WEBVTT - Squatting with Andrew 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:07.480 M hey everyone, and welcome to take it happen here. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:13.119 I'm Andrew how due Channel Andrewism and today I want 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.960 to talk about the squatting movement. Actually, before I do that, 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.360 I'm joined today by my co hosts Your Cause Andrew 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.800 or Garrison Davis and James Stout, and I am your producer, Sophie, 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.200 and I am here Andrew. Please continue, Thank you, Sophie. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.760 I want to talk about the squatting movement. I'm particularly 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:41.400 how people love overcome the analities of privatizing land and 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.839 restricting people's access to it so they could cove a 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:53.320 life for themselves. Um in this troubling world. Now, I 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.960 think a lot of people are at least passingly familiar 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:02.040 with the squatting movements. The political squatting movements where be 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:07.000 an anarchist, autonomous store, socialist and nature that have taken 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:12.240 place in Italy, the US, and most famously Denmark where 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:17.520 they had you know, Freetown Christiania set up. But outside 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.760 of the global North and much of the rest of 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.800 the world, squatting is just a fact of life. It 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:31.280 doesn't typically though sometimes it does have radical political ambitions. 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.800 So today I'm not going to be spending time discussing 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.200 the squatting movement in Europe or North America, but instead 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:46.240 discussing the millions of people in the world lack of 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.800 access to land where they can find secure shelter and 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.680 have turned to what has been deemed informal occupation or 0:01:54.680 --> 0:02:02.120 squatting to find residents. Most specifically, I'll be discussing the Caribbean, 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.480 but first I need to get into some statistics. It's 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:09.880 always that kind of weird, right. In nifty only eighty 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:13.280 six cities around the world had populations of one million 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:17.560 people or more. In twenty sixteen, there were just over 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:23.200 six hundred cities that met this threshold. Over half of 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.640 the world's population now lives in urban areas, and nearly 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.160 a billion, if not a billion I asked to me 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.160 to be living in in fourmal settlements, mostly in the 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:38.400 urban and perry urban areas of less developed countries. I 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:39.959 don't know if any of you have read Planets of 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.720 the Slums by Mike Davis. I don't think I have, 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.919 but he he discusses this phenomenon, this explosion in urbanization, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.919 and the fact that unfortunately, you know, these cities aren't 0:02:53.919 --> 0:03:00.720 exactly urban Eden's They are deeply impoverished, filled with makeshift 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.760 and often unsafe, whether it be you know, poison us 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:12.520 or just poorly constructed or disease written dwell ends areas 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:18.080 such as their roots Quarantina, Mexico cities, Santa Cruz, Maya, Hualco, 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.400 Rio DeRos Favelas and Cairo is a city of the 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:27.040 dead ware, up to one million people living homes made 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:32.800 out of actual tools. Now Davis addresses the issues root cause, 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:38.120 that being post colonial neoliberal policies driven by free market 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.800 catholicst principles. It is yes, cities modernized in the wake 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.760 of the colonial era, a lot of the same zone 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.480 and boundaries enforced by imperial powers across racial and soce 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:53.160 economic lines were continued, so quality colonization did not really 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.400 take place, and did imperial rule didn't lead to a 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.720 magical increase in equality e galitianism. It's just post colonial 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:04.080 rulers took up the mantel where a colonial rulers left 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:11.760 so and of course this switch, this changing of hands 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:16.799 of power was kept up by the International Monetary Fund, 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.960 which stepped in on behalf of these elites and pushed 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.919 the poorest citizens basically into thickly concentrated slums by making 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:30.480 it easier for the ruling class to ignore these issues 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:37.480 and prioritize the affluent. The depth restructure and policies and 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.960 nine s also LEDs a lot of governments cutting down 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.200 on their public health and education investment expenditure so that 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.000 they could repay the loans that they had been forced 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.360 to take out. David spent a lot of time talking 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.400 about Asia and sometime talking about the increasing hardship in 0:04:55.440 --> 0:05:00.040 African cities. But the situation of squatting is off to 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.720 overlooked in the Caribbean, and so I'd like to draw 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:10.760 some attention to that. I think that anyone who has 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.279 lived in the Caribbean or as family in the Caribbean 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.839 would be somewhat familiar with the idea of family land, 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.719 which is this idea that you know, you have these 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:29.080 plots that the family essentially owns collectively, maybe somebody living there, 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.080 or it may just be landed as being passed along 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.599 for anyone who needs it. Um A lot of this 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:41.000 land was acquired by purchase, and a lot of it 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.960 was acquired by squatting. In