Introduction

The summer of 2011 saw the largest occupation of public space in Greece in recent memory. Enraged by the government's austerity measures and following the example of the square occupations in Spain, thousands of people flooded Syntagma Square in the centre of Athens on 25 May 2011. Calling themselves ‘Αγανακτισμένοι’, meaning ‘Indignants’ in Greek, protesters stayed in the square for nearly two months, turning it into a stage of dissent and a place of political fermentation. This chapter explores the characteristics, practices and agency of the movement by focusing on space, both online and offline. We examine the Indignants’ repertoire of contention (Tilly, 1978) – the tactics that they employed to challenge the government, express their anger and construct alternatives – with an eye on the spatial aspects of this repertoire. In so doing, we provide a sense of the movement's ‘spatial agency’ (Sewell, 2001), of the ways in which the movement altered the physical arrangements and symbolic associations of space. At the same time, our inquiry also looks at how spaces – online, offline and hybrid – shape patterns of mobilisation and social movement activity. To provide a basis for this research, we begin with a framework for understanding both physical and mediated space and its relation with contentious politics.

Defining space

Space is often perceived as a ‘container’ of social life, a structure that restricts the activity unfolding within it, as something separate both from the meaning people give to it and of the actual uses and practices taking place ‘in space’ (Lehtovuori, 2010). However, such perspectives disregard the cultural aspects of space: how space is invested with particular symbolic meanings, rules and norms. Consequently, this view also fails to acknowledge that space both shapes and is itself constituted through the social relationships of the actors associated with its design, use and regulation (Martin and Miller, 2003).

Lefebvre's (1991) analysis of space as ‘produced’ by material practices of representation and everyday practices of appropriation helps to address this gap. Lefebvre identifies three types of space that together make a triad: perceived, conceived and lived.Perceived space refers to ‘the concrete space people encounter in their daily environment’ (Lefebvre, 1991, 39 and Soja, 2006 cited in Purcell, 2002, 102, emphasis added) (for example, shops, houses, parks).