Squat the squares, occupy the buildings

The M15 movement in Spain has responded to the financial crisis and the neoliberal policies with a sudden and profound social mobilisation along 7 months (May-December 2011). While it is based on previous movements, this is the first time that a precarious multitude takes the squares, the streets and the neighbourhoods for such a long lasting period, through an innovative autonomous organisation and with a transnational scope. This paper focuses on the convergence experienced by the squatters' movement and the M15 movement. We will describe first how and why squatters joined the M15 movement. Then we will provide evidence about the utilitarian role that already existed squatted social centres played in the M15 movement. Finally, after the camps were evicted, a explosion of new squats took place due to the initiatives of new activists of the M15 movement. Our explanation of this process of convergence rests mainly in the 'cumulative chains of activist exchanges' since the three mentioned aspects of the process reinforced each other. The structural equivalence of the occupied camps and the squatted social centres (in terms of assemblies, self-management and social disobedience), sparkled the mutual collaboration. Camps also turned into strategic ends of the M15 movement beyond its original function as a powerful repertoire of protest, in a similar mood as squatted social centres tend to be performed. Squatting gained legitimacy within the M15 movement due to the initial collaboration as well as to the increasing success of the campaign Stop Foreclosures. On the one hand, this mixture slightly reduced the radical and anti-systemic discourse of squatting. On the other, the anti-speculation discourse was incorporated into an anti-crisis one where squatting was justified by the extreme needs of people. This research is based on participant observation, 21 semi-structured interviews and the analysis of secondary sources.