Antifascist University Alliance – a new initiative in Turin

Today, we had our first meeting in Turin of our new antifascist university alliance.

This is a renewed form of activism that links our anti-fascist praxis to anti-militarism and the need to defend the terrain of our universities in order to fight inside and outside them. It comes out of the increased militarization and policing of our University spaces, as well as to fight the far-right acceleration of the political and societal spheres in Italy.

In our first public meeting, we talked about foibe (for a brief intro on the topic see here) with Eric Gobetti and Bruno Maida.

If you work in the university world in Turin, you can sign up and read our Manifesto here (in Italian): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSenJkDVdA3i7h8FUqCUo2S-oG_uoICo4FY-TO4rReTSA1phbA/viewform?usp=sf_link

PLAT + Beyond Inhabitation Lab together for a public event on radical housing in Bologna (3 Nov 2023)

“La casa: un incrocio di lotte” is a join initiative of PLAT (an autonomous Social Intervention Platform based in Bologna, Italy) and the Beyond Inhabitation Lab. With it, we want to discuss the political nature of the ‘house’ in its being a market good, with an exchange value, and in its being a fundamental component of human habitation, with its use value. We are particularly interested in discussing how housing is, inevitably, a relational question, that is, a question of struggles that have to do with issues that run through, but are not reduced to, sheltering. How can we think about housing justice when it is inextricably linked to issues of gender, racialising processes, ecological and economic extractions? What struggle is needed to imagine a new emancipatory way of inhabiting the world, putting the home at the centre? We propose here a reflection that interweaves the world of academia with that of social struggles, with a set of interventions that start from the question of housing on a global scale to focus on Italian struggles. The meeting will take place from 2pm to 6pm on 3rd November, 2023, at PLAT in Bologna. All the logistics detail can be found on Facebook. Program – In Italian Prima sessione (14:30-16) – Introduzione – PLAT – La questione della casa nel mondo urbano globale – Michele Lancione (Beyond Inhabitation Lab) – Questione abitativa e mobilitazioni sociali a Lisbona – Marco Allegra (ICS Lisbona – Sirigaita/Habita) – Mercati e vissuti: la questione casa in Italia – Sarah Gainsforth (giornalista) Seconda sessione (16:30-18) – Introduzione – PLAT – Dal conflitto urbano al cantiere sociale: percorsi di autorecupero, l’esperienza di Firenze – Dariuche – Dowlatchahi (architetto) – Occupazioni e lotta abitativa a Roma – Margherita Grazioli (Gran Sasso Science Institute) – Queering your home! Lavoro di cura e riproduzione sociale nelle s/famiglie queer – Lab. Smaschieramenti Bologna Conclusioni Apre la discussione: Maurizio Bergamaschi (UNIBO)

Università e Militarizzazione – My short book on the relationship between the Academy and the Military out now

My short book on the relationship between the Academy and the Military sector is out now in Italy. The book is written in Italian, and it is published by ERIS Edizioni, a leading independent publisher in the country (with which I have also published my ethnographic novel on homelessness, more than a decade ago).

The book is the result of two years of direct engagement and study around the link between Universities and the ‘defense’ industry in the West. Albeit this is not my primary research interest, I have decided to dwell into this topic out of my activism against a business relationship between my Department at the Polytechnic of Turin and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (you can find more about that saga here, here or in this recent interview). The aim of this work is to speak to students and concerned academics to widen our collective understanding of processes that are reducing our capacity to learn and study in a critical and radical way.

Although this first attempt is in Italian, in collaboration with one of my researchers, Ms. Patrícia Nunes-Gomes, we are already working on a much-expanded version in the English language.

Below, you can find a short summary of the book in Italian, and the links to the first public conversations around it. Finally, you can order it directly at ERIS or at any bookstore in Italy and beyond.

Università e Militarizzazione

ISBN: 9791280495372

In Europa e in occidente la sfera civile e quella militare sono sempre più interconnesse. Questo processo coinvolge anche le università, che sempre più offrono servizi al cosiddetto mondo della “difesa”. In questo saggio Michele Lancione offre una guida per affrontare una semplice domanda: qual è il problema del rapporto tra Università e Militarizzazione, e come possiamo investigarlo ed eventualmente combatterlo?

A partire da una profonda conoscenza del sistema statunitense ed europeo e grazie alle sue esperienze nel Regno Unito, in Australia e in Italia, l’autore ci illustra diversi casi emblematici come il programma Human Terrain System statunitense, i nuovi strumenti di finanziamento alla ricerca militare italiani, e la collaborazione tra Frontex e il Politecnico di Torino. Ma racconta anche di pratiche di resistenza con le quali si cerca di combattere l’avvicinarsi tra l’Accademia e il Militare.

Questo è un primo spunto per una controcultura del rapporto tra Università e Militarizzazione, attraverso la quale soprattutto il corpo studentesco possa lottare per sottrarre la ricerca, lo studio e gli spazi dell’Università da industrie fondate su violenza, dolore e morte.

