The experience of rurban squats in Collserola, Barcelona: what kind of degrowth?
Claudio Cattaneo a,*, Marc Gavalda` b
a
CSO Can Masdeu, Antic Camı´ de St. Llatzer s/n, 08035 Barcelona, Catalonia
b
CSO Kan Pasqual, Camı´ de Can Pasqual s/n, 08017 Les Planes, Barcelona, Catalonia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 May 2009
Received in revised form
18 December 2009
Accepted 11 January 2010
Available online 28 January 2010
Keywords:
Rurban squatting
Collserola
Degrowth
Transition in society
Do It Yourself
Alternative economic systems
a b s t r a c t
The focus of this article is on rural–urban (rurban) squatting. The article explains how and why semiautonomous,
small scale, collective economic systems have been established on the Barcelona hills of
Collserola which a posteriori can be considered as practical implementations towards degrowth. The
authors are first-hand participants in these projects. A qualitative description of the Kan Pasqual and Can
Masdeu squat realities is provided, together with an empirical study of energy and time consumption.
The results suggest that it is possible to live well within a low-intensity economy. We use the experience
from the two squats to question the meaning and definition of degrowth. We argue that degrowth
should be a collectively consented choice of life, not an externally-imposed imperative. Degrowth should
not be the primer social objective but the outcome of a general transition towards a more democratic and
autonomous social and political organization.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
A set of indicators has been showing since the middle of 2008
that an economic recession has been turning into a global crisis in
the markets. GDP, industrial production and consumption have
been falling sharply in almost every country, while unemployment
is expected to grow steadily. The crisis of 2008 is an opportunity to
think of degrowth, in the context of personal fulfilment and
sustainability. This article shares the experience of collective selfmanagement
as a tool towards a low-intensity economy,
strengthened through semi-closed cycles of matter, energy and
time interchanges. We provide a radical critique of degrowth,
which like growth, is not an end in itself. Degrowth in the casestudies
investigated here is the result of practical collective experiences
that have arisen from the antagonistic intentions of their
participants.
The paper is divided into the following sections. Section 1
defines the theoretical framework justifying ‘‘la joie de vivre’’ (the
enjoyment of life) as the end of an economic system, which is not
centred solely on money circulation. Section 2 describes briefly the
methodology with particular reference to a form of autoethnography.
Section 3 sets the context of squatting abandoned
buildings in the context of Barcelona’s sprawl and real-estate
speculation. Section 4 presents a qualitative description of the
two communities and some organizational insights, while Section 5
contributes a quantitative analysis of time and energy consumption.
Finally, Section 6 provides some critical perspectives towards
degrowth.
Oikonomia: a mean to an end, ‘‘la joie de vivre’’
The concept of degrowth is quite old: in 1979, Grinevald and
Rens recompiled and translated into a book a series of essays from
[1] and called it La De´croissance, based on the material limits that an
ever growing economy would reach. Cheynet, Cle´mentin, Latouche,
Bonaiuti, among others highlighted the positive non-monetary
effects related to ‘living well’, and restoration of the Earth’s
natural capital proposing a non-concentrated market system,
without commercial advertising, made up of small-scale economic
actors. They are aware of the oxymoron of ‘‘sustainable development’’
[2].
Facing the entropic limitations on the material output of the
economic system, Georgescu-Roegen insisted on the importance of
the enjoyment of life as the real output of the economic process.
Previous to that, Aristotle defined oikonomia as the art of living well
-where goods had a use value- and which was morally superior to
chrematisticae – the art of making money out of money – where
goods only had an instrumental exchange value [3,4]. Oikonomia
can vary from the use of money and the markets to Do It Yourself,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: claudio.cattaneo@liuc.it (C. Cattaneo).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro
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doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2010.01.010
Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589
barter, mutual aid or reciprocity; the final end is always the satisfaction
of human needs. The experience of rurban squatting helps
highlight which possible means (collective-decision making,
material economy, decreasing needs, degrees of autonomy from
money and wage labour) can be employed in order to achieve the
end of living well. The numerical formulation of energy consumption
and time use will document that this is possible in a lowintensity
economy.
The term economics refers to the financial aspects of allocating
scarce resources within market interactions. Mainstream
economics pre-analytical vision sees profit-maximising market
agents interacting in a survival of the-fittest Darwinian competition.
Competition is seen as the driver of economic growth and the
expansion of the market frontiers. GDP growth represents the
increasing flow of goods and services channelled through competitive
markets. There are several contributions which have criticised
this perspective and help structure the theoretical framework of
rurban1
squatting. According to [5] the competitive market is not
a natural institution, but a social institution formed through political
struggle, the economy increasingly dis-embedding itself from
social control. The Domestic Mode of Production, adopted by
traditional societies, is a less materially intensive alternative to
massive industrial production or market exchange; these societies
need less rather than want more [6]. In society, like in nature,
mutual aid is a determining factor of evolution [7]. Kropotkin, recognising
the co-existence in nature of competitive and co-operative
behaviours, provided an extensive list of examples from nature and
from some indigenous or past societies of mutual aid as a factor of
evolution. However, social Darwinist ideas of competition and
survival of the fittest, that Darwin himself would hardly share,
dominated market economics.
Economics as a science was only born in the 18th century [8]. The
word economics, in English is restricted to this dis-embedded – and
too often mathematical – science. In Latin oeconomia refers to
a social reality, and in Ancient Greek oikonomia is the management/
ruling of the house. In neo-Latin languages, e´conomie or economia
are understood both as a managerial practice and as a theoretical
science: if the meaning of economics is to be maintained as that of
a dis-embedded science, we then define oikonomics as an English
neologism for oikonomia, the Aristotelian ‘‘art of living well’’. The
oikonomic importance of living well or la joie de vivre is of fundamental
importance for the theory of degrowth. Oikonomia focusses
on human subjective needs, often not of material nature [9,10] and
which should deserve a primary role with respect to the competitive
production and exchange of goods and services. The latter are
economic objects, instrumental to the capitalistic accumulation of
money and not necessarily related to human well-being.
