Occupying Legality: The Subversive Use of Law in Latin American Occupation Movements

Abstract

The social movement tactic of occupying land, factories, and other workplaces has regained popularity in Latin America over the past decade. These occupations have garnered international attention due to the direct confrontation with neoliberalism that they embody, whilst less attention has been drawn to the particular use of law that underpins this confrontation. Through an examination of the use of law by the Landless Peasants' Movement in Bolivia and by the factory occupation movement in Argentina, this paper explores how these occupation movements have combined both an eschewal and embrace of law in what can be understood as a creative ‘radical legal praxis’. The paper sketches the contours of what a theorisation of this approach might look like and suggests that this particular engagement with law challenges traditional understandings of occupation movements and contains important possibilities for emancipatory resistance to neoliberalism.