Punk music and cinnamon buns. From everyday resistance to contentious politics in a 1980s Swedish autonomous center

ABSTRACT

During the 1980s, a number of new protest movements emerged that protested against the welfare state and right-wing politics. Influenced by punk, anarchism and the libertarian left, activists often met in so-called autonomous social centers. In many European countries, resistance became contentious, but resistance also took the form of everyday practices. The aim of this article is to study political resistance in the 1980s Sweden, carried out by the cultural association Ultra between 1980 and 1988. Based on theories of everyday resistance, contentious politics and prefigurative politics, ideas, and practices in Ultrahuset (the Ultra house) are examined. I study how the everyday resistance developed toward a more contentious resistance, as the relationship with the local authorities changed, and how the concept of prefigurative politics contributes to an understanding of the relationship between everyday practices and resistance. Source material consists of texts and illustrations produced in Ultrahuset, media material and interviews with former members. The result show that the activism in Ultrahuset can be understood as a way of doing prefigurative politics through everyday resistance, but also that during the 1980s, when the relation between Ultra and the surrounding society changed, the resistance also changed, becoming more outward-looking and contentious.

Introduction

In the early 1980s, a series of new social movements emerged across Europe and the United States. The left-wing radical movements of the 1970s had lost influence and a new generation of activists united in protest against increasing right- wing politics, capitalism and commercialism. During the 1980s, several waves of protests occurred in European cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Zurich, many of which became contentious and violent.¹ A number of new social movements arose in Sweden as well, but here, protests rarely turned violent. During the 1980s however, conflicts between the new social movements and the police and local authorities increased and protest became increasingly more contentious.²

During the 1980s, social movements consisting of loosely knit networks, where activists identified as punks, anarchists or left libertarians emerged in several countries all over Europe. The activists gathered in youth clubs, multiactivity houses or autonomous social centers. The centers, which were sometimes located in occupied houses and sometimes in houses rented by the municipality, were imbued by the punk and anarchist ideals of direct action and do-it-yourself (DIY). Criticism of the society, the state and right-wing politics was common as was criticism against the radical left-wing movements of the 1970s.³ Protest and resistance were generally different from those of traditional social movements, and political struggle was often conducted as a form of everyday resistance in an attempt to create the desired forward-looking society that was aspired to, by researchers often referred to as prefigurative politics.⁴

The cultural association Ultra can be seen as part of this broad social movement. Ultra emerged in Sweden in the early 1980s and operated out of Ultrahuset (the Ultra house) in Haninge, just outside Stockholm, from 1980 to 1988, when the association was evicted from the house. During these years, Ultrahuset became the venue for hundreds of concerts, and a place where mostly young people gathered from all over the Stockholm region. Ultra did not always make explicit political demands, and it was not unusual for Ultra and similar movements to be considered apolitical, not least by the media, and as if they were simply young people looking for something to do in their spare time. But even if they didn’t always express outwardly political demands or performed contentious politics, these movements were imbued with politics.⁵ When conflicts between Ultra and the local authorities in Haninge intensified during 1988, the political resistance also changed, becoming more outward-looking and contentious.

The purpose of this article is to examine political resistance in Ultrahuset between 1980 and 1988 and how the resistance changed during the decade. Research questions are: What resistance was formed in Ultrahuset and what repertoires of resistance were used? What significance did the place, Ultrahuset, and the relationships with the surrounding society have for the resistance that was shaped in the house during the decade? And lastly, can the resistance and activism in Ultrahuset be understood as forms of prefigurative politics? The result shows that activism in Ultra varied between everyday and contentious resistance and that both place and the context – in the sense of relationships with local authorities as well as with other social movements and activists – were important for the resistance and political struggle in Ultrahuset.

While many scholars have studied how everyday resistance or contentious politics are shaped and reshaped in social movements, fewer have studied how these are intertangled and how movements shift between them. The study thereby contributes with knowledge about how movements alter between different repertoires in relation to the relationships with the surrounding society, the place and temporality. There is also a lack of research about social movements and resistance in Sweden, especially in the 1980s, not least when it comes to activism in movements who were not violent or contentious.⁶ The activism in Ultrahuset, and in other similar places, should, however, be seen as precursors to the more outward-looking and militant social movements that emerged in Sweden in the late 1980s and 1990s.⁷ This makes it important to understand how resistance occurred and changed during the 1980s. Ultrahuset and the Swedish case is further interesting since political development in Sweden often has been described as having taken place primarily in consensus between social movements and authorities, something that lately has been questioned in research.⁸ The study nuances such a picture and shows how the activists oscillate between a desire to have a good relationship with the authorities and a desire to be autonomous and contentious.

Below I first describe the theoretical concepts prefigurative politics, everyday resistance, and contentious politics. Thereafter, I describe source material, methodology and analysis. After that I give a brief background to research about protest movements and autonomous centers in the 1980s Europe and Sweden. This is followed by analysis and results, where I first describe repertoires of resistance in Ultrahuset between 1980 and the beginning of 1988. Then, I discuss how the conflict between Ultrahuset and the local authorities increased and how repertoires of resistance increasingly became more contentious during 1988. Finally, I discuss the results in relation to the concepts everyday resistance, contentious politics and prefigurative politics and how we can understand the resistance that took place in the Ultrahuset.

Prefigurative politics in social movements

Social movement theorists have emphasized that social movements often consist of loosely organized networks and that collective identification, place and context is important for the development of the movements. Della Porta and Diani argue that social movements are ‘actors [that] are engaged in political and/or cultural conflicts meant to promote or oppose social change’,⁹ and Törnberg emphasizes that different forms of networking and social activities are important for social movements. The feelings of collective belonging that are created in movements are important for the resistance that is formed. Resistance, or collective belonging, does not arise in a material vacuum, and the physical location is important for the resistance that originates and how it is formed.¹⁰ Alberto Melucci, who described the new social movements that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, has described that everyday practices and networks should be seen as the basis of social movements and the place where identity formation and politics takes place. Therefore, we should study the variety of everyday practices and how they can be linked to each other.¹¹ Places like bars, music studios, festivals and social centers are understood as political sites where ideas are formed, and different kinds of protest and resistance develops and take place.¹²

With the concept ‘prefigurative politics’, researchers have emphasized social movements various attempts to implement one’s political vision by staging the desired society.¹³ Prefigurative politics has temporal pretensions and Creasap argues that prefigurative politics is made possible because means and ends are not given but develop continuously as movements experiment with alternative futures.¹⁴ Places are important for the prefiguration, as different places enable different forms of politics and resistance. With the concept prefigurative politics, we can understand how social movements make resistance through everyday practices and how meaning-making, identification and political struggle are constructed in relation to specific places.

Everyday resistance

One way to understand and examine prefigurative politics and resistance in social movements that are network-based and do not have a public political agenda or clearly stated political demands is to use the concept of ‘everyday resistance’.¹⁵ Vinthagen and Johansson define everyday resistance as:

… how people act in their everyday lives in ways that might undermine power. Everyday resistance is not easily recognized like public and collective resistance – such as rebellions or demonstrations – but it is typically hidden or disguised, individual, and not politically articulated’.¹⁶

Everyday practices that challenge – or intend to challenge – a prevailing order can be understood as resistance. This may involve studying how different hegemonic discourses are challenged and how power relations are constructed and reconstructed in ‘ordinary speech and in everyday acts of resistance’.¹⁷ However, not all actions that involve opposing norms or rules should be understood as resistance. According to Vinthagen and Johansson, everyday resistance is actions that are part of everyday life, and they should potentially challenge or undermine existing power structures. Furthermore, these actions take place in specific places and the resistance is placed in a context that is important for how and what is carried out. Hence, the importance of the context and location play a major role in how resistance develops.¹⁸ Everyday resistance should not be understood as an opposition to contentious or more organized resistance or as linked to political ideas, but as a specific form of resistance that often precedes – or is parallel to – more contentious resistance. Social movements are dynamic, and they tend to move back-and-forth between contentious politics and everyday resistance. A movement that initially practices everyday resistance regularly shifts to a more contentious resistance if contradictions with the environment increase.¹⁹ Everyday resistance is thus understood as an integral and recurring part of everyday social life and a way of challenging hegemonic discourses about how society should be organized and can be understood as a way of doing prefigurative politics.²⁰

Contentious politics

Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow have, among others, developed the concept of contentious politics.²¹ Studies of contentious politics study collective actors’ contentious claims against the state or other actors. The forms and claims of the actions depend on the surrounding context and the opportunities that the context creates. In outward-looking collective protests, actors often use different repertoires of contention inspired by other actors and social movements.²² Repertories are understood as the various claim-making performances that are available through collective and cultural discourses. Della Porta means that ‘a repertoire of contention is constrained in both time and space. In any given period, knowledge concerning ‘“what is to be done” to protest is limited/—/repertoires contain the options considered practicable’.²³ Different actors has different repertoires through previous relationships and contacts. But repertoires change and evolve, and new repertoires are created through collective protest and resistance.

