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Beyond The Plaza: Barcelona’S Okupa Squatters At Work In The Wake Of La Crisis, Justin Helepololei

Justin AK Helepololei

As ongoing, financial crisis has kept millions in precarity - and over 40% of Spain's youth unemployed - mass mobilizations of the country's indignados have continued to fill the country's streets and plazas. Nearly one year after the original 15M demonstrations, city-wide occupations have triggered a profusion of more localized and issue-based assemblies. Beyond the plazas, squatter-activists of Barcelona's decades-old “okupa movement” have helped to facilitate the continuation of these dialogues by offering space within dozens of pre-existing squats and even opening new sites to host such interactions. Leveraging decades of experience and skill in re-appropriating spaces, squatters create room …