turn, Dad in Jamaica and 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:51.680 Puerto Rico and Martinique and Barbadoes, squatting was how a 0:05:51.760 --> 0:06:03.880 lot of recently emancipated people gained some foothold to live 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:08.839 now they could not stay on the plantation system. Now, 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:15.440 the early squatting movement was largely wiped out by the 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:22.479 growing plantation system um, but eventually a new squatting movement 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:28.480 would arise due to escaped slaves and maroons and post 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:35.560 indentured individuals who would resettle um on those regions that 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:50.560 were previously wiped out by the plantation system. When I 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.760 spend most of the focus of this episode discussing what 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:58.719 took place in Jamaica, because I discovered this really excellent 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.720 research paper done by Pressergene Besson. But Jamaica is really 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.640 quite an interesting example because Jamaica is one of the 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:11.560 few Caribbean countries that had a successful sustained maroon movements 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:16.800 that lasted into the twenty one century. And so what happened, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:18.720 as is the case for a lot of these colonies, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:23.760 is you have this sitting model of land ownership called 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.920 crown land. Basically all the land of the crown deemed 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.880 themselves to own by virtue of colonized. In these places, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.040 crown land would often be you know, parceled out when 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:39.200 they wanted to attract new colonists to the different colonies, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:47.440 and so enslaved people in Jamaica created these squatters, settle 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:53.280 months on Crown land, basically recaptured that land and created 0:07:53.720 --> 0:08:00.160 villages and communities um in as Maroons in that context 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:06.320 of colonial violence, and of course these governments would demolish 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:13.600 the squads settlements and try to effect land capture. But 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:22.640 in Jamaica, the Maroons succeeded, particularly the Leeward Maroons, as 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.680 they were two different groups to Winwood Maroons in the 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.600 Leewood Moroons, and that's a whole different history. Today, a 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.160 Kampong village is the only survive in village for the 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:36.960 Jamaican Leewood Maroons, and there's also the oldest persistent Maroon 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:43.880 society in African America. After the slaved Africans and Creoles 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:50.679 escaped the plantations and squatted Crown Land, they waged successful 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.520 guerrilla warfare against the British colonists in the Foost Maroon 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.760 War and the leadership of Colonel Couju, and that land 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.760 would be the basis of two Leewood Rooon villages that 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.719 be in Coudo's Town in St. James and a kampongs 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.360 Town in St. Elizabeth, a Kampong being named after couldos 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:16.640 brother in arms, Captain Kampong. Eventually, Couldow's Town would be 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.280 renamed Trelawny Town after the treaty between the British Governor 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.080 would grant the Moroon's their freedom and fifteen hundred acres 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:30.360 of legal freehold land. A Kampong Town, on on the 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:35.560 other hand, did not really get any legal recognition until 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:40.640 a land grant was given to them to some two 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:46.840 thousand five dcres around set a couple of decades later 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:52.119 between six the Second Maroon War before between the Trelawny 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.520 Town Maroons and the British colonists. Because of course, the 0:09:55.559 --> 0:10:00.120 British did what they would do and whipped to the 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:05.720 Maroons for the theft of pigs in Montego Bay. Of course, 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.240 this is just the insight and incident, as these things 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:12.040 tend to be, for the deeper discontent regarding access to 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.319 the land, and after this Second Maroon War, the Trillony 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:21.600 Maroons ended up being deported to Nova Scotia. So, for 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:26.680 those a bit familiar with you know, Canadian history, the 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:32.760 Maroons are moved and resettled in Canada. As a result 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:38.000 of this and the Trintown Ruins land being confiscated, a 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:43.680 compunc Town became the soul surviving village, and today it 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:48.200 remains Common Treaty town. It is owned in common by 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.920 the some I believe it's like just over three thousand adults, 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.440 all of which by the way, claimed descent from Colon Couju. 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:02.080 And they sort of have a mixed settlements, producing for 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.640 household use, rare and livestock, utilizing the forest for medicines 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:15.280 and timber um, cultivating food forests and provision grounds. And 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.160 even after that was of the commitude migrate, they would 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.199 still have that connection to their commons and often returned 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.840 to either live or visit. Sloney Town. On the other hand, 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:34.079 after being recaptured by the Crown, it was eventually purchased 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:38.160 and transformed into family lands by the descendants of slaves, lanterns, 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.040 and ruins, and of course squatting played a part in 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:47.280 that development. Most recently in Latin America and the Caribbean, 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.280 there has been a move by governments switching from a 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.560 policy of trying to eradicate squatters and instead trying to 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:59.240 give them titled their lands, either granting them or usually 