easily lost in the noise of everyday police work. Estimating the effect of a single training curriculum on officers’ decisions to invoke the law or otherwise exercise police authority may well be akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Furthermore, it has been presumed but not demonstrated that enforcement disparities stem, at least in part, from officers’ implicit biases. Though research has shown that police officers, like the general public, hold unconscious biases, no scientific evidence directly links officers’ implicit bias with enforcement disparities. To the contrary, the evidence – which is thin, to be sure – suggests that officers practice controlled responses even without implicit bias training. If disparities stem from forces other than implicit bias, then even a welldesigned training that is flawlessly delivered cannot be expected to alter patterns of police enforcement behavior.

Albany, NY: John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc , 2020. 188p.

Misogynistic Pathways to Radicalisation: Recommended Measures for Platforms to Assess and Mitigate Online Gender-Based Violence

By Sara Bundtzen

This paper reviews online gender-based violence (OGBV) as existing within a continuum of (on- and offline) violence, emphasising the connections with different extremist ideologies, including the dissemination of terrorist and violent extremist content (TVEC). It aims to prioritise a gender perspective in responding to TVEC so that social media platforms can better intervene in and mitigate misogynistic pathways to radicalisation that can begin (or be reinforced) online. The discussion recognises that the mitigation of OGBV and online pathways to radicalisation requires a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach. Whilst there are steps that governments and civil society can and should take, such as overseeing and enforcing emerging regulatory frameworks and voluntary commitments, this paper and its recommendations emphasise the role and actions of platforms.

Outlining the impact of OGBV at micro (individual) and macro (societal) levels, the paper considers the role platforms can play in exacerbating the risks of OGBV, evaluating platform policies, content moderation practices, user interface design and algorithmic recommender systems. In this context, the paper asserts that researching and mitigating the risks of OGBV can enable earlier warning of and intervention in misogynistic pathways to different forms of violent extremism. Reiterating that any mitigation of risks must come in support of users’ fundamental rights, including their right to privacy and freedom of expression, the paper proposes and elaborates on the following key recommendations:

  • Enable API access to publicly available data for public interest research;

  • Develop gender-disaggregated and standardised transparency reporting;

  • Apply a victim-survivor-centred Safety and Privacy by Design approach;

  • Enhance cross-platform cooperation and information sharing of OGBV incidents (including actors and tactics);

  • Review content moderation policies, processes, and systems to acknowledge the continuum of violence and misogyny as a vector for violent extremism;

  • Apply intersectional feminist knowledge in risk assessments of AI-based systems;

  • Strengthen and encourage multi-stakeholder dialogue and collaboration.

Berlin: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 31p....2023.

Learning from 50 Years of Aboriginal Alcohol Programs: Beating the Grog in Australia

By Peter d’Abbs and Nicole Hewlett

This open access book deals with community-based attempts on the part of Aboriginal communities and groups in Australia to address harms arising from alcohol misuse. Alcohol-related harms are viewed as both a product of colonisation and dispossession and a contributor to ongoing social, economic and health-related disadvantage, both in Australia and in other countries with colonised Indigenous populations, such as Canada, the US and New Zealand. This book contributes to an evidence-base by bringing together a selection of existing Australian documents considered by the editors to have continuing relevance to all those concerned with dealing with alcohol-related harms among Aboriginal peoples, These are contextualised in original chapters that recount key events, ideas, and programs. The book is a practical resource for all people and groups concerned with addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander alcohol-related harms, both at the community level and at the level of policy-making and administration.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023. 346p.

Monitoring the Future Panel Study Annual Report, 1976-2022

By Megan E. Patrick, Richard A. Miech, Lloyd D. Johnston, Patrick M. O’Malley

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is an ongoing research program conducted at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research under a series of investigator-initiated, competing research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse beginning in 1975. The integrated MTF study includes annual surveys of nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students, as well as a subset of 12th grade students followed into adulthood from each graduating class. Repeating these annual cross sectional surveys over time provides data to examine behavior change across history in consistent age segments of the adult population, as well as among key subgroups. The panel study now has over 110,000 individuals, with approximately 28,500 surveyed each year including young adults ages 19 to 30 and midlife adults ages 35 to 60. These data, gathered on national samples over such a large portion of the lifespan, are extremely rare and can provide needed insight into the epidemiology, etiology, and life course history of substance use and relevant behaviors, attitudes, and other factors. The current report is the latest in a series of publications dating back to 1986 and updated annually since then, all available at monitoringthefuture.org.