On the social and political agenda, popular movements are
investing on the degrowth idea. Some examples are the marches for
degrowth in France and Catalonia and the organization of collective
debates on degrowth, contributing to its public acknowledgement
in France, Italy, Switzerland, Catalonia, or Brussels [11]. The
degrowth agenda includes the identification in society of practical
examples where something akin to degrowth is already happening.
The practice of co-housing is scientifically interesting (Lietaert, this
issue), as well as the creation of co-operatives (housing, consumers,
worker). So is rurban squatting, presented here, which is
a combination of collective practices of alternative lifestyles,
political motivation and social activism. Degrowth is conceived
here as what needs to be done, aiming at the realization of heterotopias
[12], that is, if an utopia has no place, heterotopias exist as
local substitutes. The squatting experience shows that the utopian
replacement of capitalism is a concrete and practical path towards
another form of well-being. A material utopia refers in Bloch’s
terms [13] to the condition of ‘‘having the possibility’’ of realizing it.
He explains the difference between abstract utopia, or wishful
thinking, which, by definition, conceives matter as not mediated,
and concrete utopia, which has been mediated by historical
material processes – in this case constructive ones – which allow an
alternative that, without aiming for it, realizes degrowth.
Collserola rurban squats and the squatting phenomenon in
general have theoretical affinities with general anarchist thinking:
[14], a post-anarchist famous for his concept of T.A.Z. (Temporal
Autonomous Zone), aiming at the creation of temporal spaces that
could avoid formal structures of social control; [15], a Spanish
Luddite critical of technological progress often State-imposed
considering it as the root of the destruction of nature and the
imposition of external control on rural life; to some extent [16], an
anarcho-primitivist critical of agriculture (Zerzan is maintained
only as an inspiration, since the realization of his ideas is impossible
except in low-density population with an abundance of natural
resources). Rurban squatters cannot be exactly identified with any
single line of thought. Different individuals belonging to these
communities might perceive different background motivations for
their participation in these projects. [17], presenting the Spanish
naturist thoughts in the XXth century, highlights the existence of
very different positions, ranging from moral reformism to social
revolution, while [18] focuses on the human ecology in the history
of Iberian anarchism and highlights how already, from the end of
the XIXth century, there was widespread support for the ideas of
the Garden City (setting somehow a precedent for ‘‘rurbanism’’) or
for neo-Malthusian ideas of population control through the
freedom of abortion, a right proclaimed by women and still
a controversial issue for Spanish conservatives.
[19], highlighting democratic gaps in the political organization
of the State, explained that ‘‘Democracy, in the primal sense I shall
intend by the term, is necessarily most visible in relatively small
communities and groups, whose members meet frequently face to
face, interact freely, and are known to each other as people. As soon
as large numbers are involved, democratic association must be
supplemented by a more abstract, depersonalized form.’’ Social
ecologist [20], seeking to rescue the depressed ‘‘apoliticism’’ of
voters without expectations, grasps the idea of libertarian municipalism
as ‘‘an effort to work from latent or incipient democratic
possibilities toward a radically new configuration of society itself–
a communitarian society oriented toward meeting human needs,
responding to ecological imperatives, and developing a new ethics
based on sharing and co-operation.’’
On the line of anti-globalization movements, [21] presents cases
of resistance from all over the world, a network of activists whose
principles are often in line, and in co-operation with rurban
activism. There is a wide literature on practical applications
towards change in society. Mixing the desirability of social change
with the provision of tools for this goal is the aim of the [22]
working on empowering people, through popular education, to
be the actors of a transition. Focussing on responsible consumption
and well-being [23], gives practical explanations and contacts for
a range of needs, from how to self-manage personal health, how to
live more simply and towards self-sufficiency, to providing new
perspectives for work, employment and alternative economies,
resources for living in communities or eco-villages, as well as hints
on water, energy and material consumption. [24] and [25] are more
1
With the term rurban we refer to the presence of rural features within an urban
context, such as agricultural infrastructure at the verge of a city. Such characteristics
allow a closer link between urban lifestyles, often unaware of farm-like environments,
with rural characteristics, often isolated from the majority of population.
A rurban context is the connecting point between the centre (a city) and the
periphery (a farm or a village).
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589582
concerned with self-organized collective processes for alternative
agricultural practices and with the possibility of an agro-ecological
movement.
What could be considered as degrowth has been occurring,
among grass-root movements, before it was presented as an idea at
the macro political agenda. Representing the Collserola rurban
squats practices, our aim is to enrich the debate on degrowth.
Methodology
The methodological perspective of this article is ex-post: what
the authors are here putting into words (theorizing) is a representation
– from the degrowth point of view – of some realities that
existed before this issue arose and in which they are embedded.
Differently to deductive processes that define universal rules and
try then to set them in a particular context, the present methodological
context follows an inductive process: stemming from the
observation of an already existing particular reality, the aim is
a general representation in academic terms. The mix of personal
lives, academic work and political action relates to three qualitative
and one quantitative methodological tool.
1. Participant observation. This methodology stresses the
subjectivity of the author’s perceptions in social research,
creating a contrast with objectivity and detachedness in pure
science. [26] states that ‘‘among all systems of social research
participant observation is possibly the most subjective. For this,
participant observation is an ideal tool to recover the sentiment in
social sciences. If gender stereotypes were certain, participant
observation would be feminine: it is flexible, ductile, intuitive, no
rational. Participant observation opposes to rigid masculine
positivism an epistemological tolerance that prefers to pact reality
before imposing it’’ (personal translation).
