"domestic" spaces and politics

Occupy Wall Street, or Boston, or Minneapolis:  All of these encampments are examples of protesters taking up residence in a public space in order to express their political views.  While the particular point of protest is specific to now, the strategy is not.

Last spring we read about Egyptians living in a central square within view of the world famous Egyptian Museum, the Nile Hilton, and the Nile River itself. For years British women occupied Greenham Commons, a peace camp near a nuclear facility.  Perhaps a closer parallel can be drawn to the "Hoovervilles" where out-of-work Ameriacns lived during the Great Depression.  The link leads you to a small PBS article about these in New York City, including the largest one in Central Park.

These examples of appropriating public space by turning it into ones' own private, "domestic" living space in order to make a public statement interest me because of our ongoing discussion of the boundaries between public and private space; because the desire for (and expectation that one will have) a house and home secure from invasion is a central characteristic of the middle class about whom we are reading in the Gilbert book; and because Riis's photos show quite another reality in an effort to sway public opinion.