Community self-managed spaces in which anti-authoritarians self-organise activities
Self-managed social centers
, also known as
autonomous social centers
, are self-organized
community centers
in which
anti-authoritarians
put on voluntary activities. These autonomous spaces, often in multi-purpose venues affiliated with
anarchism
, can include bicycle workshops,
infoshops
, libraries,
free schools
, meeting spaces,
free stores
and concert venues. They often become political actors in their own right.
The centers are found worldwide, for example in
Italy
, the United States and the
United Kingdom
. They are inspired by various left-wing movements including
anarchism
and
intentional communities
. They are
squatted
, rented, or owned cooperatively.
Uses
[
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]
Self-managed social centers vary in size and function depending on local context.
Uses can include an
infoshop
, a radical bookshop, a resource centre offering advice, a
hacklab
, a cafe, a bar, an affordable gig space, independent cinema or a
housing co-operative
.
As well as providing a space for activities, these social centers can become actors in opposing local issues such as
gentrification
or
megaprojects
.
Alongside protest camps, social centers are projects in which the
commons
are created and practiced.
History
[
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]
Western anarchists have long created enclaves in which they could live their societal principles of non-authoritarianism, mutual aid, gifting, and conviviality in microcosm.
Some of these community sites include Wobbly union halls (1910s, 1920s), Barcelonan community centers during the
Spanish Revolution
, and
squatted
community centers since the 1960s. They share a lineage with the radical
intentional communities
that have periodically surfaced throughout history
and are sometimes termed
Temporary Autonomous Zones
or "free spaces", in which a counter-hegemonic resistance can form arguments and tactics.
Anarchists outside the class-struggle and workplace activism tradition instead organize through autonomous spaces including social centers, squats, camps, and mobilizations.
[9]
While these alternative institutions tend to exist in transience, their proponents argue that their ideas are consistent between incarnations and that temporary institutions prevents government forces from easily clamping down on their activities.
A free, or
autonomous
, space is defined as a place independent from dominant institutions and ideologies, formed
outside standard economic relations
, and fostering self-directing freedom through self-reliance. These nonhierarchical rules encourage experimental approaches to organization, power-sharing, social interaction, personal development, and finance.
Social centers can be squatted, rented, or owned cooperatively. They are largely self-maintained by volunteers and often close for reasons of burnout and reduced participation, especially if participant free time wanes as their economic circumstances change.
Italy
[
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]
Askatasuna social centre in Turin, 2016
Since the 1980s,
young Italians maintained
self-managed social centers
(
centri sociali
) where they gathered to work on cultural projects, listen to music, discuss politics, and share basic living information.
These projects are often squatted, and are known as
Centro Sociale Occupato Autogestito
(CSOA) (squatted self-managed social centers).
By 2001, there were about 150 social centers, set up in abandoned buildings such as former schools and factories.
These centers operate outside state and free market control,
and have an oppositional relationship with the police, often portrayed by conservative media as magnets for crime and illicit behavior. The Italian cultural centers were sometimes funded by city cultural programming.
United States
[
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]
In the United States, self-managed social centers primarily take the form of infoshops and radical bookstores, such as
Bluestockings
in New York City and
Red Emma's
in Baltimore.
Since the 1990s, North American anarchists have created community centers, infoshops, and free spaces to foster alternative cultures, economies, media, and schools as a counterculture with a
do-it-yourself ethic
. These social spaces, as distinguished from regional intentional communities of the midcentury, often seek to integrate their community with the existing urban neighborhood instead of wholly "dropping out" of society to rural communes.
United Kingdom
[
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]
The rise of
social centres in the United Kingdom
as cultural activity and political organizing hubs has been a major feature of the region's radical and anarchist politics.
[17]
For example, the
1 in 12 Club
in
Bradford
provides a cafe, a children's play area, a bar, an
infoshop
, large meeting areas and concert spaces.
Infoshops
[
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]
Street view of an infoshop in Barcelona
Infoshops are multi-functional spaces that disseminate
alternative media
and provide a forum for alternative cultural, economic, political, and social activities.