Material, method and analysis

The study is based on three different categories of source material. The main analysis is based on texts and illustrations produced by members of Ultrahuset during the time period in question. In the booklet ‘Ultralandet’ a large variety of material from Ultrahuset has been collected by a former member. The booklet includes posters, flyers, illustrations, letters and other texts written by members before, during and right after the occupation of Ultrahuset in 1988. The booklet also includes several comic strips, drawn and written by members of Ultra at the time.²⁴ In addition to this, I have studied photos, letters, flyers and posters for concerts, festivals and other events produced by members of Ultra, shared with me by former members. All together this material consists of about one hundred pages of written material.

The second category I use is media material. The booklet ‘Ultrahuset’ includes more than one hundred articles from various daily newspapers and magazines that reported on Ultra. I have studied these articles (mainly the largest daily newspapers Expressen, Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet, but also others, for example, Arbetaren and Ny Dag).²⁵ I have also watched two reports on Ultra by Swedish television (SVT).²⁶ The third category of material is interviews. Four semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in 2019, with former members of Ultra.²⁷ I asked questions about what they did in the association, their political involvement and how they reflect on their time in Ultrahuset. I have also used literature in which members of Ultra have been interviewed and to varying degrees talk about their time in the house. A total of four such books exist, which has also been used as source material.²⁸ The interviews and the books have given me an insight and an understanding of how members experienced their time in Ultrahuset. At the same time, it is important to be aware that interviews about the past need to be examined particularly critically. Our memories are filtered through recent events and memories change over time.²⁹ The interviews are therefore used as a complement to the other material, and I see the material (texts and illustrations) produced by members in Ultra as the most important.

Overall, the material is rich and provides access to the ideas and texts that were produced when Ultra conducted their activities in the house. At the same time, the material is scattered and of course, not everyone who visited Ultrahuset gets to speak. Therefore, I do not claim any comprehensive and coherent picture of what happened there, I have missed important events and individual members probably have different opinions about what happened or about their involvement in politics. However, since the analysis includes different types of materials, which all are pointing to the same result, the outcome is seen as both interesting and important for the understanding of resistance in the Ultra house. Since the study contains political views that can potentially be perceived as sensitive, all named persons in the material have been anonymized.

To analyze everyday resistance and contentious politics in the material collected, I have been inspired by Johanssons and Vinthagens analytical framework ‘dimensions of everyday resistance’, which in turn is inspired by Charles Tilly and the concept of repertoires of contention’.³⁰ If we want to understand resistance, we should analyze four ‘dimensions’, according to Johansson and Vinthagen. Those are 1) repertoires, 2) relationships between actors, 3) space/place and 4) temporality. The dimensions are interrelated and interdependent on each other and often run into each other, and they can be used to analyze everyday as well as contentious resistance. The first dimension, repertoires, concerns what repertoires the activists used and had access to and how these changed during time. The second dimension, relationships, concerns relationships with, for example, local authorities and other social movements and what significance they had for the resistance. The third dimension concerns space and place and deals with what meaning place, in this case Ultrahuset, had for the activists and the resistance that was formed.³¹ The fourth dimension, temporality, deals with how resistance can be understood in relation to time, temporality and prefigurative politics. The four dimensions are all linked to the study’s research questions about what resistance and what repertoires that were conducted in Ultrahuset and how resistance changed during time, what significance the place (Ultrahuset) had and how relationship to authorities and other social movements mattered and how temporal claims and prefigurative politics mattered. In the analysis, I have read the material several times and manually coded the material based on the four dimensions. I then analyzed which everyday practices and repertoires of contention that were related to political ideas expressed in texts, illustrations and interviews and what notions the four dimensions had for the resistance that were formed.

Research about protest, resistance, autonomous centers, punk and anarchism in the 1980s Europe …

Contemporary research has increasingly paid attention to the various protest movements that emerged in the 1980s and studied them from different perspectives. For example, researchers have shown how waves of revolt and violent protests emerged in Europe during the 1980s.³² Punk and anarchism were often central to the new protest movements. Punk can be understood as a social and political movement with several common values such as the criticism of right-wing politics, neoliberalism and commercialism and was often intertangled with anarchism. Do-it-yourself (DIY) and direct action were key common values. The idea was not to wait for someone else to create change, but to take the initiative and create the desired change by yourself.³³ The ideals of direct action and DIY became important to activists’ drive to fight for the possibility of running autonomous centers and create spaces where they could try to create the society they wanted.³⁴ Lundström shows that the emergence of punk and the renewal of anarchism in the 1980s led to a new and dynamic movement where specific repertoires of contention, drawn from a historical tradition and other contemporary movements, were transformed into activism and collective action.³⁵

The new social movements were often organized through loosely knit networks centered in various occupied or rented houses, often called autonomous or social centers.³⁶ During the 1980s, autonomous centers became increasingly common all over Europe. Many, in particular young people, struggled to gain access to empty and abandoned houses, where they could run their own business and avoid the control and scrutiny of local authorities. The centers usually contained cafés and rehearsal rooms and hosted concerts and other cultural activities. However, demonstrations, occupations and other political protests were also planned and prepared for. Creasap argues that social centers are excellent for studying social movements and prefigurative politics because there is an experimentation with ‘alternative ways of living, working and engaging’ there, and ’political perspectives’ and ’social norms’ are challenged.³⁷ In social centers discussions and arguments are made, and new ideas are tested and spread to the wider society.

Although a variety of young people with different political sympathies gathered in the centers, a majority identified as punks or sympathized with the ideals of punk, anarchism and left libertarian politics. Others saw themselves a ‘antipolitical’ and were against all forms of institutional politics. The centers functioned as nodes for the movements and contacts and ideas were exchanged between activists in different countries, and when it comes to squatting, it was common for squatters to go to support squatters in other countries.³⁸

Different terms have been used for these places such as autonomous centers, social centers, youth clubs or multiactivity centers. The important thing for many activists was to run the business without the involvement of the authorities, something that was done sometimes but not always and sometimes was the boundary between what can be considered as ‘autonomous’ or as the municipality’s ‘youth center’ blurred.³⁹ In this study, I use the term ‘autonomous center’ when referring to Ultra, even though Ultrahuset cannot be considered autonomous in the sense that the business was run entirely without the involvement of the municipality. I will discuss and problematize this below.

… and in Sweden

The social movements and political resistance that arose in Sweden in the 1980s have received little attention in research, something that also applies to the more contentious political and autonomous movements that arose in Sweden from the 1990s and onwards.⁴⁰ Some research has been done though. In Sweden, the claims for autonomous centers exploded in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Polanska and Wåg discuss the fact that in many Swedish cities, the local authorities thought that young people needed something to do in their spare time and social centers, in Sweden often called ‘multiactivity houses’ (allaktivitetshus) were considered to be a good alternative.⁴¹ In Sweden, there were many empty and abandoned houses at the time, and there was an existing infrastructure of association grants, municipal activities and music networks that associations could take advantage of. These factors contributed to the rapid increase of autonomous social centers where young people ran various activities during the decade.⁴² In the Stockholm region there were among others Vita huset in Täby, Pinkruset in Åkersberga and Oasen, Ultrahuset, Enkehuset and Lokalen, and later Kafé 44, in central Stockholm. In Malmö, there was, for example, Vinterpalatset and in Gothenburg Sprängkullen. These places became nodes for activism during the 1980s.⁴³ In addition to this, there were also the many houses that were occupied or houses that young people tried to occupy and start various businesses in.⁴⁴

Hannerz and Persson has argued that the politics that these movements criticized was precisely the politics that made the criticism possible, something the activists often seem to have been aware of.⁴⁵ Thörn and Polanska, who have studied squatting in Gothenburg in Sweden in the 1980s, show how the occupations were surrounded by a desire for dialogue and cooperation between squatters and authorities. While the squatters strove for autonomy and self-determination, they were also keen on a good relationship with the local authorities, something that Thörn has termed ‘welfare-state anarchism’ as a way of denoting the complexity and ambivalence that prevailed in several movements.⁴⁶ This has also been discussed by Egefur in relation to the Winter palace in Malmö.⁴⁷

