Resisting to the Neoliberal Urban Fabric: Housing Rights Movements and the Re-Appropriation of the 'Right to the City'

This paper scrutinises the phenomenon of collective squatting for housing in Rome (Italy), which has reached remarkable proportions and developed new characteristics since the start of the 2008 crisis. Based upon two pieces of ethnographic research within the housing movement organisations Coordinamento Cittadino di Lotta per la Casa (Urban Coordination of Housing Struggles) and Blocchi Precari Metropolitani (Precarious Metropolitan Block), the authors aim to enlarge empirical knowledge of the case under study and provide renewed analytical instruments for understanding housing mobilisations. These organisations appear to be more than grassroots approaches to housing deprivation; they also represent alternative forms of social reproduction in post-welfare neoliberal cities. Indeed, squats configure themselves as sites for broader political elaboration. For this reason, we propose to analyse housing squatting using the notion of ‘urban commons’. The introduction of this notion to analyse housing movements helps in the theoretical elaboration of a re-appraised ‘right to the city’, in line with current urban challenges.