“Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid [their] plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with [them], without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist.”

(De Cleyre, 2009, p. 2)

Overview

Direct action is a term encompassing a variety of grassroots and bottom-up occurrences within the urban landscape. It is described as “a mode of disruptive activism” (Smith, 2018, p. 13) with an inherently political intention that may not necessarily be pacifist or legal -therefore likely to “be met with hostility” (Graeber, 2009, p. 359)- and is often associated with anti-capitalist, leftist and anarchist ideologies. Examples of direct action(s) include squatting, occupations, blockades and general strikes, among others (Smith, 2018; Sparrow, 1997). While definitions across activist and academic circles may vary, there is a convergence of opinions that emphasise two primary aspects: (1) direct action always describes a person or group’s own activity to “directly change perceived political, social or environmental injustices” (Doherty et al., 2003, p. 670) without third-party involvement; activities that employ representational and/or mediatory means (eg. lobbying) do not fall under the direct action umbrella (De Cleyre, 2009; Franks, 2003; Pouget, 2009; Smith, 2018; Sparrow, 1997). (2) Direct action is a prefigurative and synecdochic form of action; the action contains a tangible glimpse of the desired future in its end goal, in the methods used to achieve it, and in the identities of those involved in carrying it out (Franks, 2003; Pouget, 2009; Sparrow, 1997). Contrary to symbolic actions which are often contained in showcasing injustices, direct action can perform as both a practical response and a herald of the larger vision it foreshadows.

Direct action in housing

Any direct action that tackles the housing question, operates on the premise that housing is a human right (UN Habitat, 2009), and aims at collectively producing “anti-capitalist housing alternative[s]” (Cattaneo et al., 2014, p. 50), against a backdrop of capitalist/neoliberal enclosures. Housing in this sense is understood as a “commons”, meaning that it is not only a resource that is (re)produced for the benefit of those (re)producing it, but also a “commitment to the creation of collective subjects [and the] fostering of common interests[…]” (Caffentzis & Federici, 2014, p. 103). The process and tactics that support direct actions in housing, could therefore be considered commoning. Hodkinson (2012) recognises 3 interdependent aspects of housing commoning: (1) prefigurative (living-in-common), (2) strategic (housing-as-commons), and (3) counter-hegemonic (circulating the housing commons) commoning.

Prefigurative commoning emphasises the desired way of living. It is essentially “try[ing] to meet our housing needs and desires through the creation of non-hierarchical, small-scale, directly democratic, egalitarian and collective forms of housing” (Hodkinson, 2012, p. 438). Strategic commoning refers to the “tactical interventions required to resist enclosure by both defending and creating housing commons as forms of protection against the market” (ibid.). Squatting falls under both of these aspects; it envisions a way of living that exists at the margins of the economic system, while at the same time it resists enclosure by reclaiming the right of equitable access to housing through the appropriation of vacant buildings, albeit in a standalone way. Lastly, counter-hegemonic commoning seeks to develop alliances between different housing movements and mobilisations, so that new forms of housing and living can be negotiated. Housing cooperatives fall under this type of commoning; while they do not directly challenge dominant housing systems, and therefore are not as inherently prefigurative as housing squats, they offer solid “dweller-control” alternatives that function as shields to speculation, financialisation, and market-driven agendas.  

Potential and pitfalls

Direct actionists bring the shortcomings of neoliberal political agendas into stark relief, both by highlighting injustices, and by providing immediate, practical, albeit often small-scale and precarious responses. Nevertheless, the (commoning) process of planning, executing, and sustaining a direct action, much like any kind of activist endeavour, is a potentially unalienating activity that allows bonds of solidarity to flourish (Graeber, 2009), which, in turn, has the capacity to transform the consciousness of those involved (Sparrow, 1997). The oscillations between legality and illegality, along with the aforementioned transformative potential, may enable the decoupling from what Benjamin Franks calls “prescribed references” (2003, p. 19), i.e. any type of limitation or constraint legally and/or socio-culturally imposed by dominant elites. Finding or creating alternative “references”, may in turn be conceived as “an immediate practical alteration in power relations” (Franks, 2003, p. 32).

Criticism towards some aspects of direct action, however, often questions whether it can constitute a justifiable practice. Direct actions which employ violent, coercive or intimidating tactics may clash with the general public’s conception of the rights and obligations of citizens in a democratic society (Smith, 2018). Consequently, direct actions largely fall outside of the “normalised” activist practices spectrum, and often result in creating (in)tangible enclosures, which may fail to generate substantial impact. Conversely, normalising direct action in all its range of tactics and approaches would result in a paradox, since prescribing to externally conceived references would diminish its prefigurative potential.

Apart from questions on justifiability and normalisation, there is significant ambiguity regarding the types of methods and tactics employed in direct action, as well as their level of transferability. Since direct action is by definition counter-hegemonic, transferability in this case relates greatly to how power relations operate. Deleuze & Guattari argue that hegemonies operate in inherent situatedness, as they are shaped, sustained and perpetuated through connection and heterogeneity (2005). For direct action tactics to be successfully applied in diverse contexts, a nuanced understanding of contextual differences is vital.

Finally, while Voltairine de Cleyre’s definition may seem vague and all-encompassing, it highlights perhaps the most crucial aspect of direct action; the emancipatory potential of unmediated action on one’s own behalf.