Author subjectivity in social research is the opposite to the goal
of objectivity – through detachedness – in pure science. There are
several issues correlated to the role – either participant or detached
– of an author in research. Particular reference is made by [27] to
the case of dealing with unequal power relationships between the
researcher and the object of study, both in knowledge and in social
intervention. Her metaphor of being ‘‘in the belly of the beast’’ refers
to this ambivalent position. Feminist science, which in the words of
Guasch is connected to participant observation, does not deny the
political essence of scientific inquiry: [28] investigates the epistemological
question of whether politicised inquiry can produce
more complete and less distorted research results. Conventional
understandings of a hegemonic science are political: ‘‘all claims for
intellectual hegemony [are to be put] in their proper place – that we
understand that such claims are, by their very nature, political rather
than scientific’’ [29].
2. Ethnographic investigation. As expressed by [30] ethnographic
research is characterized, in opposition to the model of the
‘‘magistrate that interrogates’’, by a personal implication of the
ethnographer, by seeing a culture through the eyes of those
who live it and not of a scientific observer, and by the desire to
represent the totality of the social reality under study. The
ethnographic process is characterized by four functions:
extensively describing a reality, translating it into the categories
of the researcher’s discipline (in this case economic
degrowth), explaining it in comparative terms (in this case
rurban squatting compared with the macro social reality of
which it forms part, but from which it is diverging) and finally
interpreting it, with the use of normative and policy statements.
Both this ethnographic process and the feminine
perspective of participant observation constitute a wider
reference for the aim and the contents of this work that
includes a combination of qualitative descriptions, quantitative
facts and critical analysis.
3. As a form of auto-ethnography [31,32], the authors are firsthand
participants in rurban squatting. This last methodological
context can be properly identified as participant observing
[33] which is both a subset and an extension of participant
observation but where the logical subject is the participant
while the observation is its attribute only. In this line, while
a participant observation might imply a researcher to look for
degrowth cases among rurban squatters (the primary objective
is the observation, and the participation is the way the author
uses to get the information), participant observing refers to the
participation in a social reality independently from the need to
say something about degrowth. It is only later that the participant
decides to reduce her reality in an observation from the
perspective of degrowth.
4. Metabolic profile. Rough estimates of time use and energy
consumption are derived for the two squats. This has been
possible without the use of a measuring tool – the only one used
was the electricity meter – but by approximation and by
common statistics – i.e. gas bottles or litres of petrol consumed
per average month (which could be more precise if detailed
financial statistics were available). Time-use statistics are also an
approximation of what the authors perceive as a result of their
living experience and no more accurate test or device to measure
the total amount of time spent in the squats has been attempted
or used. The hypothesis tested is that the rurban squatters’
economy is low-intensity. This is shown by comparing exosomatic
energy figures (consumption of non-renewable energy
and consumption of renewable energy) with the bodily
consumption of calories (endosomatic/metabolic energy) and
with Catalan statistics. The results prove that the exosomatic
energy intensity is little. So little that is in the same order of
magnitude as in pre-industrial societies, where the main
contribution to energy consumption were human calories.
The context of rurban squatting in Barcelona
Stemming from a critique of the increasing dominance of
government and market institutions, squatting is a window
through which a range of opportunities opens up for the development
of ideals and projects, without the need for initial financial
capital or the responsibility to comply with external regulations.
This goes against criminal law; nonetheless it occurs because the
costs of breaking the law are de-valued with respect to the benefits
of creating socio-political projects as an alternative to growthcapitalism
and to representative democracy. The political–
economic system within the squatting community is more simple
and is implemented through collective self-organization where the
decision-makers are identified with the users of a space.
Even if politically quite autonomous, urban squatters and, to
a lesser extent rurban squatters, are far from realizing an autonomous,
self-sufficient ecological–economic system.
Real-estate speculation over the last decade made housing costs
increase dramatically in Barcelona. As a side-effect, the number of
squats dedicated to provide a roof increased. But squats in Barcelona
arrived before that. An okupa (squat) can be a vivenda (home)
and/or a centre social: for a couple of decades the squatting
movement has used private property to build autonomous spaces
of collective growth. [34,35].
[36] offers a more complete picture defining some configurations
of squatting. ‘‘Deprivation based squatting’’, based on a top-down
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589 583
help of activists for helpless people in need for a roof, is the oldest
configuration but that did not occur in Barcelona. ‘‘Squatting as an
alternative housing strategy’’ is a more self-organized configuration
promoted by people with different interests: this is quite typical in
Barcelona, especially after the increase in housing prices or among
young people interested in alternative experiences. ‘‘Entrepreneurial
squatting’’, where many activities are offered, is centred
around social centres but is likely to end in legalization or in depoliticization:
although this configuration widely occurs in Barcelona,
the entrepreneurial reason being one of those behind squatting,
legalization and de-politicization have hardly occurred at all.
‘‘Conservation squatting’’, in the preservation of a cityscape or
a landscape and ‘‘political squatting’’, for the desire of confrontation
with the state. These last two configurations have also occurred in
Barcelona, but not as the main reasons for squatting and, when they
did occur, they were promptly evicted, for example the ‘‘Espai alliberat
contra la guerra’’ (Freed space against the war) in the midst of
the anti-war protests of 2003. Finally, ‘‘tourist or crash squatting’’, by
drug addicts or young tourists travelling on low budget, who are not
socially neither politically motivated, not related with the neighbourhood
life and only interested in finding a free-roof or in having
some fun in the city. These worsen the image of squatting among the
neighbours and are used by mass-media in Barcelona to manipulate
the genuine image of squatting. In Barcelona the dominant idea of
squatting is to free a place from market capitalism or government
control and to experiment with new forms of social relationships
and collective-decision processes. The managers and decisionmakers
of the social centre are those who use it, with full responsibility
for their actions and decisions, self-organized through a nonhierarchic
assembly -an example of direct and deliberative democracy.