Michele Lancione è professore ordinario di Geografia Politico-Economica al Politecnico di Torino. Si occupa di lotte abitative, homelessness e approcci liberatori al tema della casa. È co-fondatore del Radical Housing Journal e co-direttore del Beyond Inhabitation Lab, nonché attivo in campagne di ricerca e attivismo contro la violenza del regime di frontiera europeo. Con Eris ha pubblicato Il numero 1, un romanzo etnografico sulla condizione dei senza dimora a Torino.

Le prime presentazioni:

– Roma: Esc Atelier oggi, 13 ottobre, ore 18: https://www.facebook.com/events/1002753280947952
– Napoli: Libreria Tamu, martedì 17 ottobre, ore 18: https://www.facebook.com/events/1077095309953547
– Bologna: Libreria modo infoshop, venerdì 3 novembre, dettagli a seguire
– Torino: martedì 21 novembre, dettagli a seguire
– Messina: venerdì 1 dicembre, dettagli a seguire
– Palermo: sabato 2 dicembre, dettagli a seguire
– Firenze: CSA nEXt Emerson, sabato 16 dicembre, dettagli a seguire

 

 

Working with high schools students in Turin, against Frontex

I recently met (for the second year in a row) some high school kids here in Turin to talk about Frontex. It was their teacher, the talented Antonella Mantovani, who brought them to me for a class project related to migration and the issue of ‘fortress Europe’.

I share Antonella’s feedback on this experience, which gave me even more strength to fight Frontex and the militarisation of the university (my translation).

Dear Michele,

the students in the group that had had the wonderful experience of meeting with you about Frontex made their presentation last Friday, which ended with the class holding a demonstration against Frontex during the lecture break.

The students did a great job and I urged them to send you the ppt, to show you that your great willingness allowed us to do some counter-information. Tell me if you have received the work, if not I will pass it on to you.

In the personal reports the guys expressed great appreciation for you. I’ll turn some extracts over to you.

“This group work was one of the most interesting I have ever participated in and it allowed me to inform myself on sensitive and topical issues. Three months ago, in fact, I knew nothing about Frontex and its violations and I knew nothing about the agreement between the Polytechnic and the Agency, which is now being talked about more and more.
The work of ‘a world without borders’ also gave me the great opportunity to interview Professor Michele Lancione in person: meeting him was extremely interesting and educational and I believe it also added considerable value to our work. I was pleasantly surprised by his enormous helpfulness from the very beginning, when we contacted him by email, until our meeting: he even gave us a tour of the beautiful Faculty of Architecture, which I had never entered before.
… Lastly, I am really very pleased with the flag we had coloured: I am happy that our classmates liked the idea in the first place, and then also the people from Galfer who came to help us. I believe that our objective, that of letting as many people as possible know what Frontex was and did, was achieved, and I had proof of this when some curious kids who were passing by on the second floor asked me to explain our work to them in detail. “

“I think that of all those I have done this group work was the most interesting for two main reasons. The first was definitely for the interview with the expert in the field, Prof. Michele Lancione, because it was an experience I had never had before. All the various steps of the meeting, from the contact, to the formulation of the questions, and ending with the actual interview, were a completely new situation. The second reason is because of the topics covered, as especially the part on current affairs allowed me to discover many aspects of today’s world that I was not yet aware of. The glaring example is the European agency Frontex, which I would still be completely unaware of if it were not for this group work.
I was also very impressed by the attitudes and mannerisms of the professor, who showed himself to be an affable and humble person, but at the same time particularly knowledgeable and very determined to continue on the path taken in the fight against Frontex… “

I should add that when I went down to the floor where the small demonstration was taking place (the class was colouring a STOP FRONTEX sign prepared by the working group and explaining to those who asked questions what Frontex is) I found a very pro-European colleague who was arguing with the students, claiming that Frontex has been ‘diverted’ but originally has good purposes. I joined in the discussion and then sent her some material… the colleague today thanked me for the material, which she read, and expressed all her scandal about Frontex, about which she had wrong information.
I mean, the guys have really made some changes.

Thank you very much!

A greeting full of esteem and admiration

The esteem and admiration are all mine, dear Prof, for how you treat your students, and how they treat the time they have at school.

And by the way, the demonstration against Frontex during recess is something that makes me very proud. It is one of my best contributions to the impact of the university and research on civil society.

RECAP on previous episodes: https://www.michelelancione.eu/blog/2022/11/10/the-university-of-turin-against-frontex-and-against-the-polytechnic-the-fight-continues/

Keynote at the RGS-IBG Urban Geography conference with Veda Popovici (18 Nov)

This Friday, with my beloved sister, comrade and friend Veda Popovici, we will give one of the keynotes at the 2021 RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group Annual Conference ‘Cities of Hope’.
I am thrilled to share the floor with the amazing Gautam Bhan, Loretta Lees, Verónica Gago and their partners.
With Veda we are going to talk on “The false symmetry of research-activism. Towards accomplicenship and undercommon praxis”.
Friday 19th, from 10am UTC.