Washington DC: National Institute on Drug Abuse; National Institutes of Health; 2023. 192p.

Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia

Edited by Eva Harrison and Meredith L. Weiss

The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative, and informative approach. The handbook actively analyses the varying definitions of civil society, critiquing the inconsistent scrutiny of this sphere over time. It brings forth the need to reconsider civil society development in today’s Southeast Asia, including activist organisations' and platforms' composition, claims, resources, and potential to effect sociopolitical change. Structured in five parts, the volume includes chapters written by an international set of experts analysing topics relating to civil society: Spaces and platforms Place within politics Resources and tactics Identity formation and claims Advocacy The handbook highlights the importance of civil society as a domain for political engagement outside the state and parties, across Southeast Asia, as well as the prevalence and weight of 'uncivil' dimensions. It offers a well-informed and comprehensive analysis of the topic and is an indispensable reference work for students and researchers in the fields of Asian Studies, Asian Politics, Southeast Asian Politics and Comparative Politics.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023. 422p.

Intellectual Radicalism after 1989: Crisis and Re-orientation in the British and the American Left

By Sebastian Berg

Left-wing intellectuals in Britain and the US had long repudiated the Soviet regime. Why was the collapse of the Eastern Bloc experienced as a shock that destabilised their identities and political allegiances then? What happened to a collective project that had started out to formulate a socialist vision different from both really existing socialism and social democracy? This study endeavours to answer both questions, focusing on generational networks rather than individuals and investigating political academic journals after 1989 to paint the picture of a Left deeply troubled by the triumph of a capitalism unfettered by any counter-force.

Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2016. 345p.

Political Islam and Religiously Motivated Political Extremism: An International Comparison

By Arno Tausch

This open access book presents an international comparison of religiously motivated extremism in the Arab world and around the globe. Based on data from the Arab Barometer and the World Values Survey, it applies advanced statistical techniques to analyze how religiously motivated political extremism affects political and social outcomes as well as political violence. The study clearly shows that identification with a political Islam that also influences elections, promotes religious and gender discrimination, and advocates an Islamist interpretation of Islam, are the main interrelated syndromes of political Islam that together explain more than 50% of the total variance of the 24 model variables used

Cham: Springer Nature, 2023. 108p.

Being Young, Male and Muslim in Luton

By Ashraf Hoque

What is it like to be a young Muslim man in post-7/7 Britain, and what impact do wider political factors have on the multifaceted identities of young Muslim men? Drawn from the author’s ethnographic research of British-born Muslim men in the English town of Luton, Being Young, Male and Muslim in Luton explores the everyday lives of the young men and, in particular, how their identity as Muslims has shaped the way they interact with each other, the local community and the wider world. Through a study of religious values, the pressures of masculinity, the complexities of family and social life, and attitudes towards work and leisure, Ashraf Hoque argues that young Muslims in Luton are subverting what it means to be ‘British’ through consciously prioritising and re-articulating self-confessed ‘Muslim identities’ in novel and dynamic ways that suit their experiences as a post-colonial diaspora. Employing extensive participant observation and rich interview content, Hoque paints a detailed picture of young Muslims living in a town consistently associated in the popular media with terrorist activity and as a hotbed for radicalisation. He challenges widely held assumptions about cultural segregation, gender relations and personal liberty in Muslim communities, and gives voice to an emerging generation of Muslims who view Britain as their home and are very much invested in the long-term future of the country and their permanent place within it.

London: UCL Press, 2019. 128p.

‘Big Brother’ at Brothers Home: Exclusion and Exploitation of Social Outcasts in South Korea

By Jae-hyung Kim, Kwi-byung Kwak, Il-hwan Kim, Hae-nam Park, Jun-chol So, Sang-jic Lee, Jong-sook Choi and Ji-hyun Choo

This article exposes human rights violations committed at Brothers Home in Busan, South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, identifying their structural causes and discussing Korean society’s efforts to address them. From 1975 to 1987, Brothers Home was the largest group residential facility for the homeless, the ill, the disabled, and the poor—a program that was even commended by the Korean government. However, over the years, various human rights abuses led to the death of 657 residents. While these violations remained hidden from public view for almost 25 years, survivors and supporters waged a long battle to bring them to light. Recently, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigated and confirmed the human rights violations as state violence . In this essay, the authors assess the significance this case holds for Korean society.