To synthesize, beyond the simple financial problem of not being
able to pay for a roof, there are political reasons for squatting.
Barcelona’s urban sprawl is limited by the sea and, opposite to it,
by the hills of Collserola, where rural spaces have traditionally
flourished within natural landscapes. There, the Social Centres of
Kan Pasqual (since late 1996) and Can Masdeu (since late 2001)
combine cosmopolitan features, i.e. their members are Catalans and
foreigners, come from cities and villages, with agro-ecological
practices. Fig. 1 shows where the two social centres are located,
with respect to the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and the Collserola
Park.
Collective management of the commons is widely practised in
society and in nature. Far from being destined to end in a tragedy
[37,38] shows that, following proper management rules, governing
the commons can be successful. The common is an institution with
access to a material resource different both from private property
and from open access. Within it, co-operation, mutual aid and selforganization
among the different agents are work-saving strategies.
On the other hand, the free exchange of information contributes to
building agricultural know-how handed down to the next generations.
Access to its material and immaterial resources, such as the
land and the know-how make the survival of the commons critical,
due to the growth of urban population and commercial patenting in
present society.
Rurban squatters focus on learning and on the recovery of lands
and local farming practices, incorporating modern solar and wind
technologies with new perspectives – not widely explored in
scientific literature – such as permaculture [39,40]. Both the Kan
Pasqual and the Can Masdeu groups are in a learning process for the
self-management of time, food, water and energy. Each individual
creates tools to collectively incorporate – in the short and medium
term – increasingly independent lifestyles. In line with Ivan Illich’s
thought [41], where high quanta of energy become undemocratic,
self-organization and self-management support daily routines and
create new relationships with political and physical power.
Qualitative description
Table 1 below is a comparison of how vital elements – water,
shelter, heat, electricity and food, to be understood as ends – are
achieved in a small-scale community like Kan Pasqual, mainly
depending on natural flows and in the petrol-based current civilization,
depleting stocks and funds: different oikonomic means are
employed which represent different ways of using and disposing of
differing amounts of material resources; different ways of creating
business opportunities (or not) and of relating to different types of
markets.
Different organizational and physical structures have arisen
from and have been adopted by the two communities/social
centres. With a roughly male majority of 2–1, 15 adults live in
Kan Pasqual with 6 children, and 25 in Can Masdeu with 2
children. The population number has fluctuated during the
years, but only slightly: a large part of the present inhabitants
have been living there since the beginning although in the early
years the turnover rate was high and many people moved in and
out.
By experiencing Kan Pasqual one would notice the strong
convivial links with its neighbourhood, made of several vivenda
squats dispersed in the forest and the achievement of energetic
autonomy, understood beyond an ecological perspective, as part of
a wider political–economic positioning. In fact, boycott and
denunciation campaigns against transnational energy corporations
and their impacts in other parts of the world, are part of the social
militancy of some of its members. [42,43]
Alternatively, Can Masdeu squat, closer to the city and the
metro, is devoted to an active cultural/social centre, open most
Sundays, where cheap meals are served in the Rurban (rural–urban
bar) and socio/cultural and educational activities, such as video
forums, health workshops, legal advice and debates are offered. In
addition the amount of arable land and the relatively abundance of
water allow a community gardens project, made up of 31 little
plots, organized in a monthly assembly, and resembling a successfully
managed common.
Energy is an issue that motivates Kan Pasqual just as food is for
Can Masdeu. The 400 m2
house gardens (equivalent to another 10
plots within the community gardens project) provide most of the
vegetables consumed in the community, and are open once a week
and during some Sundays to participants. Can Masdeu has valued
the transmission and diffusion of practical knowledge, weaving
a network that blurs the land and the city.
Closing cycles
In Kan Pasqual and Can Masdeu permaculture techniques are
widespread in the garden and the household. As proposed in permaculture
design, closing matter and energy cycles is important in
order to strengthen the sustainability of a project. In this way waste
is reconverted into resources. Some examples are the gardens,
where the waste of food is composted and given back to the soil;
the chickens, who restore their calcium level by eating powdered
egg-shells; horse manure, fertilizing the gardens and feeding
a methane digester; the German carpenters-built dry toilets, that
save the water wasted in flushing, – avoiding the delicate treatment
of grey water – and allowing the recycling of high-entropy faeces
into low-entropy fertilizer for fruit trees; grey water is purified
through biological filters and stored – more or less efficiently – for
irrigation. Sun-light is absorbed by the thermal solar panels for hot
water showering. Most renewable energy infrastructure – thermal
solar panels, windmill, PV system – or renewable materials facilities
– compost piles, dry toilets, chicken yards – have been self-built or
self-assembled.
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589584
Wild nature is being used. The woods surrounding Kan Pasqual
are an important source of wild fruits, mushrooms, medicinal and
edible herbs, and firewood. The self-seeding of plants is favoured in
the gardens while small water ecosystems are created where insect
and mosquito predators are nourished. In these ways, the creation
of permanent agricultural systems are promoted.
Self-managed economy
Kan Pasqual has a collective economy where income from
selling bread and occasional trade fairs contribute to a fund for
household expenditure (mainly food) and another fund for
extraordinary expenses. The interchange of manufactured products
or of labour hours for agricultural products is a common practice.