In their study of contentious politics during the second half of the 20^th century in Sweden, Peterson, Thörn and Wahlström shows that the period is characterized by consensus, compromise and dialogue between social movements and the state. However, they also conclude that the period also contained more contentious and confrontative protests, strikes and riots.⁴⁸ The autonomous movement, which was formed in the late 1980s, became increasingly violent and militant during the 1990s. The movement grew out of the anarchist squatting movement of the 1980s and shared, for example, criticism of housing policy, commercialism and anti-parliamentarism.⁴⁹ In the late 1980s, activists began using the term ‘autonomous’ instead of ‘anarchist’. Creasap, who has studied contemporary autonomous movements in Sweden, describes that the activists saw ‘autonomous’ as freer than anarchism, which was considered to refer to a firmer ideological conviction.⁵⁰

Jämte and Sörbom have discussed why the social movements in Sweden did not become as radical and militant during the 1980s as many other movements in Europe. They give five tentative explanations to why contentious riots did not occur in Sweden until the late 1980s, that is, 1) the relatively good Swedish economy during the decade, 2) a strong corporativist tradition between the state and social movements, 3) a tradition of consensus-based repertories, 4) organizations to the left were relatively institutionalized and 5) the anarchists strategies that focused more on withdrawing from society than confronting it.⁵¹ Although it seems true that social movements did not become militant until the end of the decade, this study shows that protest and resistance did arose, but in different forms, during the 1980s in Sweden.

The cultural association ultra and the ultra house

The cultural association Ultra was founded in 1979 in Handen, Haninge municipality, south of Stockholm. The members of the society, mostly youths or adolescents, had been organizing music events in various locations in Handen for some time. They aimed to secure their own premises and start an autonomous social center where they could organize concerts and other cultural activities. At the time, there were many empty houses in Handen, and inspired by the DIY- ideal, the members photographed houses they could imagine taking over and thereafter invited themselves to a town hall meeting. The members in Ultra thought the case would need to be argued for, but the municipal officials were positive, and the members were given permission through a contract, without proprietary rights, to use a house that came to be called Ultrahuset.⁵²

Ultra operated out of Ultrahuset between 1980 and 1988 when the contract was terminated, due to the municipality’s plan to demolish the house and build housing on the same site. During the years in the Ultra house, the cultural association Ultra received grants to conduct its activities and periodically individuals were employed by the municipality to work in the house.⁵³ Over the years, hundreds of music concerts were arranged, which were the mainstay of activities. Other activities that were arranged were textile printing and silversmithing, and several other activities were being planned.⁵⁴ Most of the bands that played in Ultrahuset were Swedish and relatively unknown, but a few international bands also played here, for example, the American band Black Flag.⁵⁵ During the 1980s, Ultrahuset became a central meeting place for many young people, who spent a large part of their free time there. Some members even lived in the house periodically.

Newspapers, radio and television reported on Ultrahuset on several occasions, initially presenting Ultra in positive terms. On one occasion the chair of the cultural committee in Haninge municipality emphasized that the association had made the municipality known throughout the country and even abroad, and stated that it was a ‘lively association with a fantastic range of activities’.⁵⁶ In another media reportage the municipality’s head of culture, highlighted Ultra as a model for other associations and said: ‘Ultra is and has always been an example of how to run an association. Their accounts every year are always better than most other associations’.⁵⁷ One thing that the media almost always highlighted in their reports from the Ultra House, was that for each concert, cinnamon buns were baked and sold at a cost price. The freshly baked cinnamon buns came to be a symbol for Ultra.⁵⁸

Repertoires of everyday resistance

At first sight, it is not obvious that the activities in Ultrahuset were part of a political agenda or can be understood as resistance or prefigurative politics. If we look more closely though, we can see how the everyday practices were permeated by political ideas about how society should be set up and several of the practices in Ultrahuset can be understood as repertoires of everyday resistance and expressions of prefigurative politics.

On several occasions, members expressed resistance to hierarchies and that they were striving for an equal society. The society had no official chairperson or board, which can be understood as an expression of questioning hierarchies and an attempt to create a nonhierarchical organization.⁵⁹ At one occasion, a child was appointed president of the association, something that also can be understood as opposition to how associations should traditionally be organized and a challenge to existing norms of child – adult relations.⁶⁰

Ultra’s statues stated that anyone crossing the threshold of the house automatically became a member and solidarity with others was expressed as being important. Payment of entrance fees to the concerts was therefore optional. In one interview, a former member expressed that there was a shortage of places for those who did not have any money and added that ‘rich people had to pay twenty Swedish crowns.⁶¹ Another member expressed that ‘we let everyone in who did not have any money. Probably two-thirds paid’.⁶² Furthermore, any band that wanted to play in the house, regardless of quality or competence, was allowed to play. According to the members, there was a list in the kitchen, where the bands that wanted to play were written down and they were then allowed to play in turn.⁶³ Several members expressed that it was important for them to run their activities independently of the authorities. One member expressed in an interview that ‘we did not want to have anything to do with the municipality. We wanted our own place without their interference. If you let the authorities in, it becomes a “youth center” and that was the last thing we wanted’.⁶⁴

Some members thought that the media image of Ultra had become ‘too nice’ and that there had been too much focus on the cinnamon buns, ‘it’s buns and raspberry juice’, the member stated and another member said that, ‘it’s not just nice, there’s also a lot of alcohol’.⁶⁵ Another member said that there were a lot of ‘clichés about buns in the media’, but that ‘there was also a political awareness’.⁶⁶ By highlighting alcohol and political awareness, some members tried to maintain the image of Ultrahuset as a rebellious place where norms were broken. Through these everyday practices, the association challenged – or tried to challenge – the norms and values that they perceived as dominant in society. Having an optional entrance fee, resisting norms around presidency and membership, baking and selling cinnamon buns at a cost price and allowing any band that wanted, to play – without exception – are understood as repertoires of everyday resistance.

The everyday resistance goes hand in hand with Ultra’s explicitly expressed ideas about how society should be organized. In text, posters and slogans produced at the Ultra house, members expressed that the society was permeated by capitalist and commercial values and expressed a wish to create a place that was nonhierarchical and egalitarian.⁶⁷ Throughout the years, messages were scribbled on the walls in the building and posters with slogans such as ‘Liberate the culture’, ‘Where capitalism prevails, peace cannot exist’ and ‘Nationalism breeds war’ were produced and disseminated.⁶⁸ Many activists expressed that they were anti- political, and anti-politics was used as a form of subversive challenge to what was seen as the rationality of society. Messages about ‘voting for nobody’ or that you should be against all politics were paradoxically permeated with political significance and resistance.⁶⁹ The ideal of DIY can be understood as a political stance and as resistance to a culture that was said to pacify citizens.⁷⁰ There were no requirements for professionalism at Ultra, nor any expectations that others would act in your place. The ideal of DIY contributed to a sense of self-confidence and the feeling that something could be done. Worley has highlighted how the creation of fanzines for punks became an alternative to other media that was considered to be commercial and distorted. The ideal of DIY created quickness and a sense of ‘cultural ownership’.⁷¹ Ultrahuset opened up a cultural space and became a place that enabled criticism of societal values and a place to test, shape and defend one’s own cultural and political creation without anyone deciding what was good or bad or who was considered competent or not. Ultrahuset can thereby be seen as a cultural arena where culture and politics were expressed in new and creative ways and where the focus was on everyday life in the present rather than on utopias and outwardly confrontational protests.⁷²

In Ultrahuset members challenged, criticized, and distanced themselves from the societal ideals that the members rejected. The place in itself, the house, became specifically important for the activities and the politics that took shape. The members saw it as important that the association was run by themselves, and they wanted to be autonomous in relation to the municipality, but at the same time, they were aware that they in part were dependent on the municipality, especially when it came to grants and access to the house. In this way, they can be seen as the welfare-state anarchists that Thörn has written about. The members wished to have a good relationship with the local authorities and initially behaved exemplarly, according to the municipality’s statements. At the same time, we can see that there was a desire for autonomy and freedom and a desire to challenge societal norms among the activists.

