These are the Politics of Protest Encampments
This year we’ve witnessed a pandemic, and a renewed surge of activism and protest. While protesters are steering the conversation about justice in the U.S., they’re occupying physical spaces too.
In California, families moved into vacant houses, demanding that housing be treated as a human right. In New York, protesters thronged outside buildings where tenants were facing eviction, using their bodies as barricades. And last week, organizers claimed victory in Philadelphia: After homeless activists occupied 15 vacant city-owned homes and two encampments for six months, they said an offer is on the table for access to 50 homes through a community land trust. The city says an agreement is underway.
Last week, I spoke with Vicky Osterweil, author of In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action, and a 2014 New Inquiry essay of the same name. Osterweil has documented and participated in many occupational protests herself, and we talked about what makes this type of protest unique and how it can be carried out in a sustainable, successful and safe way.
What does an occupational protest look like?
Osterweil defines an occupational protest as “a protest of open-ended duration whose central tactic is holding a physical space open as a 24-hour, live-in site of protest and action.” The physical existence of the protest is a strategy in itself, Osterweil told me, since its visible presence can garner support and people can rotate in and out, which creates momentum.
In her history of occupational protesting – Osterweil has documented and participated in several, including Barcelona, New York’s Occupy Wall Street, and Philadelphia’s ICE protest – demonstrations are supported by mutual aid, and supporters donate food, money, tents and other resources. “Once you have a presence for a little bit of time, people know it's there and tend to want to contribute,” she said.
A camp has its own politics
Osterweil suggested that camps (or encampments, as these physical sites are often referred to) should start with broad principles, like that no one gets evicted, that discrimination is intolerable or that cops aren’t allowed.
“Political inertia becomes very powerful within the camps and forms that are agreed early end up having a larger effect than they might otherwise, because things developed in this organic way,” Osterweil said, referring to how decisions are made within occupations. “But things like structures and governing modes do sometimes fall apart. There's a lot of internal struggle often around questions of security, questions like levels of organization, the number of meetings, the nature of discussion, those things all take on different characters and change over time.”
The camp protects itself
Osterweil says she prefers informal security at occupational protests – when people living in the camp protect one another instead of having a dedicated, formalized team to secure the camp. Camps are usually secure because of the nature of the camp itself, as people are living together in numbers and fighting to protect their home in solidarity, she said. Similarly, people within the space are dedicated to taking care of and cleaning the camp, even if methods for doing that vary.
“Part of what's beautiful about occupations is they imagine a different way of living together that involves everyone's protecting everyone and people setting up for and fighting for themselves to the extent that they can,” she said.
Police and the camps
Occupations attract unhoused people and activists of all agendas and their constituency constantly changes, creating an extremely fluid environment. Osterweil says that fluidity gives occupations power – it makes them unpredictable and creative and also somewhat opaque to people on the outside, including police.
Since camps rarely face threats outside of police and occasional fascist hecklers, Osterweil says, formalized security forces can become an issue. They tend to police inward and use their force to push people outside of a camp, she said. And bigger problems can occur. The Capitol Hill occupational protest in Seattle, for example, ended after white security forces shot two Black teenagers, killing one of them.
Osterweil also said she believes protesters should confront police who come to destroy the camp. Once it’s cleared out by police, a movement loses its energy, making it difficult to reestablish. “At this point where we are in terms of movements, I don't know of us having a force that would actually be capable of holding off a sustained attack from the police … but I think having as many people as possible for eviction defense and making it as expensive as possible for the police to take you out, I think is an important tactic to use.”
“You won't make any progress on your demands if you just hold the encampment”
Osterweil advised that organizers consider their readiness to dedicate their time and energy before starting an occupational protest. You “won't make any progress on your demands if you just hold the encampment,” she said. It should instead be a base from which other actions take place, both a resource and a symbol in the larger fight.
By way of example, Osterweil referenced the Capitol Hill occupational protest again, which took over the police precinct in the area, but didn’t try to use the space to advance other actions. In contrast, housing protesters in Philadelphia gained ground when they expanded their protest with a second homeless protest encampment.
“Even if the camp is the center of the protest, like in Philly here, where it’s tied to housing, we make more progress when we expand, when we move out of the camp [and] do protests elsewhere, make noise,” Osterweil said.
For more on occupational protests, watch this on America’s housing crisis and evictions.
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