engleski

Towards a New Urban Community: Ethnography of 'BEK' Squat in Zagreb

The phenomenon of squatting occurs in European countries in the late 1960s, primarily as a result of economic and social turbulence caused by a whole series of social changes in the postwar period. Very soon, it is no more related exclusively to the solution of the housing issue and passes into the domain of political and ideological action based on counter-cultural values. Squatting as a social phenomenon has aroused the curiosity of many scholars, but the majority of researched squats are located in Western European cities while very few studies are interested in squatting in post-socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe. The intention of our research is to contribute to increasing the knowledge about squatting in the non-western part of Europe. BEK- squat and social center in Zagreb, Croatia - is a subject of our ethnographic research which was conducted during 2019. BEK was founded in early 2018 as a platform for various social, cultural, and artistic content with the purpose of generating an innovative socio- cultural climate in order to holistically develop the local community. We focused our study on analyzing forms of organization, activities and motivations of actors within squats. Special interest is given to the research of squatters' understanding of the concepts of culture, interculturality and attitudes towards "others". Furthermore, one of the focuses was related to the term “urban struggle”, in the context of the occupation of a certain urban locality and different types of activities in newly constructed spaces.

squatting ; social center ; youth ; subculture ; activism

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