Asia-Pacific Journal (Japan Focus) Volume 21 | Issue 6 | Number 1 | Article ID 5775 | Jun 03, 2023

Moralized language predicts hate speech on social media

By Kirill Solovev, Nicolas Pröllochs

Hate speech on social media threatens the mental health of its victims and poses severe safety risks to modern societies. Yet, the mechanisms underlying its proliferation, though critical, have remained largely unresolved. In this work, we hypothesize that moralized language predicts the proliferation of hate speech on social media. To test this hypothesis, we collected three datasets consisting of N = 691,234 social media posts and ∼35.5 million corresponding replies from Twitter that have been authored by societal leaders across three domains (politics, news media, and activism). Subsequently, we used textual analysis and machine learning to analyze whether moralized language carried in source tweets is linked to differences in the prevalence of hate speech in the corresponding replies. Across all three datasets, we consistently observed that higher frequencies of moral and moral-emotional words predict a higher likelihood of receiving hate speech. On average, each additional moral word was associated with between 10.76% and 16.48% higher odds of receiving hate speech. Likewise, each additional moral-emotional word increased the odds of receiving hate speech by between 9.35 and 20.63%. Furthermore, moralized language was a robust out-of-sample predictor of hate speech. These results shed new light on the antecedents of hate speech and may help to inform measures to curb its spread on social media.

PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 1, January 2023, pgac281

The (moral) language of hate

By Brendan Kennedy, Preni Golazizian, Jackson Trager, Mohammad Atari, Joe Hoover, Aida Mostafazadeh Davani, Morteza Dehghani

Humans use language toward hateful ends, inciting violence and genocide, intimidating and denigrating others based on their identity. Despite efforts to better address the language of hate in the public sphere, the psychological processes involved in hateful language remain unclear. In this work, we hypothesize that morality and hate are concomitant in language. In a series of studies, we find evidence in support of this hypothesis using language from a diverse array of contexts, including the use of hateful language in propaganda to inspire genocide (Study 1), hateful slurs as they occur in large text corpora across a multitude of languages (Study 2), and hate speech on social-media platforms (Study 3). In post hoc analyses focusing on particular moral concerns, we found that the type of moral content invoked through hate speech varied by context, with Purity language prominent in hateful propaganda and online hate speech and Loyalty language invoked in hateful slurs across languages. Our findings provide a new psychological lens for understanding hateful language and points to further research into the intersection of morality and hate, with practical implications for mitigating hateful rhetoric online.

PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 7, July 2023,

Hate in the Bay State: Extremism & Antisemitism in Massachusetts 2021-2022

By The Anti-Defamation League

Over the last two years, extremist activity in Massachusetts has mirrored developments on the national stage. Like the rest of the country, Massachusetts has seen white supremacists – including the Nationalist Social Club – increasingly make their presence known. The Bay State has also reported extensive propaganda distribution efforts, especially by Patriot Front, which resulted in Massachusetts recording the country’s second-highest number of white supremacist propaganda incidents in 2022.

Amidst increasing nationwide threats to the LGBTQ+ community, Massachusetts has also witnessed a spike in anti-LGBTQ+ activity, including waves of harassment against Boston Children’s Hospital, drag performances and LGBTQ+ events. And as the numbers of antisemitic incidents continue to rise across the country, Massachusetts was no exception. According to ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, it was the sixth most affected state in the country in 2022.

This report will explore the full range of extremist groups and movements operating in Massachusetts and highlight the key extremist and antisemitic trends and incidents in the state in 2021 and 2022.

New York: ADL, 2022. 18p.

Hate is No Game: Hate and Harassment in Online Games, 2022

By The Anti-Defamation League, Center for Technology & Society

In 2021, ADL found that nearly one in ten gamers between ages 13 and 17 had been exposed to white-supremacist ideology and themes in online multiplayer games. An estimated 2.3 million teens were exposed to white-supremacist ideology in multiplayer games like Roblox, World of Warcraft, Fortnite, Apex Legends, League of Legends, Madden NFL, Overwatch, and Call of Duty. Hate and extremism in online games have worsened since last year. ADL’s annual report on experiences in online multiplayer games shows that the spread of hate, harassment, and extremism in these digital spaces continues to grow unchecked. Our survey explores the social interactions, experiences, attitudes, and behaviors of online multiplayer gamers ages 10 and above nationwide.

New York: ADL, 2022. 38p.