Individual infoshops vary in features but can include a small library or reading room and serve as a distribution center for both free and priced/retail alternative media,
particularly media with revolutionary anarchist politics.
While infoshops can serve as a kind of community library, they are designed to meet the information needs of its users rather than to compete with the public library or pre-existing information centers.
For alternative publishers and activist groups, infoshops can offer low-cost
reprographic
services for
do-it-yourself
publications, and provide a postal mail delivery address for those who cannot afford a
post office box
or receive mail at a squatted address. In the 1990s, available tools ranged from no-frills
photocopiers
to
desktop publishing
software. Besides these print publication functions, infoshops can also host meetings, discussions, concerts, or exhibitions.
For instance, as activist video grew in the 1990s, infoshops screened films and hosted discussion groups that, in turn, encouraged debate and
collective action
.
The infoshop attempts to offer a space where individuals can publish without the restrictions of the mainstream press
and discuss alternative ideas unimpeded by homophobia, racism, and sexism.
Organized by political activists, infoshops are often independent, precariously self-funded, and unaffiliated with any organization or council. They too are often staffed by their own self-selected users as volunteers
and like the anarchist media they distribute, operate on inexpensive, borrowed, or donated resources, such as secondhand computers and furniture.
As a result, infoshops and other marginal institutions are often short-lived, with minimal income to pay their short-term leases on rented storefronts.
Infoshops sometimes combine the function of other alternative venues: vegetarian cafes, independent
record stores
,
head shops
, and alternative bookstores.
But foremost, infoshops disseminate information, serving as library, archive, distributor, retailer,
and hub of an informal and ephemeral network of alternative organizations and activists.
A panoramic view of the interior of the
Lucy Parsons Center
in Boston, United States.
Free schools
[
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]
Anarchists, in pursuit of freedom from
dogma
, believe that individuals must not be socialized into acceptance of authority or dogma as part of their education.
In contrast to traditional schools, anarchist free schools are autonomous, nonhierarchical spaces intended for educational exchange and skillsharing.
They do not have admittance criteria or subordinate relations between teacher and student. Free schools follow a loosely structured program that seeks to defy dominant institutions and ideologies under a
nonhierarchical
division of power and prefigure a more equitable world. Classes are run by volunteers and held in self-managed social centers, community centers, parks, and other public places.
Free schools follow in the
anarchist education
lineage from Spanish anarchist
Francisco Ferrer
's
Escuela Moderna
and resulting modern school movement in the early 1900s, through the predominantly American
free school movement
of the 1960s.
The American anarchist
Paul Goodman
, who was prominent in this latter movement, advocated for small schools for children to be held in storefronts and to use the city as its classroom.
In one example, a free school in Toronto grew from the closure of a
countercultural
community cafe with the opening of an anarchist free space. It sought to share ideas about how to create anti-authoritarian social relations through a series of classes. All were invited to propose and attend classes, whose topics included: 1920s
love songs
, alternative
economics
,
street art
, critiques of
patriarchy
and how to combat
violence against women
. The longest running classes were those that introduced anarchism and related politics of syndicalism and libertarian socialism. The course instructors served as facilitators, providing texts and encouraging participation, rather than as top-down lectures. The free space also hosted art events, parties, and conversational forums. Other initiatives were short-lived or nonstarters, such as an anemic lending library and free used goods table.
Another free school in Nottingham found skillshare-oriented classes with more traditional pedagogy more popular than sessions on radical education.
Similar to free schools, free university projects are run from college campuses most prominently in Europe. Organized by volunteer student collectives, participants in these initiatives experiment with the process of learning and are not designed to replace the traditional university.
See also
[
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References
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]
Bibliography
[
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]
- Atton, Chris (February 1999). "The infoshop: the alternative information centre of the 1990s".
New Library World
.
100
(1146): 24?29.
doi
:
10.1108/03074809910248564
.
ISSN
0307-4803
.
- Atton, Chris (2003).
"Infoshops in the Shadow of the State"
. In Couldry, Nick; Curran, James (eds.).
Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World
. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 57?70.