The result is the possibility of economic self-sustainability, individually
and collectively, with very few labour hours per month. As
a consequence of earning collective money at home and of needing
less money, – for instance there is no need for rent, packaged food
or new clothes, – its inhabitants sell as small proportion of their
time in the labour market, constituting a case of ‘‘useful unemployment’’
[41].
Can Masdeu inhabitants live, on average, on 200–250 Euros per
month. Each month they pay 30 to the collective kitty (overall 750
Euro) and spend the rest elsewhere. Each member, two Sundays
a year, opens the Rurbar in a group of 4 (Out of 25–30 Rurbar
openings per year, roughly 15 are destined to the community
income and the rest are offered to other social movements with
affinities to the rurban project). This, on average, contributes to
a benefit of 1000 Euro per month for the collective economy, which
runs on an average of 1500–2000 Euro per month. The collective
economy provides food, cooking gas, cleaning products, cheap
phone and internet connection, garden equipment, tools and
materials for the workshops. In Kan Pasqual, without having to
individually pay to the collective kitty, around 100 kg of bread are
sold almost every week at 3 V/kg, requiring 6–8 people for one day
of good-quality working.
Energy and tools
In both groups the split between endosomatic and exosomatic
energy consumption is less than in urban life. In Can Masdeu there is
one motor-vehicle for every 8 persons and a bicycle for every 0.9; in
Kan Pasqual a motor-vehicle for every 2.5 and a bicycle for every 1.2.
Commuting and transportation needs are reduced due to selfconsumption
and work at home. Many tasks are performed manually,
such as most gardening operations, food processing or material
handling and with the use of simple tools that do not require petrol
combustion engines or electricity, and can often be repaired by
a squat resident rather than requiring external intervention. When
external professionals are required, non-monetary ways for
payment of their service are traded. Possibly the most concrete and
significant contributions in terms of degrowth are low consumption
of non-renewable exosomatic energy combined with low monetary
Fig. 1. Location of Can Masdeu and Kan Pasqual
Table 1
Comparison of vital elements
Vital element Sustainable community Petrol-based civilization
Water Self construction and
restoration of rainwater
collection systems.Purification
through grey-water systems.
No black-water production
Great infrastructures of river
channelization.
Sea water desalination.
Dams and reservoirs.
Chemical and organic
depuration of grey and
black waters.
Shelter Bio-construction with
innocuous materials.
Reparation of old houses.
Great real-estate investments.
Construction with toxic and
polluting materials (cement,
petrol metals, synthetic fibres).
High prices.
Heat Wooden stoves from
local woods. Passive
solar heating.
Massive burning of petrol
derivatives, thermal and
nuclear power plants.
Electricity PV panels, home-made
wind generator.
Massive burning of petrol
derivatives, thermal and
nuclear power plants.
Large scale wind farms.
Food Organic gardens, recollection
from woods and fields.
Interchange. Consumption
in co-operatives.
Industrial food of low
nutritional quality. Great
supermarkets. Food miles.
High consumption in
refrigeration or processing.
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589 585
requirements. This degrowth practice does not occur as an ecological
imperative, but as a collectively consented choice of life [44].
The practice of self-organization
Thanks to collective organization the time dedicated to
conventional household chores is widely reduced and is in turn
employed for personal growth, education or leisure. Collective
money to run the projects is earned internally, by selling woodoven,
organic bread to co-operatives or fairs, or by opening the
Rurbar in Can Masdeu. Because of the specific self-organization of
both projects, based on a partially collective finance and a lot of
domestic production, the basic needs of the groups are covered,
with little material consumption, and little amount of work.
Instead, non-material related goods are widely consumed, in the
long after-meal conversations, in the many occasions for social
relations, cooking in the kitchen or preparing a celebration, party or
ritual, or on the job which, with respect to professional rhythms, is
more time inefficient. Personal conflicts are normal, and talking
helps in addressing and solving them.
The lack of a clear ecological imperative also shows some
contradictions: Kan Pasqual is energy autonomous, but being quite
far from the city, and its inhabitants being quite connected to it,
implies owning a vehicle for every second adult (often used for
taking children to public or free schools). In Can Masdeu, electricity
is not paid for and as a result year-by-year electricity consumption
is growing at a fast pace: from 7 kwh/day in 2003–2015 kwh/day in
2006, to 20 kwh/day in 2009. Other contradictions lay in the little
use of the Can Masdeu solar oven and pedal washing machine and
in the Kan Pasqual methane digester: the original value of these
inventions lays in their condition of being self-built at nearly no
material or financial cost and in their potential use in case of
a severe energy crisis, but for the moment they are not replacing
electricity consumption in the conventional washing machine or
gas consumption in the kitchen. Squatters do not pretend that they
can do everything perfect; they try, and so can everyone if properly
organized.
Organizational insights
Kan Pasqual is organized mainly in a voluntary scheme, where
people have no commitments to collective work, because they are
supposed to be self-responsible and self-controlled. After 12
years this system is still working pretty well, and provides
motivation for creating a living alternative, where people need no
formal specialization, nor ought to have formal obligations
towards the community. The strategy of this apparent noorganization
is permanent communication and a quick and
transparent resolution of conflicts between people or in the
weekly assembly.
Bigger-sized Can Masdeu is more structured and organized on
a set of minimum commitments that people should comply to:
a fortnightly participation in the house meeting, cooking twice or
three times a month, cleaning a part of the house once a month,
opening the Rurbar twice or three times a year, working for
maintenance and infrastructure on Tuesday mornings and for
gardening on Thursday mornings – or late afternoon in the hot
summer months – and, finally, assuming one or two responsibilities
(with some responsibilities having more than one or two people).
