Spatial Sovereignties: Autonomous Subjectivity and Political Resistance in Hamburg’s Rote Flora,1989-2017
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis examines the history and praxis of the left-radical Autonomous movement in West Germany, particularly in the case study of Hamburg’s Rote Flora: the symbolic centre of the European Autonomous ideology. Autonomie emerged in Germany after the ‘red decade’ of escalating terrorist violence from 1967 to 1977, which culminated in hijackings, murders, and kidnappings during the 1977 ‘German Autumn’. The consequences of this period set the stage for the 1978 Tunix Congress, where up to 20,000 activists gathered in West Berlin to re-think the nature and purpose of political protest. Left-radical practice thereafter rejected the use of terrorist violence, and effectively refused organised Leninist Marxism, teleological revolutionary politics, and solidarity with syndicalist organisations, all of which had been defining cornerstones of the transnational left until that point. During the following decades, left-radical practice instead focused upon the self-formation of political subjectivities, concerns with city space and gentrification, and embodied symbolic violence, all of which became the cornerstones of the Autonomous movement. The thesis is divided into two parts: the first examines the genealogy of Autonomous subjectivity after 1977. It presents the Senate’s city restructuring plans for the Schanzenviertel neighbourhood during the 1980s, against which Autonomists protested, ultimately occupying the building in 1989. The thesis portrays the occupation using 32 participant oral histories, and analyses State and Autonomous perspectives on language, contract negotiations, state pacification strategies, and the consequent breakdown of communication in the 1990s. Theoretically it builds on Hegel’s dialectical model of authority and subversion, as well as Lefebvre’s three levels of space, to present the ultimate failure of any synthesis between the two sides. The second part of the thesis analyses the embodied forms of corporeal praxis and hedonism that developed …
abstract: This thesis examines the history and praxis of the left-radical Autonomous movement in West Germany, particularly in the case study of Hamburg’s Rote Flora: the symbolic centre of the European Autonomous ideology. Autonomie emerged in Germany after the ‘red decade’ of escalating terrorist violence from 1967 to 1977, which culminated in hijackings, murders, and kidnappings during the 1977 ‘German Autumn’. The consequences of this period set the stage for the 1978 Tunix Congress, where up to 20,000 activists gathered in West Berlin to re-think the nature and purpose of political protest. Left-radical practice thereafter rejected the use of terrorist violence, and effectively refused organised Leninist Marxism, teleological revolutionary politics, and solidarity with syndicalist organisations, all of which had been defining cornerstones of the transnational left until that point. During the following decades, left-radical practice instead focused upon the self-formation of political subjectivities, concerns with city space and gentrification, and embodied symbolic violence, all of which became the cornerstones of the Autonomous movement. The thesis is divided into two parts: the first examines the genealogy of Autonomous subjectivity after 1977. It presents the Senate’s city restructuring plans for the Schanzenviertel neighbourhood during the 1980s, against which Autonomists protested, ultimately occupying the building in 1989. The thesis portrays the occupation using 32 participant oral histories, and analyses State and Autonomous perspectives on language, contract negotiations, state pacification strategies, and the consequent breakdown of communication in the 1990s. Theoretically it builds on Hegel’s dialectical model of authority and subversion, as well as Lefebvre’s three levels of space, to present the ultimate failure of any synthesis between the two sides. The second part of the thesis analyses the embodied forms of corporeal praxis and hedonism that developed …
author: Jones, Allison
language: en
keywords: Autonomie, Political Protest, Political Violence, Protest, Autonomous movement, Germany, 1968, G20 Riot, Rote Flora, Autonomen, Hamburg, Black Block, Subjectivity, Political Resistance
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e0634c74-74c4-45c5-8446-e27d85afc20d/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2019-07-20
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:57Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.38028