- Title
- Australian urban squatters of the 1970s: establishing and living a radical lifestyle in inner‑city Sydney
- Creator
- Trainor, Johanna Jane
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- Insensitive urban renewal projects and invasive freeway constructions in the inner‑city of Sydney provoked widespread resistance throughout the 1970s. This thesis traces the interconnections between the highly contentious squatting campaigns that took place in 1973 in Victoria Street, Kings Cross, and the concurrent Glebe anti-expressway movement which opposed the decimation of the historic suburb by the New South Wales state government’s planned radial expressway system. Both of the mobilisations claimed a “right to the city” and demanded the decentralisation of political control over the urban environment, the retention of low-income housing and community participation in the decision-making processes. The Victoria Street occupation demonstrated the power of people over their living conditions and uniquely combined self-help with protest while simultaneously expressing an alternative vision for social organisation in an urban environment. At the same time, the Glebe anti-expressway movement successfully halted the state government’s radial expressway scheme, saving not only housing in the historic suburb of Glebe from demolition but also all of the remaining houses purchased by the Department of Main Roads in the eastern suburbs. These actions together paved the way for the Glebe Estate to become a microcosm of alternative living and politics. This thesis argues that the alternative political and social spaces created by the Victoria Street squatters ignited city-wide squatting campaigns. Drawing on oral history interviews with the participants and personal archival materials, and informed by theories of urban social movements, this research also explores the collective social enterprises and women’s services initiated by the feminist movement and ex-Victoria Street squatters in vacant houses on the Glebe Estate. The study identifies other protest actors who realised the potential of collective empowerment through autonomous political action and who established housing co‑operatives and creative social enterprises in vacant Department of Main Roads properties on the other side of the city in Darlinghurst and council properties in Pyrmont. In contextualising and identifying the interconnectivity of these protest actions, this research presents a case study of a mid-20th century international phenomenon: the ways in which contested urban environments could generate radical experiments in alternative living arrangements, social services and political action which challenged not only conventional government decision-making but also the authority of the state in the realm of daily life.
- Subject
- squatting; Victoria Street; Leichhardt Women's Health Centre; Fig Street fiasco; child care; Sydney Push; Wendy Bacon; Darcy Waters; 1970s political activism; anarchism; Situationist International; 1970s Sydney history; social housing; expressway opposition; feminism; Sydney Rape Crisis Centre; Elsie Women's Refuge
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1420912
- Identifier
- uon:37653
- Rights
- Copyright 2021 Johanna Jane Trainor
- Language
- eng
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| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 9 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |