Wow! eBook
Barcelonan Okupas: Squatter Power!
Author(s): Stephen Luis Vilaseca (Author)
- Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (UK)
- Publication Date: 24 Sept. 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 202 pages
- ISBN-10: 1611476283
- ISBN-13: 9781611476286
Book Description
Barcelonan Okupas: Squatter Power! is the first book to combine close-readings of the representations of Spanish squatters known as okupas with the study of everyday life, built environment, and city planning in Barcelona. Vilaseca broadens the scope of Spanish cultural studies by integrating into it notions of embodied cognition and affect that respond to the city before and against the fixed relations of capitalism. Social transformation, as demonstrated by the okupas, is possible when city and art interrelate, not through capital or the urbanization of consciousness but through bodily thought. The okupas reconfigure the way thoughts, words, images and bodily responses are linked by evoking and communicating the idea of free exchange and openness through art (poetry, music, performance art, the plastic arts, graffiti, urban art and cinema); and by acting out and rehearsing these ideas in the practice of squatting. The okupas challenge society to differentiate the images and representations instituted by state domination or capitalist exploitation from the subversive potential of imagination. The okupas unify theory and practice, word and body, in pursuit of a positive, social vision that might serve humanity and lead the way out of the current problems caused by capitalism.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Vilaseca’s study accomplishes its overall goal of introducing readers to the Barcelonan Okupas, their socio-political context, their history, and the many ways that they are seen and presented by themselves and others. The book’s index is clear and thorough, and the bibliography includes URLs to help readers locate the Internet sources Vilaseca incorporates and analyzes. This text will be a useful resource for undergraduates as well as graduate students and professors of Spanish, cultural, and media studies.
About the Author
Stephen Luis Vilaseca is assistant professor of Spanish at Northern Illinois University and associate editor of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies.