The false symmetry of research-activism. Towards accomplicenship and undercommon praxis, Michele Lancione in conversation with Veda Popovici.

Academia and activism have long been exploring their intersections, overlaps and tensions. Going beyond a reductive “make academia more activist” slogan, we propose to start by exploring the false symmetry of academia vs activism from epistemological, material and geopolitical perspectives. With these in mind, we raise the questions: what is the starting point of a shared space between organising and the academy? What kind of epistemological change is needed in academia to work with organising? How can we work with the academia’s privileges for political struggle? We propose the concepts of accomplicenship and undercommon praxis to anchor a politics of duplicity (as opposed to one of authenticity) committed to radical redistribution and movement sustainability.

Keynote in Berlin on dispossession and minor activism

After a long time of no-travelling, and a very tough couple of years, I now have the privilege to travel to Berlin (by train!) to take part in a very interesting event put together by my good friend Piotr Goldstein titled Migrant and Minority Activism: Between protest movements and everyday engagement.

I am excited to deliver the keynote at the end of the first day, where I will try to link together years of research in Bucharest, Romania, around racialised dispossession, radical housing and activism. The title of my talk will be, Inhabiting dispossession in the post-socialist city: storylines, embodied struggles, and emplacement

The event is organised by ZOiS Berlinand the EASA Anthropology of Social Movements Network. More info on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/834122970514959/?active_tab=discussion

Horizontal solidarities: Screening and debate at the Casalboccone squat (Rome)

Yesterday in Rome at the Casal Boccone Occupato resiste e insiste squat we had a powerful exchange Romania-Italy on racism, evictions and housing justice.

We screened A Inceput Ploaia and then had a debate with the comrades of Blocchi Precari Metropolitani, the Comitato Case Popolari Tufello, occupanti di Colle Salario and Metropoliz Lab.

The Frontul Comun pentru Dreptul la Locuire was represented by myself and Nicoleta (from the Vulturilor 50 community), who chatted with us via messenger, answering questions from the comrades of Rome and invited all to continue to resist and fight for the right to housing and the city. Mady Gavrilescu was there and we expressed our solidarity for her fight #DajeMada

It was a powerful exchange, which I hope it is going to be just the start of a series of collaborations and common fights. These spaces of encounter are possible only via mixing academic and activist work in ways that are not dictated by the scholars involved, but are aligned with the grassroot politics at play in the context of action.

Thanks Mady Gavrilescu for the hospitality and Margherita Grazioli for organizing!

Italian community screenings of A inceput ploaia/It started raining

Several activist groups and communities concerned with the right to housing in Italy have organised screening of my documentary A inceput ploaia/It started raining in the peninsula. One of the aim of this film is precisely that of being used as a ‘excuse’ to allow for genuine discussion around eviction, displacement and the fight for the right to housing to take place in various locales across Europe. After similar screenings in Romania, Hungary, Croatia, the UK, Austria and more, I am particularly happy that this is happening, now also in my native country. From the 15 to the 19 of January 2018, screenings will take place in Rome (two times), Naples, Florence, and more will be organised in Milan and Turin.

The screenings in Rome and Naples are particularly relevant for the kind of political project that the film aim to sustain, which is part of my work with FCDL (The Common Front for the Right to Housing of Bucharest) Below you can find details of those. At www.ainceputploaia.com you can, moreover, watch the documentary in its entirety, with English, Italian and Hungarian subtitles (for subtitles other than English, please go instead to the Vimeo page of the film, here).

 

16th January, Rome – From 6pm at the Squat Metropoliz

Starting from 6pm, we will meet at the squat Metropoliz (which host also the self-managed MAAM). After an aperitivo we will screen the film for the inhabitants of the squat, and in particular for the Roma people living in there (who moved there after having being evicted from a Roma camp some years ago). The idea is to stimulate a debate around the living conditions of Roma people in Rome but also to allow for the Roma of Metropoliz to express their sentiments about the occupation and other political strategies of resistance.

Thanks to my friend and excellent photographer Valerio Muscella for organising the event.

 

17th January, Rome – From 9pm at the Cultural Centre Apollo Undici (via Bixio, 80/A) (Info on Facebook)

Always in Rome, this time at the ‘Centro aggregativo’ and cultural centre Apollo Undici, for a screening that will be followed by a debate featuring the most active, grassroots, voices fighting for housing in the Italian capital. Thanks to the organising efforts of Sandra Annunziata, of EtiCity, a number of incredibly interesting people will take part to the discussion following the film. These includes: the evicted inhabitants of via Curtatone, activists for the ‘Coordinamento di Lotta per la Casa, activists of Action and of Spin Time, representatives from the Sportello di Lotta per la Casa of Magliana, of the anti-eviction network, and of the ‘Comitato Abitanti Milano Sansiro e Asia Milano’.