The everyday practices in Ultra are understood as repertoires of everyday resistance and as prefigurative politics where the activists tried to create the society they wanted here and now.⁷³ The members did not wait for the desired society to be established, but tried to make Ultrahuset what they called, a ‘free zone’.

Increasing conflicts and changing repertoires

During the first seven years that Ultra operated out of Ultrahuset, external political protests and contentious resistance were uncommon. As long as the members in Ultra were able to conduct their activities without major involvement of the municipality, the resistance took place without any major contradictions and conflicts with the authorities and without further involvement by the municipality. On the contrary, as mentioned before the municipality praised the association on several occasions in the media. In the end of the 1980s though a conflict between Ultra and the municipality arose. And as the relationship with the authorities changed and conflicts increased, so did the repertoires of resistance. Resistance got both more contentious and more outward-looking and repertoires of contention, inspired by European protest movements, became more common. The criticism directed at the municipality, the state and the society at large got increasingly harsh and new repertoires of resistances were practiced. In the struggle to keep Ultrahuset, political demands and values were formulated more explicitly.

In 1987, the municipality wanted to terminate the contract for Ultrahuset because of plans to build housing on the same site. Ultra saw it as a matter of course that they would either get to stay in Ultrahuset, or that they would be offered equivalent alternatives, ‘we have every right to demand the little we have!’, members wrote in a statement.⁷⁴ From the beginning, Ultra was offered several options to the house, but all were rejected by the association. Ultra considered the offers unacceptable, either because they were too small or not adapted to the activities they wanted to arrange, and because only short-term contracts were offered.⁷⁵ No solution was found and in the spring of 1988 the municipality finally terminated the contract for the building.⁷⁶

The members at Ultra continued to negotiate and tried to find alternatives, but no solution was found and the tone between the association and the municipality hardened. On 10 June 1988, a group of members decided to occupy the building. The contract on the house was valid until September, but at the same time as they declared Ultrahuset as occupied, two adjacent empty buildings were also occupied. The association announced that they had occupied the Ultra house, a statement that fueled the increasing conflict with the municipality. Some members started to build barricades around the house and proclaimed the place to be ‘liberated land’ and ‘Ultra land’. ⁷⁷ Banners declaring ‘Where Sweden ends’ and with the Swedish expression ‘Nu blir det andra bullar’ (which means something like ‘now it’s time for something else’, playing with the Swedish word ‘bullar’ which means ‘buns’) were hung at the entrance. ⁷⁸ A press group called Ultras befrielsefront (the Ultra liberation front, U.B.F.) was formed and were made responsible for communication with the media and to formulate the associations claims. U.B.F. described Ultra as a nonprofit and politically independent cultural association and claimed that Ultra had tried to achieve their demands through legal recourse such as protest lists and petitions, but that this was no longer possible, and therefore they had decided to occupy the house. The municipality was criticized for ‘top-down management’⁷⁹ and the municipal officials for taking only financial benefits into account.⁸⁰

Repertoires of contention and contradictory ideals

As tensions increased and the conflict was intensified, everyday resistance was replaced by a more outward-looking resistance and repertoires of contention. Barricades, including barbed wire, were built around the house. U.B.F. told the media that the aim was to take over the house. The intention was to not give up until they were told that they could stay, and the place was proclaimed as ‘the liberated zone of Ultra land’.⁸¹

The police initially took a cautious approach. As the contract for Ultrahuset was valid until September, and the occupation had started in June, both the police and the municipality declared that they did not intend to intervene, while the contract was still in place.⁸² Initially, therefore, activities in Ultrahuset mainly continued as usual, apart from the barricades and that a group of members always slept in the house. Some members also started a café in one of the adjacent occupied buildings. Despite several attempts to agree on a new location, no agreement was reached. On June 21, media reported that the municipality had stated that the squatters should be out of the two other occupied buildings on that same day, but that they could stay in Ultrahuset until 20 September 1988.⁸³ In the following weeks, a lot of reports were written about the occupation of Ultrahuset and the repertoires of resistance that members showcased in media had a much more contentious approach.

A group of squatters started to wear black masks and collected paving stones. They expressed that it was to defend themselves in case of police intervention. In the media broadcast, images of squatters in black masks preparing for conflict with the police were shown. One of the squatters stated that, ‘it depends on the police if there is going to be violence, we are prepared to defend our house’.⁸⁴ Others explained that they were prepared to meet police violence with violence and that if the police came, ‘we will defend ourselves’.⁸⁵ Another member threateningly expressed that, ‘the moment the police pass the first barricade, we start throwing’.⁸⁶ It was now a fiercely confrontational rhetoric that members expressed, far from the previous one, with members talking mainly about community, equality and cinnamon buns. The circumstances surrounding the contract on the house, and the demolition of the contract, highlighted the conflicts and the fact that the associations autonomy was not so autonomous after all, and that the association in fact was dependent on the municipality. The repertoires of resistance that were used, were clearly inspired by European protest movements, where black masks, violent resistance and throwing paving stones had increased over the decade.

Fighting with humor

Humor and satire were used to express critical and controversial opinions about the municipality, politicians, the state, and society in general and accompanied the repertoires of contention that were used. In comics, posters and flyers, members voiced their views on the society’s power relations, values and what was expressed as the society’s one-sided focus on commercial interests. Local municipal officials and politicians were ridiculed and described as profit-hungry, coldhearted, and devious. In the comic strip ‘Bezettlers comics and the murderer politicians’ (‘Bezatta serier och Mördarpolitikerna’) politicians and ‘bureaucrats’ were depicted as if all they cared about was building houses and making money. Politicians were accused of wanting to destroy Ultra and were described as if they were not caring at all about culture or what would happen to the members.⁸⁷ In one comic strip, a local councilor, who had previously described relations with Ultra as good, was drawn saying:

You should not be allowed to have anything. Our municipality is too nice for you pigs. You make less profit than McDonald’s, so you are not entitled to exist. No more comments. As a representative of the people, I do not give a damn about what you say. Goodbye.⁸⁸

In another image, a politician from the local council is drawn saying: ‘Well, actually this is happening because we don’t care about the human side. We only care about the MONEY’.⁸⁹ In another comic strip, the same politician is drawn saying: ‘The puppies (“brats”) have scientists, celebrities, the cultural elite and the public opinion on their side. You cannot have anything. We have to beat them with weapons.’⁹⁰

The previously good relationship with the municipality, in which Ultra repeatedly had been held up as a role model, had now disappeared, and instead the rhetoric from Ultra was harsh and confrontational. Ultra directed its criticism toward local politicians and bureaucrats, but also to politicians and bureaucrats in general. Bureaucrats were described as simply complying with laws and regulations without considering those who were affected. Politicians were portrayed as ‘yes men’ who were afraid to say what they really thought and as if they were driven solely by profit and making as much money as possible.⁹¹

The aesthetics of the comics and posters were similar to contemporary punk aesthetics, with for example, quickly illustrated fanzines, which also included similar critiques of power relations, conventional values and commercialism. Worley argues that the ideal of DIY contributed to this aesthetic ideal, where new forms of politics were created. The DIY ideal were important for the shaping of the political struggle, both because the aesthetics allowed for quickly constructed comics and pamphlets, which did not require perfect expressions or drawings, and because the ideal of self-advocacy contributed to action.⁹² Worley highlights these factors as contributing to many political actions and to the sense of creativity and ‘cultural ownership’ of many punks and anarchists during this period.⁹³ The seemingly self-evident attitude, that is represented by members in Ultra, that they had the right to a place, helped to bring members together and act politically and the aesthetics of DIY strengthened the political message.

Dreams of a different society

It was not only the criticism of society that was sharpened in the struggle for the Ultra house. When Ultra was threatened by dismissal, the temporality of the political messages appeared more clearly and the society that the members wished for and had tried to create took shape and became more visible. Ultrahuset was described as a place where it was possible to live ‘a meaningful life’ with a ‘culture created and used by people themselves’.⁹⁴ Ultra’s culture was described as ‘authentic’ and the opposite of commercial culture. Ultra was said to stand for romance, love and joy and as a place where you could breathe, an oasis.⁹⁵ In a text directed to the municipality Ultra wrote:

Revolutionary romantics, they say in a condescending tone. Of course we are romantics! What would life be without romance and myths? Romance makes life worth living! What do they have? Laws, regulations, paragraphs, a boring life as a machine for production and the need for events mediated by television. FUCK OFF! We have life, love, a damn mess, hate and joy. How do we want to live? IMAGINATION TO POWER FOR FUCK’S SAKE!⁹⁶

The emphasis here was on imagination, love, and romance. Emotions such as love, joy and romance were contrasted with a hard and cynical lifestyle and Ultra was described as a ‘cultural free zone with few equals’.⁹⁷ By criticizing commercialism and capitalism (e.g. that a municipal activity needs to be financially sustainable) and instead emphasizing that values such as imagination, romance and joy should be guiding principles, capitalism was criticized. In the contentious situation that prevailed, the members were forced to formulate their demands and visions for the future. Views on how society should be organized, how life should be lived, and which values should prevail were shaped and reshaped. It is obvious that strong emotions played a significant role and that feelings about the place, Ultrahuset, contributed to the rhetoric used and the contentious politics that were formed.

