A zone to defend: The utopian territorial experiment of Notre dame des landes

Abstract

In France, a utopian experimental occupation has been under way for the past three years. At Notre Dame des Landes (NDDL) in Brittany, 200 permanent occupiers of evacuated farms are facing off against the authorities. The aim is to carry out a social transformation, with the occupiers transforming their living space into a utopian commune, a gesture that goes far beyond a critique of capitalism. This chapter analyses the initiative empirically and theoretically. It highlights an aspect of this struggle against the instituted totalities of ‘urban capitalism’ and the metropolitan question associated with this critique. It interrogates the hypothesis of autonomy in such a project-which is embodied in a defined territory-referring to the discourses and practices of the occupiers and their revolutionary politics of habitation.