Among the social responsibilities are: planning the social centre
openings and its programme; managing the infrastructure, provisions
and incomes of the Rurbar and co-ordination of the different
groups opening it; participating in the community gardens activities;
participating in the environmental education project; maintaining
the external relations with the neighbourhood – Nou Barris
– and with the media, lawyers and the squatters assembly; among
the domestic ones: managing the household provisions; cash
phone and bank accounting; vehicles co-ordination and maintenance;
co-ordination of guests and visitors; computer network
maintenance; co-ordination of the working day; co-ordination of
the orchards; running the chicken yard; enabling communication
and conflict resolution processes.
While initially there were no minimum requirements or
responsibilities, and each person was acting on their own motivation
to work and participate, obvious imbalances in tasks, or in time
dedication, generated conflicts – among 25 people communication
would not always flow – and a need for formal structuring was
perceived. A process to define minimum requirements began, and
more or less successful evaluation processes were adopted each
year to present, understand and discuss different personal implications
in the project. Personal differences in working time were
reduced. This also implies a growing complexity in planning and
control systems, needed to counterbalance the complexity – and
the complications, doubts and worries – of living a precarious,
collective and alternative life-project.
The latest development in collective organization (autumn
2009) is marking a milestone. After years of increasing specialization
through responsibilities – necessary after the chaotic beginning
– a collective process has begun, aimed at enhancing
motivation, participation in the working days and personal capacity
building: previous household responsibilities such as gardening,
beer or bread making (managed by a narrow group of ‘‘experts’’)
have become three affinity groups working on Thursdays; the
organization every three months of different affinity groups,
working on water infrastructure, electricity, wood collection and
building repairs is suggested for the working day on Tuesday;
a general redistribution of the other household and social centre
responsibilities is being discussed. The importance of this milestone
rests on the possibility of understanding growth and its limits
(in this case specialization), even within an alternative and young
collective project.
The organizational difference between Kan Pasqual and Can
Masdeu can be explained by ideological motivations as well as by
the size of the groups. Can Masdeu is nearly twice as big as Kan
Pasqual. However, the total amount of one-to-one relations among
15 people is 105 while the total amount of one-to-one relations
among 25 people is 300: nearly three times as much.
Quantitative analysis
The empirical study reported here has involved painstakingly
collecting data about energy and time consumption. The Can
Masdeu figures are drawn from [35].
Table 2 shows the yearly energy consumption in Kan Pasqual
and Can Masdeu. The table provides the figure of endosomatic
(body) energy consumption, whose magnitude is relevant in the
two squats (as it was in pre-industrial societies) in comparison to
exosomatic (renewable and non-renewable) consumption. The
object of analysis is the physical sites of Kan Pasqual (household
and social centre) and Can Masdeu (household and social centre),
not their inhabitants. Time estimations and energy consumption
are not counted when the inhabitants are not there and are counted
when non-inhabitants are there. In addition, time and energy to
take both inhabitants and visitors to and from the communities
(public and private transport) are not measured, though the petrol
used for the van and cars of the communities is included.
The table presents different type of energy consumption in each
row, grouped in ‘‘renewable energy’’, ‘‘non-renewable energy’’
(both are exosomatic energy) and metabolic or ‘‘endosomatic
energy’’ (i.e. human energy). In our societies due to the large
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589586
consumption of exosomatic energy, human energy is not relevant,
and is normally excluded from energy statistics. Table 2 shows that
endosomatic (metabolic) energy is relevant in Kan Pasqual and Can
Masdeu compared to exosomatic energy. This is due to a high
participation to the household and social projects -which adds up
many hours of people’s presence in the two squats – and to the
choice of low material-intensity living – so that not many energy
consuming appliances, powerful tools or energy inefficient devices
are employed.
The two left hand columns represent for Kan Pasqual – KP – and
for Can Masdeu – CMD – yearly energy consumption in different
units (hours of metabolic activity, kwh of electricity, litres of fuel,
calories of hot water, kg of wood and manure) while the right hand
ones represent their correlation to MJ, resulting from their multiplication
by the factor of conversion indicated in the central
column.
As a result of its energy autonomy, in Kan Pasqual only 10% of
energy consumption is non-renewable (even if the total energy
consumption is higher because, for climatic reasons and for
extensive bread making, more wood is required). In Can Masdeu
metabolic energy is the most relevant source of energy due to the
presence of many inhabitants, several openings of the social centre
and a highly participative and hand-worked community gardens
project.
Total time use is the sum of different time-use categories:
sleeping and personal care, child care, leisure and education,
household chores, gardening, collective self-employment and noninhabitants
participation in the social projects (Rurbar openings,
cinema, workshops, overnight visitors) which amounts to
50.000 h per year in Can Masdeu (mainly one hundred people
staying 5 h during thirty Sundays per year, and 5 visitors staying
nearly every day every s month during 20 h) and to 10.000 h in
Kan Pasqual (two hundred people for 6 h during 2 parties per year
and fifty people during 30 h for 3 workshops and 10 visitors per
week during 5 h).
The exosomatic metabolic rate (EMR) indicates the speed at
which exosomatic energy is consumed. It can be easily compared
with Catalan statistics [45,46] which divide between household
consumption and productive sectors consumption. In 2006 an
average Catalan household consumed energy (excluding personal
transportation) at a rate of 1.79 MJ/h (that is, 13,386 MJ/capita/
year). The productive sectors (agricultural, industrial and service)
would consume at a rate of 165.47 MJ/h, 338.85 MJ/h and 74.05 MJ/
h respectively. For society as a whole, EMR would be 18.58 MJ/h.
EMR in Kan Pasqual is equivalent to 2.6 MJ/h (250,000 MJ, mainly
renewable, over 95,000 h, roughly 15,500 MJ/person/year) and in
Can Masdeu to 0.81 MJ/h (6,200 MJ/person/year). At a first glance,
consumption per capita is equivalent to a Catalan household.
However, part of this energy consumption goes for ‘‘home-made’’
production: these squats include productive orchards, workshops
and social centres, so that they are not equivalent to a household. It
is impossible to detail exactly which part of the aggregate time and
energy figures refers to the households, which to the agricultural
and workshop activities and which to the social centre services. The
key conclusion is that the mainly non-commercial production of
food, goods and services that takes place in the squats does not
consume energy at the fast rate of the commercial productive
sectors (roughly between 75 and 340 MJ/h), but at a pace typical of
the household sector (roughly 2 MJ/h) that is, up to more than one
hundred times slower.
Even if both projects consume very little, their energy, material
and money consumption have been growing as time has gone by.
This trend might not reverse, possibly as a consequence of young
people turning, with the passing of the years, into adults and
parents, and needing more comfort, rest and different rhythms. In
terms of degrowth, the life story of their inhabitants has been,
a long growth in consumption prior to joining one of the projects,
interrupted by an absolute consumption crash when joining or
creating the communities and a very slow recovery recently.
However the community, rather than consumption, is the real
incommensurable value of these experiences. The community has
the potential for infinite growth [47]). It is in the support to a high
quality living standard where consumption in the two squats is far
below society’s average.
Scaling up and benchmarking limitations
How a change in a part (rurban squats and their principles) can
affect a change or a transition in the whole (the rest of society and
its governing principles) is a complex issue. Integrating the two
Table 2
Time and energy consumption in Kan Pasqual and Can Masdeu.
Energy type KP per year
(different units)
CMD per year
(different units
Conversion
To MJ*
KP (MJ/year) CMD (MJ/year)
Endosomatic (hours)a
95,000 189,070 120 Â 0.00418 47,652 94,838
Electricity (kwh)b
7,300 3.6 26,280
Butane (L) 420 511 34 14,280 17,374
Petrol (L)c
500 810 34 17,000 27,540
Exosomatic non-renewable 31,280 71,194
Electricity (kwh)d
750 3.6 2,700
Hot water (kcal)e
500,000 1,000,000 0.00418 2,090 4,180
Wood (kg) 11,000 4,000 19.3 212,300 77,200
Manure (kg) 3,000 2,400 0.72 2,160 1,728
Exosomatic renewable 219,250 83,108
Total 298,182 249,537
Non-renewable/Total 10% 29%
Endosomatic/Total 16% 38%
* Notes: The table converts different energy units (kcal, kwh, litres of butane or petrol, kg of pine wood, kg of manure) into MJ at a conversion rate expressed in this column.
Bold values are the sum of the non-bold values just above.
a
Total hours spent locally at 120 kCal/h (2.880 kCal/day) converted into MJ at a rate of 0.00418 MJ/kCal
b
20 kwh/day Given by 2 fridges, 3 washing-machine cycles, 30 computer-hours, low-consumption light bulbs, some electric stove hours and some machine hours in the
workshop (drills, welding machine.).
c
Petrol used for the chainsaw, for the electricity generator (Kan Pasqual), water pumps (Kan Pasqual, 50 L), tractor (Kan Pasqual, 50 L) or transport of materials. However, it
is difficult to differentiate automotive petrol consumed for personal reasons and for collective reasons.
d
2 Kw Of installed capacity, times 4 h of sun per day, efficiency of transformation 25%
e
Kan Pasqual: on average 50 L of water heated daily from 15*C to 45*C (100 L in Can Masdeu)Source: personal empirical experience and interviews to the KP and CMD
inhabitants.
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589 587
experiences with the possible broader significance requires further
work focussed on multi-scale analysis [48].
The two communities are more autonomous than a conventional
household – from the material, monetary and, especially,
political point of view. Also, being social centres and having several
stores (wood, metal, glass), workshops (bakery, bicycle, carpentry,
welding) and access to land resources (orchards, water, wood,
earth, stones) they are more complex than a simple household.
Some production associable to the agricultural, industrial and
service sector is carried on at an extremely low EMR but still,
cannot be compared to society as they are partly dependant on the
rest of society. Table 2 provides useful data for comparison but only
to a limited extent. For example, the squats still depend externally
for most of the food consumed – Can Masdeu gardens and chicken
yard produce only 5% of the calories required by its inhabitants [35]
– Kan Pasqual and Can Masdeu spend, respectively, an average of
1000 and 2000 Euros per month in order to buy food, cleaning
products, gas bottles, petrol, tools, building and electric materials
and telecommunication services. Other materials – food, clothes,
furniture and manufactured objects – are recycled from the city’s
waste. Between 150 and 250 L of olive oil per year are earned
working in other farms, and a few hundred kilograms of apples and
citric freely picked as left-over in commercial crops.
A cleaner production is achieved through the ‘‘Domestic Mode
of Production’’ [6]. To some degree similar to stone-age societies,
the inhabitants of the two squats satisfy some of their needs
without requiring the energy-intensive production of the agricultural,
industrial or service sector. Rather than buying beer and
bread, these communities buy malt and flour and then do it
themselves. Rather than paying for the service of a plumber, an
electrician or a mechanic, they pay for the tools and then do it
themselves. Along the processes that start from a raw material in its
natural state and end in a finished good or a professional service,
these communities achieve some degrees of autonomy (namely the
‘‘Do It Yourself’’) in the sense that they do not depend on the supply
of a finished good or service, as conventional households do. In
business terminology, these communities are ‘‘vertically integrated’’
along the chain of processes that add value to the final
product. For this, less money and more skills and know-how are
required. Labour time, rather than sold in the market, is employed
in home-made production. The squats are also social centres, and
provide non-members with a socio-cultural service that, if
produced in the commercial sector, would have a higher material,
energetic and financial cost.