Feelings and collective identification

As the conflict intensified, new repertoires were used, influenced by other more militant protest movements and where resistance was performed through contentious politics. The prefigurative politics was thus constructed in part through the contextual resistance the association faced and should not be understood as something ready-made, but as something that was produced in relation to the place and the contextual changes. As Worley has shown was the case with punks and fanzines in England, Ultrahuset allowed an opportunity for people to act and express themselves politically and created a platform that enabled new forms of cultural and political struggle. Resistance, repertoires, and political ideas were formed in Ultrahuset in relation to the place and changing context.⁹⁸ Place is intertwined with collective identities and political resistance. Mikkelsen and Karpantschof have described how squatters form a tight community in and around occupied houses. In those communities, collective identities are formed through organized resistance to outsiders, which contributes to mobilization and engagement.⁹⁹ So, when the conflict between the municipality and Ultrahuset were intensified and the relation between them got more contentious, the collective identification and feelings for the place among activists were strengthened. Ultrahuset got a much wider meaning to the members than just a physical location. During the years, it had become a second home for many young people who spent almost all their free time there. U.B.F. proclaimed that: ‘…after eight years of hard work, rock and roll and all the traces of it that are in our walls in Ultrahuset, we have become attached to our house and we love it’.¹⁰⁰ The association had literally made the house their own and visitors had left their mark on the house by scribbling names and slogans on the walls.¹⁰¹ The fact that the members had run the activities in the house themselves, more or less without interference of the municipality, created self-confidence and a strong collective identity and community.¹⁰² The location of the house was also important; it was located relatively central in Haninge and easy to reach by commuter train, but at the same time a bit outside the city center, next to a forest, which meant that the activities could be carried on more or less undisturbed.

Representations of contention

As we have seen the repertoires of contention increase when conflicts with the surrounding society become more conflictual. The municipality also sensed the more contentious atmosphere in Ultrahuset. One of the local politicians who visited Ultra during the occupation, told the press that the meeting ‘ended unpleasantly – I felt personally threatened when I left’.¹⁰³ However, the repertories of contentious and violent resistance were never put into practice, they became, more or less, merely representations of contention. The most violent act that took place during the approximately two-month-long occupation was when a group of squatters smashed windows at a glass case in Haninge town hall. The glass case contained a statute that had been given to Ultra by Dagens Nyheter (one of Sweden’s largest daily newspapers) as a prize for being the ‘Cultural association of the Year’.¹⁰⁴ However, other members of Ultra distanced themselves from the event. One member expressed in interviews with the press that those who wore black masks and walked around with iron pipes looked ridiculous.¹⁰⁵ Everyone has the right to resist in their own way, but if the police came, the member stated, he would, ‘stand on the stairs and sing the Ultra song’.¹⁰⁶ This was a clear standpoint for nonviolent repertoires.

Whilst violent confrontations between squatters and the police never broke out, and repertoires of contentious politics ended up being merely representations of contention, the end of the occupation, however, became somewhat violent. In late August 1988, after more than two months of occupation, a rumor was spread that armed police were to storm the house.¹⁰⁷ The media reported on the police’s plans to evict the squatters.¹⁰⁸ After a ‘resistance festival’ with several bands playing, organized by Ultra, members gathered in the house to discuss what to do if the police showed up and whether they should actively resist or not. At the end of the evening, those present agreed that nothing more could be done to save Ultrahuset . The squatters, about a hundred of them, decided to move to one of the houses that the municipality previously had offered them, in order to occupy that house instead. When all the squatters had left Ultrahuset , someone set fire to the house, which was burned down to the ground. The next day, the police arrived at the new location and arrested 103 squatters.¹⁰⁹ One former member describes the course of events:

Bitter meetings were held throughout the evening. The Ultra land was kept in a chaotic state of shock, but cars were arranged for a move. When the music ended, as much as possible of the unique Ultra world was moved/…/endless hours of adrenaline and shock. The area is emptying out. THE ULTRALAND IS BURNING!/…/An increasingly large police force watches over the crowd as it is escorted through Handen to Häggv. 2. The press drops away and preparations begin for the rest of the music festival. Then the police storming force arrives! 103 people are arrested for trespassing and arson while the city council leaders rub their hands together.¹¹⁰

The events marked the end of the era that Ultrahuset had represented. However, several members of Ultra later continued their activities in other locations.

As the context changed, especially the relationship with local authorities, so did the resistance in Ultrahuset. Political messages and ideals were sharpened and expressed more explicitly as members were forced to fight for their cause. Different repertoires of contention were represented during the occupation. Through these repertoires a collective identification with other activists, places and movements was formed and the activists presented themselves as part of a larger movement of resistance where ideals of autonomy, anticapitalism, anarchism and anti-parliamentarism were central ideas.¹¹¹

Although some members of Ultra tried to introduce a more contentious and militant resistance, violent clashes between squatters and the surrounding community were rare. The resistance can be understood as a form of welfare-state anarchism, where members on the one hand were challenging hegemonic norms and wanted to live autonomously and independently of authorities, but on the other hand were keen on having a good relationship with the municipality. They were aware of the fact that it was the welfare state society that had made possible the prefigurative politics that they performed. The repertoires of contention used, reflected this ambivalence, and violent resistance never broke out, despite threats of violent resistance.

Concluding discussion – from everyday resistances to contentious politics

In the article, I have analyzed the political resistance that was formed in Ultrahuset between 1980 and 1988. I have studied what everyday and contentious resistance that was conducted in the house and how the resistance changed during the decade, what repertoires of contention that were used, how everyday practices were related to resistance and what the significance of place, relationships and temporality had for the resistance that were developed. In order to answer the research questions, I analyzed four dimensions of everyday and contentious resistance: repertoires, relations, place and temporality. The analysis shows that many of the everyday practices in Ultrahuset can be understood as repertoires of everyday resistance, where hegemonic societal norms were challenged. The analysis also demonstrates that as the relation to the surrounding society changed and conflicts with the local authorities increased, the repertoires and nature of the political struggle also changed. During the occupation of Ultrahuset, relations between the municipality and Ultrahuset grew more contentious and at the same time some squatters began to use repertoires of contention inspired by militant European protest movements. At the same time, resistance also became more organized, with for example a ‘press group’, and political ideas became more explicitly expressed as well as the dreams of a future ideal society.

In Ultrahuset, representations of violent and contentious resistance were thereby juxtaposed with representations of everyday resistance. Ericsson has described how two different political cultures met in the 1982 occupation of the fire station in Jönköping in Sweden, and that local politicians represented a culture where discussions and collaboration were common, while the squatters communicated a more violent conflict repertoire, with black masks and paving stones, drawn on from the European squatter movement. But when the police attacked the squatters, the squatters lacked violent capital and the black masks remained representations of repertoires of contention.¹¹² Also in Ultrahuset , direct confrontations with the municipality were few and faced with the threat that the police would storm the building, the members chose to remove to another building instead of staying and make violent resistance. Thereby, the contentious repertoires remained representations of violent resistance.