Thanks to Sandra Annunziata for the organisation, to Giacomo Ravesi for allowing this to happen in the spaces of the Apollo, and to my friend Claudia Meschiari for her original idea and continous support.

 

18th January, Florence – from 6pm at Complesso le Murate (via dell’Agnolo)

This will be a screening and a debate organised for PhD students, focused on participatory visual methods. Giovanni Attili (who worked extensively on visual and participatory methods with Leonie Sandercock) will act as discussant.

Thanks to Francesco Chiodelli and the GSSI for the invitation and sponsorship.

 

19th January, Naples – From 1pm in Scampia and then screening and debate from 6pm at the Ex Asilo Filangieri (Info on Facebook)

This time in Naples, one of my favourite city par excellence, for a full day of talks, debates, screening and food. The screening has been organised at a time of political tension in the city in relation to the housing need of its Roma people. In particular, the aim of this screening is to boost the debate around the conditions of two communities or Roma living in the areas of Scampia and Gianturco. The first, in particular, have faced evictions and relocations, and are now living in very precarious conditions (like many other Roma in the city). To the full day of activities – including a walk in Scampia, meetings with the community and a large debate in the evening – have been invited key figures of this struggle, from local activist to representatives of the affected communities. Below the detailed flier of the event.

Huge thanks to Emiliano Esposito (GSSI) for the idea and effort, to Emma Ferulano for the excellent organisation, to Fabio Amato and to all the other friends from Naples for the energy, time and effort put into this event.

 

Against the financialisation of housing: protests and workshops in Bucharest (5-6 October)

As part of a European campaign promoted by the European Action Coalition aimed at raising awareness around the financialisation of housing, the Frontul Comun Pentru Drept la Locuire (of which I am part) has organised two days of activities on the 5th and 6th of October in Bucharest, Romania. These includes the launch of a national coalition for the right to housing and the city (on the 5th) as well as a public protest (on the 6th) and a three-hours workshop that I will run (always on the 6th).

The workshop is entitled ‘Visual Ethnography for Radical Action‘. In it, I will critically illustrate the making of ‘A inceput ploaia‘, a 72 minutes documentary around the fight for housing in Bucharest, in order to provide an introduction to the use of visual ethnography as a tool for radical action. In the first part of the workshop, issues of positionality, methodology and co-production of knowledge will be illustrated and discussed. In the second part, I will offer an overview of the main challenges associated with visual anthropology, both theoretically and practically. Groups will be organised and participants will be asked to perform a series of exercises around the making of visual analysis and the production of alternative visual representation of marginalised groups. Lastly, the third part of the workshop will consist in group works revolving around the opportunities of visual methods as a tool for radical action in Bucharest and elsewhere in Romania.

To take part in it, please send an email at fcdloc@gmail.com. Clicking on the image below you can download a flyer summarising the content of this workshop. All welcome!

 

How we made ‘A Inceput Ploaia’

 

A inceput ploaia – Trailer (ENG) from A Community Productions on Vimeo.

In what follows I want to offer my perspective on how I came about making a 72 minutes film on forced evictions in Bucharest, Romania, which is called ‘A început ploaia’ (‘It started raining’). The film is about evictions and displacement in the Romanian capital and, in particular, about the story of a community of Roma people that fought against their displacement with uncanny and inspiring endurance. I have written about the interrelation of housing, race and capital in a short piece in Open Democracy and, more recently, I have reasoned around the possibility of sustaining grass-roots forms of resistance like the one represented in the film in a paper published in the pages of Society and Space (Revitalising the uncanny: Challenging inertia in the struggle against forced evictions).

This text is a more personal and auto-ethnographical narrative of how I encountered Bucharest, its people, struggles and forms of resistance. This text is an attempt at showing the fragility of urban ethnography; at rendering visible the possibilities of active engagement; and at giving justice to the wonderful people that made the film and many other things possible, starting of course with the community of Vulturilor 50, from which I learned – and I am still learning – a very good deal.

Background

Since my first visit to the country – in 2003, for my Erasmus – I have always had a special attraction to Romania and to Bucharest in particular. The city is simply alive in a sense that many other cities are not – full of its contradictions, grey blocks, broken sidewalks but also beautiful mingling in open and closed markets, vast public parks, improbable decadent restaurant serving you amazing mamaliga, salata de vinete, caşcaval pane si murături & more. This is possibly why, when I was writing a post-doc application while living in Sydney (Australia), I decided to make it about Bucharest and its ‘margins’. Although Sydney and UTS were a rewarding break from my previous work around homelessness in Turin, Italy (see for instance this, this and that), at the time I also felt the need to come back to Europe and to embark, once again, in a long-term ethnographic project. Luckily enough the people at the Urban Studies Foundation (USF) believed in that project, financed it, and allowed for my return to the UK (where I ended up working in Cambridge with my PhD supervisor, mentor and source of constant inspiration, Ash Amin). This was the beginning of 2014. Six months later I was in Bucharest, ready to start my fieldwork around a ‘problematic’ neighbourhood in the city, Ferentari. That fieldwork never took place, at least not in the way I was expecting it to.

Accordingly to my Post-Doc project – which I probably wrote in one of those moments of over-enthusiasm about life, possibility and strength – I was aiming at doing three case studies, in three different cities: Rome, London and Bucharest. The case studies had to be of extreme marginalisation in specific areas of those cities, with the aim to construct alternative forms of understanding and knowledge about (and with) those spaces and people. In the end, I became entangled with Bucharest so much that I never moved from there, continuously living in the city for a year, and constantly coming back thereafter. During this time I changed research project a dozen times, opening up and closing down possibilities and ideas, while receiving an incredible support from Ash and Chris Philo, head of the USF, without whom this work wouldn’t have been possible.

During the year in Bucharest my main ethnographic work was focused on street level drug use and services for users across the city, with particular reference to a couple of streets in Ferentari and the underground canals of Gara de Nord (on the latter, look at the wonderful work of my friend Massimo Branca, now published in a book with an intro by myself). Eventually, I will publish about that research and I will try to give it the justice it deserves. The reason why I wasn’t able to do so until now (mid-2017) it’s simply that, in September 2014, only after a month living in Bucharest, I received a phone call by another good friend – who at the time was just a name in my list of people to contact: Marian Ursan, head of a local NGO called Carusel. The conversation was more or less as follows.

Me: Hi Marian, it’s Michele, the researcher….

Marian: Hi Michele. Yes. I know. We have to meet. Where are you now?

Me: At Unirii, near the main library… why?

Marian: Bine. Come in Vulturilor. I am going there. An eviction took place and I am going there, people are all over the place.

Me: But are you sure, what if…

Marian: I’ll see you there in half an hour, pa!

At the time I didn’t even know where Vulturilor was and I had no idea of what Marian was talking about. I turned my GPS on, looked at the map and, seeing that the place wasn’t too far from where I was… I decided to give it a go.

Eviction

People in the aftermath of the eviction, September 2014

That day of September 2014 I stumbled across the aftermath of a massive eviction in which 20 families (around 100 individuals) had been thrown out onto the street after having lived for many years — for some up to 20 — in the house they were now only able to see from the pavement. The first thing I did was to help people moving stuff, to hold this-and-pass-that, to play for a few second with a kid before turning and starting to do something else. In those first moments I was lost: I did not know anyone there and no-one knew me. I had no purpose and no understanding of what was going on. Almost as an instinct, without knowing what else I could have possibly done, I picked up my camera and I started taking stills of those moments. I wasn’t the only one. Journalists and photographers were a constant presence during those first days, alongside a number of activists, NGOs’ staff and volunteers, as well as the occasional politicians. Most of them were gone after a few days. The people of Vulturilor however kept, for the most part, on staying on the street. They did not want to move, unless the Primarie (municipality) was able to offer them a viable alternative to their eviction and consequential homelessness.

Without entering into details, which are instead explored in the film, it is worth stating that those people were (and still are!) entitled to social housing by Romanian legislation. The provision of social housing is, however, almost completely absent in Romania, counting for less than 1.5% of the total housing stock. Moreover, as it has been well documented, the allocation of this stock follows corrupted paths, which for the most do not include Roma ethnics like the people of Vulturilor (for an overview of this, read Irina Zamfirescu’s excellent paper or look for the works of Liviu Chelcea. A provocative but truthful account of housing racisms in Romania, which I wrote for Open Democracy, can be also found here.

The camp of Vulturilor in September 2014

The evicted people of Vulturilor – about 70 in the first few months after the eviction – decided to dwell on the street to protest against forced displacement and to fight for their housing right. This came as a surprise to many, including long-term activists and experienced social workers, as the general understanding was that, in Romania, Roma people simply do not protest with such virulence and visibility. Although, as confirmed by Amnesty International, they are ‘disproportionately affected’ when it comes to forced evictions, Roma ethnics tend to find alternative accommodations within their extended families and friends. They are, after all, used to be displaced and to being pushed at the margins in Romania (but also everywhere else in Europe). The case of Vulturilor was, however, different: the evicted, perhaps strong of their number, decided to stay, protest, and make their voice heard. The power of such a choice affected a number of activists – such as the one belonging to the Frontul Comun Pentru Drept la Locuire (FCDL – Common Front for Housing Rights) – and NGOs – such as Carusel: a community of solidarity was immediately created. Tents were built, food cooked and distributed, clothes collected and donated, and moral support given around the camp’s fire every night.

