OKUPÉ Collective – a Game of

Resistance

Magdalena Prusinowska, Piotr Kowzan

Otwarty Komitet Uwalniania Przestrzeni Édukacyjnych

[Open Commitee for Liberation of the Educational Space]

+ Doctoral Students Council – Faculty of Social Sciences, UG

+ Student Scientific Society Na Styku
+ Quality Assurance Committees
+ !reVOLT zine editors
+ PhD students in educational research

For a New Europe: University Struggles Against Austerity Paris 11-13.2.2011

Your 'given' character: a PhD student
Characteristics:

As a PhD student your are the product of the Bologna Process

As a first-year PhD student

You've just found out that you don't get any salary, any research
grants for 'new-comers' and your faculty doesn't provide any doctoral
scholarships
Legally you might be required to teach courses up to 90 h/year – you
receive no money for this work as it's part of your PhD studies
(unpaid internship)
You are not unionised
No contacts with “experienced” PhD students
You became PhD student together with friends from Student
Scientific Society NaStyku, i.e., semi-autonomous learning circle
 What are you going to do?

Speed up with your studies and leave university?

Migrate?
Occupy?
Write your thesis about that?
or.... what else?
Political Opportunity of the International
Flash Mob (International Student Movement Network)
Trying to count ourselves

...in a new and almost empty building

 Critical Mass?

The flash mob did not create any critical mass :(

Alienated activists: no working networks, no student unions, no email lists, no

media at the campus, no access to university facilities, security guards destroy
leaflets and zines

How do you play this game with no resources?

Any theories?
 Empty Signifier

'empty signifier' Ernesto Laclau 'On Populist Reason' (2005)

We decided to look for local issues which might concern

everybody...
 Surprising 'investments'
instead of scholarships, grants, etc.

Foto by Dominik Krzymiński

The fence as a uniting element for a multitude of small

grievances, claims and struggles?
 Locking Gates, Opening Eyes

Going clandestine...
 Building Signifier
fot. Łukasz Unterschuetz/trojmiasto.pl

...and how empty it was ;)

 Repressed without repressions
Authorities organised a series of meetings dealing with
particular demands separately.
It caused the collapse of our 'empty signifier'.
Dissolution of the structure of our movement.
Unfortunately, our mobilisation was suspended during
negotiations.

IT WAS ALL DESCRIBED IN THE BOOK, BUT WE

DIDN'T FINISH READING IT ON TIME!
 Other Actions and Campaigns
Campus Security, Prison-like Library and Educational Reforms
 Thank you!
The game is not over!

Now we focus on consciousness :)

We are going to publish our zine again
Please, send us short stories about your local experience
of global struggles

Our contacts
Piotr Kowzan: satkow [at] gmail
Magdalena Prusinowska: e.rudyka [at] gmail