We have seen how repertoires (everyday and contentious), relationships (to the municipality and to other protest movements), place (Ultrahuset), and temporality (dreams of the future as well as trying to create the future here and now) were important for the resistance that was conducted in Ultrahuset. The resistance in Ultrahuset can be seen as prefigurative politics in which activists tried to orchestrate the future society they dreamed of through everyday resistance. As the relationship with the surrounding society hardened, the prefigurative became more visible and the ideal society, the dream of an autonomous future without interference from the surrounding society and Ultrahuset as ‘liberated land’ and a free zone, was explicitly stated in texts, illustrations and statements. However, while some activists identified with a European militant anarchist squatting movement, where repertoires of violent resistance were represented, others identified with a more sedate ideal, what has been labeled as a kind of welfare-state anarchism, where historical ideals of passive resistance and cooperation with the authorities have been strong and where activists emphasize the meaning of a good relationship between activists and authorities. The activists in Ultrahuset, though wanting to be autonomous, seem to have been aware of the fact that the autonomous struggle was not quite so autonomous, but in fact dependent on the authorities. The activists had an ambivalent attitude toward violence and contentious politics and repertoires of resistance were linked to both militant repertoires from European protest movements and to the historical Swedish ideal of conscientiousness and negotiations. In the end, faced with the threat of police intervention, the activists left the building by themselves. At the same time, someone set fire to the house, which burned down to the ground. The ambivalent attitude to politics and resistance can also be illustrated by the fact that symbolic for Ultrahuset and its members, was both ‘punk’ and ‘cinnamon buns’.

Ethical review

The study underwent an ethical review and was approved 10 January 2019, by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (2019/5:1)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.), A Euoropean Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social movements in the 1980s (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); H. Hill and A. Brink Pinto (Eds.), Social movements in 1980s Sweden. Contention in the welfare state (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023); B. van der Steen, A. Katzeff and L. Van Hoogenhuijuze (Eds.), The city is ours. Squatting and autonomous movements in Europe from the 1970s to the present. Oakland: Pm Press (2014). Squatting Europe kollektive (eds.) Squatting in Europe. Radical spaces, Urban struggle (Wivenhoe, New York, Port Watson: Minor Compositions, 2013); M. Martinez Squatters in the Capitalist City. Housing, Justice, and Urban Politics (Routledge, 2020).

2. J. Jämte and A. Sörbom, ’Why Did It Not Happen Here? The Gradual Radicalization of the Anarchist Movement in Sweden 1980–90,’ in K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.) op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 97–111; D. V. Polanska, Contentious Politics and the welfare state. Squatting in Sweden, (New York: Routledge, 2019).

3. H. Thörn, Rörelser i det moderna: Politik, modernitet och kollektiv identitet i Europa 1789–1989, (Stockholm: Rabén Prisma, 1997), pp. 281–283; D. Templin, ‘Beyond the Metropolises: Youth Centre Initiatives in the “Youth Revolt” of 1980–81 in West Germany’, in K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.), op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 71, 75–76; M. Worley, ‘Whose Culture? Fanzines, politics and agency’, in The Subcultures Network (Eds.) Ripped, Torn and Cut: Pop, Politics and Punk Fanzines from 1976 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018), pp. 78, 82–83, 88; F. Egefur, ‘The Winter Palace’ in Malmö: Subversive activists, welfare-state anarchists, or just a slightly radical cultural association?’, in H. Hill and A. Brink Pinto (Eds.), op. cit., Ref. 1; M. Lundström, ’When anarchism met punk’, in H. Hill and A. Brink Pinto (Eds.) op. cit., Ref.1.

4. L. Yates, ‘Rethinking Prefiguration: Alternatives, Micropolitics and Goals in Social Movements’, Social Movement Studies 1–2 (2015) pp. 1–21.

5. K. Creasap, Sweden ends here? Social movement scenes and the right to the city, diss. (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, 2014), pp. 77–79; S. Haunss, ’Unrest or Social Movement? Some Conceptual Clarifications’, in K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.), op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 25–38; J. Hansen, ‘Defining Policial Dissidence: The Swiss Debate on the Riots of 1980–81’, in K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.), op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 243–257; van der Steen, ‘Youth with no future’, in C. Dupont and K Burns (Eds.) Restless Youth. Growing up in Europe, 1945 to now (House of European history, EU, 2020), pp. 56–66.

6. K. Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”: projectivity and prefigurative politics in a Swedish social center’, Social movements studies, 20 (2021), p 570.

7. Hill, Brink Pinto, Social movements in the 1980s Sweden, op cit., Ref 1; Creasap, Sweden ends here?, op cit., Ref. 5, pp. 51–58.

8. Hill, Brink Pinto, Social movements in the 1980s Sweden, op cit., Ref 1; A. Brink Pinto and M. Ericsson and S. Nyzell, ‘Verktygslåda för konfliktforskare’ In A. Brink Pinto and M. Ericsson (Eds.) Politik underifrån. Kollektiva konfrontationer under Sveriges 1900-tal, (Arkiv förlag: Lund, 2016): Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”, op cit., Ref. 6, p. 570.

9. D. Della Porta and M. Diani, M., Social movements. An introduction (Malden, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell publishing, 2006), p. 21.

10. A. Törnberg, ’Resistance Matter, Resistance studies and the Material Turn’, Resistance studies magazine, (2013), pp. 6–7; A. Melucci, Nomader i nuet. Sociala rörelser och individuella behov i dagens samhälle (Göteborg: Daidalos, 1992).

11. Melucci, Nomader i nuet op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 11; Haunss, ’Unrest or Social Movement?’, op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 33.

12. A. Enke, Finding the movement. Sexuality, contested space, and feminist activism (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2007); D. Templin, ‘Beyond the Metropolises’, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 71, 75–76.

13. L. Yates, ‘Prefiguarative Politics and Social Movements Strategy: The Roles of Prefiguration in the Reproduction, Mobilisation and Coordination of Movements’ Political Studies 69 (2021), pp.1033–1052; S. Klein Schaarsberg, ’”Don’t just do something, sit there”: contemplative activism and ‘being political’ as prefigurative politics, Social movements studies, (2023), p. 1.

14. Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”, op. cit. Ref. 6, p. 572.

15. James Scott pioneered the concept of ‘everyday resistance’ and through his understanding of resistance has helped to change the way politics is related to everyday practices, according to S. Vinthagen and A. Johansson, ’Everyday resistance’: Exploration of a Concept and its Theories’. Resistance Studies Magazine, 1 (2013), p. 4. See J. C. Scott, Weapons of the Week; Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985); M. Lilja and S. Vinthagen, ‘Dispersed resistance: unpackning the spectrum and properties of glaring and everyday resistance’, Journal of Political Power, 2 (2018), p. 213.

16. Vinthagen and Johansson, ’Everyday resistance’ op cit., Ref. 15, p. 2.

17. Törnberg, ’Resistance Matter’, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 6.

18. A. Johansson and S. Vinthagen, ’Dimensions of Everyday Resistance’: An analytical Framework’. Critical Sociology, published online May 12 (2014), pp. 17–18.

19. Johansson and Vinthagen, ’Dimensions of Everyday Resistance’, op. cit., Ref. 18, p. 9; M. Lilja and S. Vinthagen, ‘Dispersed resistance: unpackning the spectrum and properties of glaring and everyday resistance’, Journal of Political Power, 2 (2018), p. 213.

20. Törnberg, ’Resistance Matter’, op. cit., Ref. 10, p. 7; Vinthagen and Johansson ’Everyday resistance’, op. cit., Ref. 15, pp. 2, 9; Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”’, op. cit., Ref. 6, p. 572; Creasap, Sweden ends here? op. cit., Ref. 5, p. 20.

21. C. Tilly and S. Tarrow, Contentious Politics, (Boulder Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2007); C. Tilly, Contentious performances, (Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2008).

22. Tilly and Tarrow, Contentious Politics, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 49–73.

23. D. Della Porta, ’Reprtoires of contention’, in D. A. Snowe, D. Della Porta, D. McAdam and B. Klandermans (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Encycklopedia of Social and Political Movementes. Second editon (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013).

24. The booklet has been put together by a former member who has shared it with me, which I am very thankful for. When referring to the booklet, I have indicated the title of the page followed by ‘Ultralandet’ and page number (author’s numbering). ‘Ultralandet. Ett plock ur materialet från ockupationen + lite annat smått å gott’. All translations of quotes are the author’s.

25. The newspaper articles range from short notes to longer reports, mainly from the summer of 1988 when Ultrahuset was occupied. When referring to newspapers and magazines taken from the booklet, I indicate the reference to these and then ‘Ultralandet’, and page number. However, some notices do not indicate which newspaper and exact date they come from, in which case I only refer to ’Ultralandet’, op cit., Ref. 24. All translations of quotes are the author’s.

26. ’Ultrahuset 6’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUj_aVfMWtY&t=123s&ab_channel=majsanp (downloaded 2023-03-10); ’Spåret efter Ultra (del 1)’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQcm6yoArQ&ab_channel=AnteBlomberg (nedladdat 2023-03-10).

27. Interview 1–4. S. Kvale and S. Brinkman, Den kvalitativa forskningsintervjun (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2014).

