[diggers350] NO TRESPASSING! SQUATTING, RENT STRIKES & LAND STRUGGLES [book info]

[Tom Boland]

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Anders Corr maintains a SQUATTING Website at
<http://members.theglobe.com/hotsquat/>.
Readers may CONTACT him at:
<anderscorr at yahoo.com>.

FWD 3 September 1999

A ground-breaking international study of people who take over vacant
buildings and unused land - how they do it, and why it is a good idea.

NO TRESPASSING! SQUATTING, RENT STRIKES AND LAND STRUGGLES WORLDWIDE by
Anders Corr will be released to the public in Oct 1999. Pre-publication
review copies are now available to editors and reviewers, advertisements
are being placed, and the author is available for speaking engagements.
Contact South End Press (at this email address or by calling
617-547-4002) for these and other qestions about the book. What follows
is a decription, advance quotes, author's bio, and table of contents,
for your information.

Description
In No Trespassing! Anders Corr offers a substantive primer on how people
have taken over vacant buildings and unused land - and why it's a good
idea.

Personal research grounds Corr's writing, including a detailed study of
fired banana plantation workers in Honduras whose homes, churches, and
schools were bulldozed by Chiquita Brands International. In 1998, this
small community forced the Cincinnati-based multinational to allot
alternate land, rebuild homes and infrastructure, and provide for new
self-managed business collectives.

Corr also sketches a vivid, insider's portrait of the San Francisco
squatting organization Homes Not Jails, taking his readers along as
activists wield crow-bars and savvy social skills to open vacant
buildings and house dozens of homeless people every night.

No Trespassing! offers timely insight not only for activists and
academics interested in a global perspective on land and housing, but
for everyone searching for strategies of social change and sources of
popular revolt.

Advance Quotes

"An extraordinary and ingenious work, looking at the heroic efforts of
squatters all over the world who defy the laws of 'private property'
where such laws deny the right of human beings to have a place to live.
No Trespassing! is an invaluable resource for activists everywhere, at
the same time instructive and inspiring."
-Howard Zinn, author of Marx in Soho, and A People's History of the
United States

"No Trespassing" is fabulous. A masterful job of making seemingly
disparate struggles part of an integral whole."
--Medea Benjamin, author of Don't Be Afraid Gringo

"No Trespassing! is not only thoughtful and thoroughly researched, it's
also an exhilirating read. I learned that there are solutions to the
ever more dire housing shortage - at least for those who are bold and
adventurous enough to try them!"
--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Blood Rites

"Throughout history people have struggled for a more equitable
distribution of land and shelter. No Trespassing! convincingly shows
that these struggles are needed more than ever. An inspiring book.
Recommended to all."
--Ton von Naerssen, editor, Urban Social Movements in the Third World

"The struggle for land and housing is an important part of the struggle
for a liberated humankind. This dimension, often overlooked by the
economists, is seriously considered in this important vanguard study."
Samir Amin, author, Spectres of Capitalism

"No Trespassing! is an informed account of a worldwide challenge to
property. A squatter's manifesto is at hand."
--Charles Geisler, Professor of Rural Sociology, Cornell University

"Squatters of the world, arise! This inspiring book tells the
rarely-chronicled story of your struggles. From landless peasants in
Brazil to rent strikers in the Bronx, communities have resisted eviction
and repression. Anders Corr, an experienced participant as well as a
scholar of such movements, tells how they are organized, what makes them
just, and what lessons can be learned to make them more effective."
--Jeremy Brecher, author of Strike!

"No Trespassing convinces me that committed activism, smart radical
scholarship, and perceptive social thought are alive and well. A boon to
squatters everywhere and to the radical tradition of non-violent direct
action. A gold mine of movement histories, brimming with tactical and
strategic political insights."
--James C. Scott, director, Yale University Program in Agrarian Studies;
author, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance

Author's bio
Anders Corr's writing and photography on the subject of land and housing
movements have been published in the New York Times, the San Francisco
Examiner, the Progressive, Z Magazine, San Francisco Bay Guardian, San
Francisco Weekly, the Independent, Everybody's News (Cincinnati),
Anarchy Magazine, Fifth Estate, Slingshot, Kick It Over, Land and
Liberty, Squat Beautiful, Tenant Times, Street Spirit, and Spare Change.
A former squatter himself, he co-founded the Santa Cruz Union of the
Homeless. He has been deported from Kenya and Mexico for refusal to
carry a passport and has been charged or arrested 17 times and spent a
cumulative of 4 months in jail for trespassing or trespass-related
charges. He is currently studying political science at Yale. Anders
maintains a squatting website at <http://members.theglobe.com/hotsquat/>.
Readers may contact him at: <anderscorr at yahoo.com>.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments                       x

Introduction              1

Grounds for Radical Action ***  Of Punks and Peasants
 ***  Theory and Practice *** When I Squatted *** Definitions
of Movement Actions *** Hidden Histories of Housing *** Rural
Rebels *** Urban Squatting

Chapter 1
Homes Not Jails: The Secret Success of a Squatting Movement to House the
Homeless  17

Homelessness and the Growth of U.S. Squatting ***
The Power and Ethics of Media-Savvy Squatters *** First Squat:
Serendipity on Golden Gate Avenue *** Bolt Cutters and Bicycles:
The Art of Covert Squatting  ***  First Public Takeover: Sleazy
Slumlord at 250 Taylor ***  Public Takeovers: The Politics of
Homeless Action *** Battling the Big Boys and Winning: Homes Not
Jails and Religious Witness vs. the U.S. Army *** Quiet Victories:
The Secret Success of Homes Not Jails

Chapter 2
Battling the Banana Baron: Rural Hondurans Bloody Chiquita Brands
International      39

The Land Revolt  ***  Another Day, Another
Dollar: Chiquita Evicts Again *** Chiquita's Criminal Conduct ***
The Chilly History of Chiquita: "Machine-Gun" Maloney and
Worse *** IMF Increases Rural Poverty in Honduras *** Tacamiche
Resistance Pays Off

Chapter 3
Philosophy to Squat By: The New Challenge to Property         51

Need over Property, Compassion before Accumulation  ***
Demanding a Fair Share: Squatter Ethics of Equality *** Squatting
Expresses Personality: Suppress Squatting, and You Suppress Personhood
 ***  I Worked For It, I Get It *** Property Makes Peace? Ahistorical
Fences and Good Neighbors *** Water Under the Bridge: Adverse Possession
and the Drowning of the Past? *** Culture, Neighborhood, and Squatting
 *** Lazy Squatters: The Case of Dissolute Youth

Chapter 4
Tell It to the Judge             77

Direct Action and the Law *** Direct Action Grows from
Frustrated Legal Change *** Morality and Power *** Dual Use of
Law and Direct Action *** Problems with Litigation *** Refusal
to Litigate

Chapter 5
Violence and Cycles of Reform         97

Repression in the United States: Native Americans  ***
Other U.S. Repression: People's Park, Tompkins Square,
and Rent Strikes *** Repression in International Context ***
Mexican Squatters of the 1970s *** Revolutions that Evict Squatters:
Portugal and Nicaragua *** Fear and the Deactivation of Movements
 ***  Reinvigoration of Struggle *** Elasticity of Squatting ***
Movement Use of Violence *** Direct Action and the Birth of
Revolutionary Movements *** Effects of Revolution on Land and Housing
Movements  ***  South Africa's Rent Strike  ***
Cooptation  ***  Reform  ***  The Co-op City
Rent Strike, 1975-1976 *** The Continuum of Struggle

Chapter 6
Tactics and Mobilization          145

The Primacy of Power *** Mass Organization, Individual
Power, and Reoccupation *** Timing, Surprise, and Affinity ***
Mobilizing Support and the Ripple Effect *** Labor Unions ***
Intellectuals *** Religious Groups *** Pacifists and Anti-Nuclear
Activists *** Other Land and Housing Campaigns *** Children in
the Struggle *** Double-Edged Swords: Using Mainstream Media ***
Erosion of Subservience *** Encouraging Further Direct Action ***
Diversification of Issues

Conclusion
The Future of Land and Housing Movements     185

Notes                         197

Resources                        227

Index                         233

About the Author                       245

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