Difficulties in benchmarking apply also for the use of money. A
comparison with the rest of society is possible only to a limited
extent. Waste re-use and recycling reduce the financial expenditure,
but this level of recycling may not be possible at a larger scale. Rent
and most taxes are not paid by the squatters, but public services
(health, education, infrastructures, security) are enjoyed for free. On
the other hand, public services are not used more than the average
resident in Barcelona, because alternatives in terms of transport,
education orhealth are practised. Also, the socialcentres provide free
public services without receiving tax-payer support from the State.
Last but not least, the political value, the originality and the
antagonism of the squat projects can neither be monetized, nor
reduced to energy figures. At the societal level it is contested
whether this represents a cost – for subverting the status quo – or
a benefit – for driving social change. In any case, the maintenance of
political and social-organizational diversity is good per se as it is
a source of innovation and social evolution. Yet the attempts of the
State to repress squats carry a significant cost for taxpayers: Can
Masdeu suffered an eviction attempt in May 2002 with the intervention
during 60 h of roughly 70 policemen that must have cost
society thousands of Euro.
Energy and time figures should be understood in terms of power;
power in political and in physical terms. Political power is associable
to decision-making power. Physical power is defined as the
combustion of energy per unit of time, that is the speed of energy
consumption, as the EMR can show. In a rurban squat both political
and physical power are more equally distributed than in society at
large. This is true for political power with respect to other members
(democracy sphere) and for physical power with respect to other
societies, future generations or the rest of nature (sustainability
sphere). The connection between enhancing democracy and
enhancing sustainability is not a coincidence or an ecological
imperative. It is likely an innate characteristic of small-scale selforganized
societies, as [49] noted in comparing hunter–gatherer
societies with chiefdoms, kingdoms and States.
Conclusion. what kind of degrowth?
The film The Matrix shows a materially de-grown society in the
far future. Let us consider the Matrix society as a ‘‘thought experiment’’,
a possibility scenario (see Spangenberg, this issue). After an
ecological crisis where natural resources have been exhausted, life
continues through the development of virtual technology and of
artificial intelligence. Machines take control of the planet and
function with the energy supplied by plantations of human bodies
whose brains, senses and nerves – plugged into the Matrix, a programme
of virtual reality – experience what resembles our present
world. The Matrix economy is dematerialized and works with
renewable energies. However, people are slaves working for free at
the service of the machines that produce, control and defend the
Matrix. The economy does not need money to work, just the control
of human minds. This extreme scenario shows the limits of
degrowth: economic and material degrowth must consider power,
democracy and the role of corporations and States (and supra-State
organizations) if it is not to lead to an eco-dictatorship.
For reproducing the two particular squat experiences in
a generalized context, self-management and co-operation are
necessary, beyond energy or monetary performance. This emphasises
self-sufficiency instead of the exploitation of external regions
and mutual aid instead of capitalistic competition. A challenge for
degrowth is how to facilitate processes of ‘‘substitution of the
market’’ in households and in the society through a more productive
employment of non-paid labour time. Markets should resume
a human scale of interaction: a local consumer co-operative or
a street market are places for more social interactions; e-commerce
is not.
The rurban squats enable a critique of the degrowth concept for
having a too limited focus: degrowth should not be the sole or even
the primary objective but the outcome of a general transition
towards a social and political organization, where autonomy,
freedom from wage labour, and collective-decision-making are key.
Alternative political systems and the capabilities to provide and
organize them should be promoted. The experience of rurban
squatters stems from their understanding that not only capitalism
and the presence of the market have grown too far, but also the role
of the State which, with its size, representative democracy and its
bureaucratic slowness, deprives the community level of its power.
Degrowth occurs in Collserola rurban squats as a desire for
autonomy in individual or collective allocation of time, under
which a full-time job becomes a waste of time. Time is the central
oikonomic end; in capitalism it is sold to the labour market. In
rurban squats it is employed directly for the satisfaction of needs.
Its recuperation and freely consented collective management
should be a basic principle for a degrowth society. The rurban
example could be scaled-up towards a small-scale self-organization
of networks of collectives, a bottom–bottom model of social
C. Cattaneo, M. Gavalda` / Journal of Cleaner Production 18 (2010) 581–589588
change, as an alternative to either top–down or bottom–up hierarchies.
Such a grass-root network could co-exist with a degrowing
macro political–economic system. Diversity in parts can
be scaled up to diversities within the whole. Metaphorically, there
is room for the rurban seed to be spread in the field of capitalistic
monoculture, but it is not imperative to colonize the whole lot. A
society based on the rurban squatters living model would be
radically different. It depends on the will of citizens and on
processes of collective social choice to determine the structure of
society and the extent of alternative living arrangements within it.
As the radical critic and militant opponent of the power of the
banks [50] states: ‘‘In an exceptional context, such as the actual
crisis of the system, different strategies for action must come
together. Joining disobedience with alternative organisation, we
could build a change for society. Alternatives without conflict will
only turn into an escape. We have to combine action in conflict with
action for the creation of alternatives. From self-management in
commercial enterprises to the rural community, all these are
necessary actions.’’
Acknowledgments
We thank Mike Gilliland for revising the language, four referees
for their useful and constructive comments and Giorgos Kallis for
his invitation, interest and patience. All other mistakes, are ours.
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