During those days (from September to mid-October 2014) I still had no idea of why I was going to Vulturilor. I simply kept going there, every late afternoon, accompanying Marian and the other amazing people from Carusel (like Ana, Cristina, Andreea, Iolanda, Ion, Roxana and my brother Bogdan), helping them with the distribution of food or second hand clothes. I felt, in a sense, that I was there as an activists… but of a strange kind. I was looking up to some of the powerful local activists (like Veda, Ioana, Victor or Irina) carrying on the burden of helping people with concrete actions – such as completing the dossier for social housing – and I was finding myself almost out-of-place. I was attracted to the people of Vulturilor, their story and most of all, to their uncanny resistance. But why was I there? Why keep on going there? In the end, no one really needed me or my camera, for what mattered.

 

Entanglement

The first snow, which destroyed the tents’ camp (mid-October 2014)

It was a Saturday, the 25th October 2014. I remember that I woke up in my flat in the Southern part of Bucharest thinking, shit! Rich and fluffy snowflakes were falling outside my window, for the joy of kids and the discomfort of many others including, in particular of course, the ones living in the provisional tents on the sidewalks of Vulturilor. I dressed, took my bag and rushed into a taxi to get there as soon as possible. I still remember that in the journey to Vulturilor I asked myself: and now, what would I do? Why am I going? What can I offer? When I arrived, the people were standing around the fire, trying to warm themselves up, while the tents were for the most part collapsed, leaving everything inside cold, wet and unusable.

Despite all that mess, the community was calm, and so were the activists. They had, in a sense, nothing left to worry about beside their own body. Without having much else to offer, I provided accommodation at my flat to whom needed it until the weather turned better (the owner of the flat, a Roma himself, eventually forced me out of the property because of this action, arguing that I wasn’t supposed to host ‘such people’). It was decided that I would take care of a family with a substantial number of minors – four. Two taxis brought us back home, things were arranged, and while the parents rested and the younger kids played, myself and their older sister cooked an Italian pasta that – to say the truth – it wasn’t very well received: matter of taste!

From that moment on, my relationship with the community became tighter and more sophisticated. In a sense, I guess, they were now able to locate me as someone caring about them, not only because of my daily bodily presence around the camp, but also because of small, concrete acts of care. Beside hosting some of them when needed, this ‘caring about’ was made of simple gestures, including chatting, offering a word of support, printing and distributing pictures, or simply hanging around and make everyone laugh with my broken Romanian. It was through those small acts and gestures, those bodily transpositions and assemblages, that I became increasingly entangled with the everyday life of people in Vulturilor. Even if I was going there mostly in the evenings only – since during the day I was still researching about drugs in other areas of the city – the assemblage of that street, those people, the fire, shacks, documents, wood planks, cigarettes, coffees and my body… gradually became a quintessential part of my life in Bucharest.

Evicted people of Vulturilor 50 around the fire. On the back one of the shacks built by them is visible (November 2014)

That assemblage was however still lacking a clear political scope. There was, of course, a micropolitics of care going on… But just that, I believe, wouldn’t have been enough for me to carry on my involvement with the community. Fortunately, one day of November 2014 something powerful happened. Nicoleta, a young working mother among the most vocal against the eviction, approached me and said she wanted to talk. I can’t honestly remember why… but we ended up talking in the back of her father’s taxi, while her brother was driving it to bring something to their cousin, somewhere else in the city (serendipitous Bucharest!). More or less, this is what she told me.

Nicoleta: You took many pictures, from the beginning, right?

Me: Yes, I have a lot!

Nicoleta: And you have also video as well?

Me: Some, but I can make more.

Nicoleta: Here things are not moving. All it’s the same. And we need people to know. We need the media to know. We need to create some noise, or nothing will change!

Me: I agree. What do you have in mind Nico?

Nicoleta: I don’t know. Why don’t you put this pictures online? Why don’t you send them to the media, the TV?

Me: Because they won’t publish them. They are not interested in this stuff.

Nicoleta: So let’s do a Facebook page! Let’s do a page where we write about life here and you put your pictures, and we’ll tell everyone how we are living!

Me: This is a great idea! Let’s do a blog.

Nicoleta: Un jurnal?

Me: Da, un jurnal!

Nicoleta writing a blog post on my laptop, January 2015

The first blog post was published just a few days later at www.jurnaldinvulturilor50.org, where it can still be read. Thanks to that idea, Nicoleta gave to my presence and my activism a scope that I wasn’t able to find on my own. In a sense, she made me politically relevant. From that moment on we worked together, up to the very end of 2015, producing more than a year and an half of posts featuring Nicoleta’s writing, which was representative of the community’s experiences of resistance and frustration toward the authorities. It is because of the blog that, in the end, I became more systematic in my recollection of visual material. Parts of what later entered into the film was indeed originally purposely created for that platform, like this clip showing the indifference of the Major of Vulturilor’s sector, Mr Robert Negoiță, to the situation.

 

Leaving

I kept on going to Vulturilor almost daily, up to the time in which I had to leave Romania and move back to the UK (June 2015). During those months I made numerous recordings, which for the most part did not make their cut into the documentary (in total, about 700 short clips). Before leaving I organised all the video that were published on the blog on a timeline, burned that into a number of DVDs, and distributed those to the community members, which at the time counted about 40-50 individuals, still living on the same sidewalk where I found them almost a year before.