Pick the Lowest Hanging Fruit: Hate Crime Law and the Acknowledgment of Racial Violence

By Jeannine Bell

The U.S. has had remedies aimed at racial violence since the Ku Klux Klan Act was passed in the 1870s. Hate crime law, which is more than thirty years old, is the most recent incarnation. The passage of hate crime law, first at the federal level and later by the states, has done very little to slow the rising tide of bigotry. After a brief discussion of state and federal hate crime law, this Article will critically examine the country’s approach to hate crime. The article will then discuss one of the most prevalent forms of hate crime—bias-motivated violence that targets individuals in their homes. The Article will conclude with a discussion of the approach taken by the Justice Department in the Ahmad Arbery case as a potentially positive solution for the handling of hate crime cases.

112 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 691 (2022).

Countering and Addressing Online Hate Speech: A Guide for policy makers and practitioners

By The United Nations with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project at the University of Essex

Today social media has become another vehicle for hate speech, with the ability to spread information at a speed never seen before, reaching potentially huge audiences within a few seconds. The manner in which many platforms operate feeds on hateful and discriminatory content, and provides echo chambers for such narratives. Online hate speech has led to real world harm. We have seen this from incidents of identity based violence where the perpetrators were instigated through online hate, to its widespread use to dehumanize and attack entire populations on the basis of identity. Unfortunately, many times the victims are those already most marginalized in society, including ethnic, religious, national or racial minorities, refugees and migrants, women and men, sexual orientation and gender identity minorities.

New York: United Nations, 2023. 20p.

Sexuality in the Swedish Police: From Gay Jokes to Pride Parades

ByJens Rennstam

Sexuality in the Swedish Police is based on the experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual police officers and the author's observations of police work. Written at the intersection of organizational, gender and police studies, the book analyses how processes of exclusion and inclusion of LGB sexuality coexist in the Swedish police, how these processes are related to the culture and characteristics of police work, and how police management attempts to create an inclusive organisation.

How and under what conditions does the exclusion and inclusion of LGB officers and LGB sexuality take place in the Swedish police? By delving into this question, the author seeks to answer, among other things, how it is that there are so few openly gay male police officers and how barriers to inclusion can be understood. The book contributes to a better understanding of the problems and activities associated with diversity issues, particularly with a focus on sexual orientation, but also more generally; many of the insights in the book can be used to understand the inclusion and exclusion of other groups in society. A key insight from the book is that inclusion and exclusion are collective processes characterized by struggle, a struggle that according to the author can be understood through the concept of “peripheral inclusion”.

Sexuality in the Swedish Police will be of great interest to scholars and students as well as practitioners with an interest in diversity issues and policing. The book is also relevant to those working in or interested in diversity, inclusion and equality in other similarly "masculinized" organizations, such as the armed forces and certain sports organisations.

London; New York: Routledge, 2023. 212p.

Squatters in the Capitalist City:To date, there has been no comprehensive analysis of the disperse research on the squatters’ movement in Europe.

By Miguel A. Martínez López

To date, there has been no comprehensive analysis of the disperse research on the squatters’ movement in Europe. In Squatters in the Capitalist City, Miguel A. Martínez López presents a critical review of the current research on squatting and of the historical development of the movements in European cities according to their major social, political and spatial dimensions. 

Comparing cities, contexts, and the achievements of the squatters’ movements, this book presents the view that squatting is not simply a set of isolated, illegal and marginal practices, but is a long-lasting urban and transnational movement with significant and broad implications. While intersecting with different housing struggles, squatters face various aspects of urban politics and enhance the content of the movements claiming for a ‘right to the city.’ Squatters in the Capitalist City seeks to understand both the socio-spatial and political conditions favourable to the emergence and development of squatting, and the nature of the interactions between squatters, authorities and property owners by discussing the trajectory, features and limitations of squatting as a potential radicalisation of urban democracy.

London; New York: Routledge, 2019. 294p.

The autonomous life? Paradoxes of hierarchy and authority in the squatters movement in Amsterdam

By Nazima Kadir

This book is an ethnographic study of the internal dynamics of a subcultural community that defines itself as a social movement. While the majority of scholarly studies on this movement focus on its official face, on its front stage, this book concerns itself with the ideological and practical paradoxes at work within the micro-social dynamics of the backstage, an area that has so far been neglected in social movement studies. The central question is how hierarchy and authority function in a social movement subculture that disavows such concepts. The squatters’ movement, which defines itself primarily as anti-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian, is profoundly structured by the unresolved and perpetual contradiction between both public disavowal and simultaneous maintenance of hierarchy and authority within the movement. This study analyzes 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 funhouse mirror of ideological expectations reflecting values from within the squatter community, that, in turn, often refract mainstream, middle class norms.

Manchester University Press, 2016. 232p.