28. B. Carlsson, P. Johansson, P. Wickholm, Svensk punk 1977–81. Varför tror du att vi låter som låter … (Stockholm: Atlas, 2004); Vårt 80-tal. Politisk kamp och punk i Stockholm 1985–1989 (Stockholm: Stockholmia förlag, 2017); S. Ohlsson, Ultrahuset (Stockholm: Bœcker Books, 2017); D. V. Polanska and M. Wåg, M., Ockuperat! Svenska husockupationer 1968–2018 (Stockholm: Verbal förlag, 2019).

29. D. Endres, ‘Environmental Oral History’. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 5 (2013), pp. 485–598.

30. A. Johansson, S. Vinthagen, Conceptualizing ‘Everyday resistance’. A Transdisciplinary Approach, (New York: Routledge, 2020), p. 83.

31. Space and place are understood as interrelated, but ‘space’ is understood as something more than the physical place. I use mostly the term ‘place’ here, since the Ultrahuset as a physical location was extremly important to its member. Johansson and Vinthagen, Conceptualizing ‘Everyday resistance’, op. cit., Ref 30, p. 122; C. Hansen, ‘”The Capital of Love”: Activists Resisting the Stigmas of Malmö through Storytelling’, Antipode 54 (2022), 1765.

32. B. van der Steen, ‘Action without contention? Contextualizing social movements in 1980s Sweden’, in Hill, H. and Brink Pinto, A. (Eds.), op. cit., Ref.1; Andresen and van der Steen, A Euoropean Youth Revolt, op. cit., Ref. 1, pp. 1–21; Brink Pinto and M Ericsson, ‘”Youth riots” and the concept of contentious politics in historical research. The Case of the 1948 Stockholm Easter Riots’, Scandinavian Journal of History, 1 (2019), pp. 1–26.

33. I. P. Moran, ‘Punk: The Do-It-Yourself Subculture’, Social Sciences Journal, 1, (2010), pp. 58–65; M. Worley, ‘Punk, Politics and British (fan)zines, 1976–84: “While the world was dying, did you wonder why?”, History Workshop Journal, 1(2015), pp. 76–106; Worley “Whose Culture?, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 55–71; M. Worley, ”If I had more time it could be better, but the new wave’s about spontainety, right?’: Finding meaning in Britains early punk fanzines (1976–77)’, Punk and Post-Punk, 22 (2020), pp. 223–245; B. Cogan, ’Do They Owe Us a Living? Of Course They Do!’ Crass, Throbbing Gristle, and Anarchy and Radicalism in Early English Punk Rock’. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 2 (2008), pp. 77–90; E. Martyn ‘The Blurred Boundaries of Anarchism and Punk in Vancouver, 1970–1983’, Labour/Le Travail, 75 (2015), pp. 9–41; J. Pine ‘Cold Press: Early Punk Fanzines in Canada’s Capital’, La Presse musicale alternative/The Alternative Music Press, 1 (2006), pp. 27–47.

34. Worley, ‘Punk, Politics and British (fan)zines, 1976–84’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 76–106; Worley, ‘Whose Culture?’, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 55–71; Cogan, ’Do They Owe Us a Living?’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 77–90; Moran, ‘The Do-It-Yourself Subculture’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 58–65; E. Hannerz and M. Persson, ‘Punk in Sweden’, in D. Horn and J. Shepard (Eds.) Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume XI, (New York; Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 613–616; Lundström, ’When anarchism met punk’, op. cit., Ref. 3.

35. Lundström, ’When anarchism met punk’, op. cit., Ref. 3.

36. B. van der Steen, ‘Youth with no future’, op cit., Ref 5, p. 61; R. Foltin, ’Vienna in March 1981: A ‘Puzzling Demonstration’ and its Consequences’, in K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.) op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 42; J. Friedrichs, ‘Revolt or Transgression? Squatted Houses and Meeting Places of the Heroin Scene in Zurich and Berlin as Spaces of Transgressive youth’ in K. Andresen and B. van der Steen (Eds.) op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 100; K. Lohman, The Connected Lives of Dutch Punks. Contesting Subcultural Boundaries, (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). Templin, ‘Beyond the Metropolises’ op. cit. Ref. 3. Creasap, op cit., Ref 5.

37. Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”’, op. cit., Ref. 6, pp. 573.

38. Egefur, ‘The Winter Palace’ in Malmö’, op. cit. Ref. 3; Lohman, The Connected Lives of Dutch Punks, op. cit. Ref. 36.

39. Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”’, op. cit., Ref. 6, pp. 573–574; Polanska and Wåg, Ockuperat!, op. cit., Ref. 28; Vårt 80-tal, op. cit., Ref. 28; Templin, ‘Beyond the Metropolises’ op. cit., Ref. 3; Lohman, The Connected Lives of Dutch Punks, op. cit., Ref. 36; Friedrichs, ‘Revolt or Transgression?, op. cit., Ref. 36.

40. Hill and Brink Pinto, Social movements in the 1980s Sweden, op. cit., Ref. 1; Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”’, op. cit., Ref. 6, p. 570; Creasap, Sweden ends here?, op cit., Ref 5, pp. 77–79; J. Jämte, M. Lundstedt, & M. Wennerhag. ‘From radical counterculture to pragmatic radicalism? The collective identity of contemporary radical left-libertarian activism in Sweden’. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 14 (1) (2020), pp. 1–36.

41. See Polanska and Wåg, Ockuperat!, op. cit., Ref. 28, pp. 31–43; A. Peterson, H.Thörn and M. Wahlström, ’Sweden 1950–2015: Contentious Politics and Social Movements between Confrontation and Conditioned Cooperation’, in F. Mikkelsen, K. Kjeldstadli, S. Nyzell (Eds.) Popular Struggle and Democracy in Scandinavia (Palgrave, 2018), pp. 389, 390; Hannerz and Persson, ‘Punk in Sweden’, op. cit. Ref. 34, pp. 613–616.

42. Hannerz and Persson, ‘Punk in Sweden’, op. cit., Ref. 34, pp. 613–616; Polanska and Wåg, Ockuperat! op. cit., Ref. 28.

43. See also M. Ericsson, ‘Ockuperat område. Striderna om brandstationen i Jönköping 1982’, in A. Brink Pinto and M. Ericsson (Eds.) op. cit., Ref. 5, pp. 173–191: Lundström ’When anarchism met punk’, op cit. Ref 3; J. Lundin, P. Håkansson, ’Rock för ett hus: En komparativ undersökning av tillkomsten av musikhus i Malmö och Lund under 1980-talet’ (eds.) Populärmusik, uppror och samhälle (Malmö, Malmö högskola, 2009).

44. Peterson, Thörn and Wahlström, ’Sweden 1950–2015’ op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 390; Egefur, ‘The Winter Palace’ in Malmö’, op. cit., Ref. 3; Polanska and Wåg, Ockuperat!, op. cit., Ref. 28, pp. 31–37; H. Thörn, Stad i rörelse. Stadsomvandlingen och striderna om Haga och Christiania (Stockholm: Atlas akademi, 2013).

45. Hannerz and Persson, ‘Punk in Sweden’, op. cit., Ref. 34, pp. 613–616.

46. Thörn, Stad i rörelse, op cit., Ref 44, pp. 348–350; Polanska, Contentious Politics, op cit., Ref. 2.

47. Egefur, ‘The Winter Palace’ in Malmö’ op. cit., Ref. 3. The concept of welfare-state anarchism relates to a historical tradition where the ‘conscientious’ worker was held up as an ideal for those workers who wanted to work for political change. R. Ambjörnsson, Den skötsamme arbetaren: idéer och ideal i ett norrländskt sågverkssamhälle 1880–1930 (Stockholm: Carlssons, 2017).

48. Peterson, Thörn and Wahlström, ’Sweden 1950–2015’ op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 423.

49. Våldsam Politisk Extremism: Antidemokratiska Grupperingar På Yttersta Höger- Och Vänsterkanten Rapport från Säkerhetspolisen och Brottsförebyggande rådet (Brå) (2009:15). Retrieved May 24, https://cve.se/publikationer/valdsampolitiskextremismantidemokratiskagrupperingarpaytterstahogerochvansterkanten.5.2d773eb18431cf564213ea.html, pp. 11, 42–43.

50. Cresap, Sweden ends here?, op cit., Ref. 5, pp. 49–50.

51. Jämte and Sörbom, ‘Why Did it Not Happen Here?’ op. cit., Ref. 2, pp. 97–111. See also Polanska, Contentious Politics, op cit. Ref. 2.