Towards the end I stopped taking videos and I mostly shot playful pictures — like this one, representing one of the community elder playfully posing in front of the camera.

Leaving wasn’t easy. Although I had nice memories and lots of new friends, in June 2015 I left Bucharest exhausted – by its streets, buildings, cigarettes, food. I couldn’t bear Ferentari anymore, nor the harm reduction centre where I had spent ten consecutive months; I couldn’t afford to think, even remotely, at the underground canals of Gara de Nord; and I wasn’t motivated at all to keep on going to Vulturilor. Toward the end my visits became shorter, less meaningful, almost out of a sense of duty more than care. Although my friends made me feel good, throwing good parties and telling me that they were going to miss me, I knew that I hadn’t achieved enough during those months. What I was leaving behind? What kind of impact did I have in the live of the people I encountered?

My Carusel’s friend gifted me with a ‘certificate of appreciation’ for what I did with them. When I left, I felt as if I caused only troubles to them and not much else! (from the left, Ana, Bogdan, Marian, myself, Roxana and Andreea).

During the summer, back in my shared flat in London, I reviewed some of the videos but I soon realised that I did not have the strength to approach them systematically. As it always happens to me after a long fieldwork, I was tired, demotivated and fundamentally depressed about what I had been doing in Romania for all that time. During that summer only my partner’s advice kept me from deleting everything and trowing all that ‘garbage’ – this is how I was referring to my videos and pictures at the time – away. It is mainly thanks to Eleonora – and her cinematic experience – if later on, during the Autumn, I started to reconsider that video material as something interesting and potentially meaningful.

While trying to organise them into a coherent database (something that, by the way, never happened!) the idea of the documentary came about. It seemed to me that those videos, if properly arranged, could have spoken back to Nicoleta’s original request: to let others hear their story; to give to the community’s fight for housing an even stronger voice. In other words, those videos could become a way to translate the experience of all those months in Vulturilor into something meaningful and relevant not only for me, but also for the people I encountered and spent time with. This is a peculiar kind of translation which an academic paper cannot achieve. As my experience of writing an ethnographic novel for my homeless friends in Turin back in 2011 taught me, creative methods can allow for empowering experiences and impact (I wrote about that experience in here). That is why, in the end, I convinced myself that a documentary was needed.

In November 2015 I went back to Bucharest and I conducted, in four days, a number of interviews with a number of key experts on the country’s housing history and related struggles (thanks in particular to Liviu, Mircea, Petre and Mihaela for their time!). These interviews allowed me to complete the material I already had and to move a step closer to the production of the film.

 

Co-producing

Working on the first rough cut of ‘A inceput ploaia’. Things were rendered more problematic by my insistence of working on a Linux PC, which in the end we had to leave for the production of the final cut.

I started editing the film in the first days of May 2016, roughly six months later than I was expecting to do. This was mainly related to the fact that in that time I had to pass through the laborious process of securing a permanent academic job – something of which I will eventually say something elsewhere! Without having any previous experience of editing – but also without having the proper hardware – I ended up largely under-estimating the task. The first cut of the film took almost three very hard full weeks of work, including weekends and most of the evenings.

Exporting the documentary the night before I had to leave for Bucharest (where people were waiting to see the first cut).That night I had to ventilate the PC manually, without sleeping, to make it export the rough cut in time to catch my flight.

At the end of May 2016 the first cut was ready but I didn’t do anything with it. Only in mid-June I decided to export everything, to go back to Bucharest and to organise a workshop with as many community members as possible in order to receive insights and feedbacks from them. Irina – a scholar-activist working at Active Watch – and Veda – a key activist from the FCDL – helped in the organisation of the workshop, which took place in Macaz, a social centre in Bucharest in mid June 2016.

Screening the first rough cut of the documentary in Bucharest to a number of community members and activists.

The workshop was a powerful experience. There was a good number of community members (about three of the remaining five families still living on the street at the time) as well as a number of activists and scholars. I was terribly stressed, not knowing if the extreme low quality of my cut and of the video would have been good enough for the audience to enjoy. Most of all, I wasn’t entirely sure about the film as a whole: did I produce something representative of the community’s struggle? Did I get the nuanced Romanian housing history right? Did I allow for complex issues to breathe or did I over-impose my own Western perspective on them?

The discussion that followed radically re-shaped the structure and, to a certain extent, the content of the film. If ‘A început ploaia’ is what it is today – a feature documentary of 72 minutes, with a coherent beginning and an hopefully meaningful end – it is also because of the feedback that I received that day in Bucharest. People from the community asked me to cut things, to move scenes and to allow for their experience to be more represented in the film; activists challenged me on the framing I gave to the documentary, providing a strong post-colonial critique of some of my choices (for which I deeply thank Veda); while scholars allowed me to better understand some aspects that I had over-simplified. Everyone agreed, moreover, that I had to present myself in the documentary – something that I did not do in the first cut, which however became an important feature of the final version (for this comment, I thank Charlotte, Alina, Robert and Irina Z. in particular).