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.200 selling it to them in an effort to alleviate poverty, 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.079 so they could use their house as you know, collateral 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.360 for business loans and that kind of thing. And that's 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.480 basically what happened for a compoun town and for Trelawney Town, 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:18.520 where the captured land was surveyed and subdivided and put 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:20.559 for sale, and so the squat was were able to 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:24.160 purchase the land and the government was able to impose 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:36.319 taxation on the people who lived on that land. Now 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:41.720 I spoke of squatting in the Caribbean lats market not 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:48.000 ratherically political, but there are political slash religious movements that 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:53.520 have used squatting to gain a foothold. For example, the 0:12:53.559 --> 0:13:02.160 Revival Zion movements and offshoot of Rasterfarian movements. If I'm honestly, 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.959 couldn't find much information about them, but they're enough through 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:09.480 Jamaican religion and slash cult and so they managed to 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:14.360 capture a lot of the land near Lawney Town and 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:21.880 would often settled their homes right behind the city councils 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.840 no squatting signs. Eventually, you know, you have about thirty 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:32.840 househoods who have basically recaptured their land from Babylon. As 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:41.880 Rastafarians would describe the state um, their community, which they 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.880 called Zion, became a very vibrant squatter settlement of some 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.520 seventy house yards on about thirty acres of captured land. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:57.000 Eventually the land was surveyed and subdivided, of course, trying 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:02.920 to tax and control the people that were there. But 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:09.040 the situation led to a lot of people still you know, 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:11.280 not being able to afford the land, and still of 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.559 course having to squat on the land that they lived on. 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.400 But so long difficulty with squatted land is that it's 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:26.720 a very um tenuous, very fragile state of being. The 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.120 future is often unsitting and clay. It's it's more secure, 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.640 i would say, than being like homeless, but you're still 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.600 very much subject to state violence um. And even when 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:44.520 so called legal avenues opened up for you to get 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.920 the land, you know, through purchase, the fact that you 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.920 had to squat in the land in the first place 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.680 should be some indication that you probably can't afford to 0:14:52.760 --> 0:15:02.000 buy land. But squatting enables people at least in the 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:07.760 interim two potentially you know, develop some funds and stuff 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:14.000 until they are able to secure a future for their families. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.760 I think a lot of the liberal solutions to the 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.120 issue of squatting and poverty is to replace these sorts 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:32.080 of systems and putting instead like proper private property rights 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.160 and giving these people private property so that they could 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.920 achieve sustainable development goals and all the other buzz words 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:42.040 that you know these programs tend to use. I think 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:45.200 the future of these kinds of projects, however, should be 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:51.520 more along the lines of commons. I think that the 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.200 fact that they were able to secure that land without 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.400 the government's approval should be an indication that the government 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:03.440 should not need to approve for people to live on 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.920 the if you're called home. I've spoken a previous episode 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:14.040 about barb Uda and they are commons, and I really 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:19.520 don't see why. I do see why, But I really 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:25.040 believe the solutions these isssues lies in reclaiming the commons, 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:32.120 lies in rejecting these colonial and post colonial governments which 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:40.200 based themselves on exclusion and illegality, and bring about participatory 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:45.920 local management of the land by the people for the people. 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.960 And that's about it. Thanks. I do you think it 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:55.520 was really fascinating? Any any final thoughts? Scare James. My 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.520 final thought is that we have a live share of Wonderful. Yeah, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.680 just thing I was thinking about as we talked about 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.400 squatting this one. You will be excluded unless you can 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.560 pray the cost of entry or work out how to 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:10.200 not be excluded, I guess. But it's on the twenty 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.840 six of October. I nearly forgot what month it was, 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.480 and you can buy tickets on the internet. Yeah, so 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.840 we're doing this live stream October six pm. It is 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.520 a live virtual event and you can get tickets at 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:31.760 moment dot ceo slash I see h H will link 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.440 that in. The episode will be a fun, spooky themed 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:43.400 live show who It could Happen Here as a production 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.440 of cool Zone Media and more podcasts from cool Zone Media. 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.000 Visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.320 us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.480 or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.040 for it Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool Zone 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.840 Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.