52. Carlsson, Johansson and Wickholm, Svensk punk 1977–81, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 132.

53. U. Andersson, ’Ultra har inte tystats’, Arbetaren, 37 (1988), pp. 12–13, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 91–92.

54. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 26, 31, 33, 74.

55. Ohlson, Ultrahuset, op. cit., Ref. 28 (un-numbered).

56. ’Ultrahuset 6’, op cit., Ref. 26.

57. ’Ultra-medlemmar ockuperar sin högborg’, Norrskensflamman, June 15, 1988, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 5; ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24 p. 17.

58. ’The Ultrahus story’, i ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 74–75; ’Ultra kan inte krossas!’, Internationalen, 34 (1988), in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 76; ’Vi kanske inte kan sköta saken som politikerna’, Dagens Nyheter, 14 september (1988), in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 86; ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 31, 53, 74–75; Intervju 1; ’Ultrahuset 6’ op. cit., Ref. 26.

59. Polanska and Wåg, Ockuperat!, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 178; Vårt 80-tal, op. cit., Ref. 28, 132.

60. Polanska and Wåg, Ockuperat!, op. cit., Ref. 28 p. 178; Vårt 80-tal, op. cit., Ref. 28, 132.

61. ’Sympatisörer invaderar Ultra-huset i protest’, Söderförorternas nyheter, June, (1988), p. 3, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 53; ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 4, 31; ’The Ultrahus story’, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 74.

62. Carlsson, Johansson and Wickholm. Svensk punk 1977–81, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 132.

63. ’Sympatisörer invaderar Ultra-huset i protest’, ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 53; ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 31; Carlsson, Johansson and Wickholm, Svensk punk 1977–81, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 134.

64. Carlsson, Johansson & Wickholm, Svensk punk 1977–81, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 132–134.

65. ’Spåret efter Ultra (del 1)’, op. cit., Ref 26.

66. Ibid.

67. However, the fact that equality, solidarity, and democracy were advocated does not say anything about these in practice or how various other members experienced it.

68. These slogans can be found on posters, which I have photographed in the home of one of the interviewees. See also Ohlsson, Ultrahuset, op. cit. Ref. 28.

69. Cf Andresen and van der Steen, A European Youth Revolt, op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 8.

70. Moran, ‘Punk: The Do-It-Yourself Subculture’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 63f.

71. Worley, ‘Whose culture?’, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 74; cf Cogan, ’Do They Owe Us a Living?’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 63–64.

72. Cf Worley, ’Whose Culture?’, op. cit., Ref. 3, pp. 75, 78.

73. Moran, ‘Punk: The Do-It-Yourself Subculture’, op. cit., Ref. 33, p. 63f; Yates, ‘Rethinking Prefiguration, op. cit., Ref. 13; L. Yates, ‘Everyday politics, social practices and movement networks: daily life in Barcelona’s social centers’, The British Journal of Sociology, 2 (2015), pp. 236–258.

74. Cf ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 30 (quote), 19.

75. See ’Ultra-medlemmar ockuperar sin egen högbort’ in ’Ultrahuset’, p. 4f; ’Ultra-huset rustar för strid’ in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 15; ’Punkockupation på Ultrahuset’ in ’Ultrahuset’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 17.

76. ’De slåss för den fria kulturen’, Ny dag, June (1988), in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 43; ’Ultrahuset ska utrymmas’, Dagens Nyheter, August 12, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 42.

77. ’Ultra-huset ”barrikaderat”’, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 18, 19; ’Taggtrådshinder runt musikhuset’, Aftonbladet, June 12 (1988), p 12, in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p 33.

78. Vårt 80-tal, op. cit., Ref. 28, p. 160.

79. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 19.

80. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 26–27.

81. ’Ultra-huset”barrikaderat” and ’Ultrabefriat område’ in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 18.

82. ‘Ultra-huset ockuperat’, Expressen, June 11 (1988), in ’Ultralandet op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 23.

83. ’Tonläget skärps kring Ultrahuset’, Svenska Dagbladet, June 21 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 23; ’Utrym senst kl 18 tisdag’, Dagens Nyheter, June 21 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 48.

84. ‘Ultra-huset ockuperat’, Expressen, June 11 (1988), in ’Ultralandet, op. cit., Ref. 224, p. 23.

85. ’Taggtrådshinder runt musikhuset’, Aftonbladet June 12 (1988), p. 12 in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 8, 33.

86. ’Ultra-huset rustar för strid’, Aftonbladet, August 16 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 15.

87. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 6–11.

88. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 7.

89. ’Ultralandet”, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 8.

90. ’Ultralandet”, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 9. The quote refers to the fact that a number of well-known Swedish scholars, musicians and writers had publicly defended the association and the occupation, and that many media outlets reported positively about the occupation. See ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 32, 54, 58, 76, 77, 87.

91. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 6–11, 16, 21, 27.

92. Worley, ‘Whose culture?’, op. cit., Ref. 3, p. 82; Worley, ‘Punk, Politics and British (fan)zines, 1976–84’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 80–81; C. Schmidt, ‘Meanings of fanzines in the beginning of Punk in the GDR and FRG: An approach towards a medium between staging, communication and the construction of collective identities’, Volume!, 1 (2006), pp. 47–72.

93. Worley ‘Whose culture?’, op. cit., Ref. 3, p.74.

94. Both quations ‘Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 28.

95. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 14, 19, 26f, 54.

96. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 14.

97. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 27–30.

98. Cf Worley, ‘Punk, Politics and British (fan)zines, 1976–84’, op. cit., Ref. 33, pp. 92, 100; Creasap, ‘”Building future politics”’, op. cit. Ref 6, pp. 571–573.

99. F. Mikkelsen and R. Karpantschof ‘Youth as a Political Movement: Development of the Squatters’ and Autonomous Movement in Copenhagen, 1981–95’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 3 (2001), p. 612f; Johansson and Vinthagen, ’Dimensions of Everyday Resistance’, op. cit., Ref. 16, pp. 9, 17–18.

100. ‘Dom kallar oss materialister’ in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 30.

101. ‘Ultrahuset 6’, op. cit., Ref. 26.

102. Moran, ‘Punk: The Do-It-Yourself Subculture’, op. cit., Ref. 33, p. 64.

103. ’Jag kände mig hotad’, Expressen, 30 juni (1988), p. 18 in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 22.

104. Ultra krossade fönster’, Svenska Dagbladet, July (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 53; ’Maskerade ungdomar krossade fönster’, Aftonbladet, July (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, p. 59; ’Ultra-aktivister gav kommunen en känga’, Expressen, July 10 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 63.

105. ’Taggtrådshinder runt musikhuset’, Aftonbladet, June 12 (1988), p. 12 in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 33; ’Vad ska hända med Ultra’, Arbetaren, August (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 65.

106. Ultra-huset rustar för strid’, Aftonbladet, August 16 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 15.

107. ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 79–80.

108. ’Ultra måste ut inom en vecka’, ’Ultra kan bli vräkt i helgen’ and ’Ultrahuset ska utrymmas’, all in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 42; ’Utrym senast kl 18 tidsdag’, Dagens Nyheter June 21 (1988), p. 18 in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 28, pp. 48–51.

109. See ’Ultras fest är slut’, Aftonbladet, August 21 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 69; Polisen stormade Ultras nya”fästning”’, Expressen, August 21 (1988) in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, pp. 77–78.

110. ’Storyn om Ultrahuset före den 20:e August’ in ’Ultralandet’, op. cit., Ref. 24, p. 79.

111. B. Van der Steen, C. van Rooden, M. Snoep, ‘Who Are the Squatters? Challenging Stereotypes through a Case Study of Squatting in the Duth City of Leiden, 1970–1980’, Journal of Urban History, p. 3–4; Yates, ‘Everyday politics’, op. cit., Ref. 73, p. 237; Mikkelsen and Karpantschof, ’ Youth as a Political Movement’, op. cit., Ref. 99, pp. 609–627; S. Haunss and D. Leach, ‘Social Movement Scenes: Infrastructures of Opposition in Civil Society’, in D. Purdue (ed.) Civil Societies and Social Movements: Potentials and Problems (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 71–99.

112. M. Ericsson, ‘Ockuperat område. Striderna om brandstationen i Jönköping 1982’, op. cit., Ref. 43, pp. 173–191.