In the end, I left Bucharest energized but also scared: now I had to make the changes and I had to finish the project. I created an expectation that I had to meet.

 

Post-producing

Eleonora working in our living room, after her screen broke down.

The post-production of a film is a huge endeavour, especially if one has no budget and all work has to be done either in-house or through friends. The post-production of ‘A început ploaia’, which involved editing, colour grading, sound mixing and creating the animations featured in the documentary, started in mid-November 2016 and it was over by the beginning of February 2017. A lot of work was put into its making, in particular by a bunch of amazing individuals: my partner Eleonora (which edited the whole thing, animated the content and collaborated at the colour grading), my friend Vong (who did an amazing work in creating the graphics, the website and the poster of the film), and my two old pals Francesco (who cared about music licensing) and Alessandro (who mixed the audio). All of these people virtually worked for free, just believing in the project. A lot of help was also given by three Romanian friends: Alina (who translated everything in English), Irina Z. (who provided constant support and was able to record Nicoleta’s last contribution to the film) and Irina G. (who was of incredible help for the music). Eleonora, in particular, deserves further appraisal, for being able to cope with an academic-husband who is also, at least momentarily, a director: the worse combination ever. The film taught us a lot and I am grateful for having had her on-board.

‘A început ploaia’ is the product of all of these people as much as it is mine. I take responsibility for it, but they should take the credit for making it possible.

 

Releasing

For updates, please visit the film’s website at www.ainceputploaia.com (or simply click on the poster)

‘A început ploaia’ was presented officially at the One World Film Festival in Bucharest, 13-19 March 2017 (with a preview in London on the 24th of February, 2017, at UCL thanks to Pushpa Arabindoo and Claire Dwyer). The film was well received by the general public, with interviews and the likes featured in a number of outlets in Romania (see for instance here, while more are under production and will come in the second half of the year).

Q&A after the screening of the film at the ‘One World Romania’ Film Festival. From the right, Nicoleta, Veda and myself.

Most importantly, the key moment for me was a private screening and party organised by Veda and the activist of FCDL at Macaz, for the people of Vulturilor, Rahova Uranus and the ones involved in the resistance of those community against evictions and displacement. The speech that Nicoleta gave that day after the screening; the tears of her father; the vivid attention of other members of the community and the engagement, at all level, of members of the public (activists, scholars, artists and more)… The fact that people came to me telling me that they felt represented by it and also proud of how it was, of how they were represented in itThat atmosphere of solidarity was the best return I could ever get from this film and the best moment in its making.

 

What is yet to come

The future of this project is still, for the most part, unknown. I hope for it to become an active testament of the fight for housing in Bucharest – one that will be used by activists, evicted people and researchers to strengthen their resistance to displacement and to fight continuous harassment. In order to work toward this direction, I would like for the film to be seen by three kind of audiences. Firstly, I am organising screenings for activists in different European cities. The idea is to travel with Veda and Nicoleta to discuss the film and its story of resistance across the continent, in order to create new solidarities or strengthen existing ones (for instance the ones already in place through the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City). Groups in Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Rome and more are responding and activities will be organise throughout the summer and fall 2017.

Secondly, I want the film to travel in Film Festivals to engage with a community of professionals who may be interested in co-producing similar works in the future. In this regard, I have submitted the film to a number of international Festivals and I hope for it to be screened in a number of venues across the whole 2017. Similarly, I would also like for it to be broadcast on TV, especially in Romania, to stimulate a debate around the racialisation of housing and the right to the city that is much needed in the country. Giving the political nature of the documentary this may be very hard to achieve.

Lastly, I would like for my fellow colleagues in the academy to watch the documentary and to discuss its activist visual-methodology. Some colleagues have been incredibly supportive (like the one sittings in EPD’s board, or the friend in the Relational-Poverty Network in the US); others have been scornful of the possibilities of being an ethnographer, a scholar and also a film-maker. In any case, screenings have been organised in a number of international conferences (AAG 2017, RGS-IBG 2017 and RC21 2017) and I am always open to the possibility of seminars and workshops. The film is, to me, an open tool to be used, debated and mobilised in order to work toward its original inspiration, which came from the people of Vulturilor in Bucharest: to fight against displacement and for the right to housing for everyone, in every city.

Dates and locations of future screening will be publicised on Facebook and on the film’s website. If you are interested in organising an activist screening and/or a debate, an academic seminar, or if you simply have ideas and projects to share, please contact us at info@acommunityproductions.com.

Update

In the summer 2018 we have been awarded the Antipode Scholar-Activist award, which will allow us to continue the work with Nicoleta and the community. We will produce a book and a guide against forced evictions in Romanian and English. All info here.

 

Continue reading “How we made ‘A Inceput Ploaia’”