ISBN
978-0-7425-2385-2
.
OCLC
464358422
.
- Atton, Chris (2010).
Alternative Media
. London:
SAGE Publications
.
ISBN
978-0-7619-6770-5
.
- Casaglia, Anna (2016). "Territories of Struggle: Social Centres in Northern Italy Opposing Mega-Events".
Antipode
.
50
(2): 478?497.
doi
:
10.1111/anti.12287
.
hdl
:
11572/224064
.
ISSN
0066-4812
.
S2CID
151617152
.
- Downing, John D. H. (2000). "Italy: Three Decades of Radical Media".
Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements
.
Thousand Oaks, California
:
SAGE Publications
. pp. 266?298.
ISBN
978-0-8039-5698-8
.
- Franks, Benjamin
;
Kinna, Ruth
(December 20, 2014).
"Contemporary British Anarchism"
.
Revue LISA
.
12
(8).
doi
:
10.4000/lisa.7128
.
ISSN
1762-6153
.
- Klein, Naomi
(June 8, 2001).
"Squatters in White Overalls"
.
The Guardian
.
ISSN
0261-3077
.
- Lacey, Anita (August 2005). "Networked Communities: Social Centers and Activist Spaces in Contemporary Britain".
Space and Culture
.
8
(3): 286?301.
Bibcode
:
2005SpCul...8..286L
.
doi
:
10.1177/1206331205277350
.
ISSN
1206-3312
.
S2CID
145336405
.
- Neumann, Richard (2003).
Sixties Legacy: A History of the Public Alternative Schools Movement, 1967?2001
. New York:
Peter Lang
.
ISBN
978-0-8204-6354-4
.
OCLC
878586437
.
- Noterman, Elsa; Pusey, Andre (2012). "Inside, Outside, and on the Edge of the Academy: Experiments in Radical Pedagogies". In Haworth, Robert H (ed.).
Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education
. Oakland, Calif.:
PM Press
. pp. 175?199.
ISBN
978-1-60486-484-7
.
OCLC
841743121
.
- Piazza, Gianni (2016). "Squatting Social Centres in a Sicilian City: Liberated Spaces and Urban Protest Actors".
Antipode
.
50
(2): 498?522.
doi
:
10.1111/anti.12286
.
ISSN
0066-4812
.
- Pusey, Andre (2010).
"Social Centres and the New Cooperativism of the Common"
.
Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action
.
4
(1): 176?198.
OCLC
744314571
.
- Shantz, Jeff (2010). "Anarchy Goes to School: The Anarchist Free Skool".
Constructive Anarchy: Building Infrastructures of Resistance
. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. pp. 135?.
ISBN
978-1-4094-0402-6
.
- Shantz, Jeff (2011). "Heterotopias of Toronto: The Anarchist Free Space and Who's Emma?".
Active Anarchy: Political Practice in Contemporary Movements
. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
ISBN
978-0-7391-6613-0
.
- Shantz, Jeffery (2012). "Spaces of Learning: The Anarchist Free Skool". In Haworth, Robert H (ed.).
Anarchist Pedagogies: Collective Actions, Theories, and Critical Reflections on Education
. Oakland, Calif.:
PM Press
. pp. 124?144.
ISBN
978-1-60486-484-7
.
OCLC
841743121
.
- Trapese Collective, ed. (2007).
Do It Yourself: A handbook for changing our world
. Pluto.
ISBN
9780745326375
.
- Webb, Maureen (March 10, 2020).
Coding Democracy: How Hackers Are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism
. MIT Press.
ISBN
978-0-262-04355-7
.
Further reading
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]
- Antliff, Allan
(2007). "Breaking Free: Anarchist Pedagogy". In Cote, Mark; Day, Richard J.F.; de Peuter, Greig (eds.).
Utopian Pedagogy: Radical Experiments Against Neoliberal Globalization
. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press
. pp. 248?265.
doi
:
10.3138/9781442685093
.
ISBN
978-0-8020-8675-4
.
JSTOR
10.3138/9781442685093.21
.
- Atton, Chris (2015).
The Routledge companion to alternative and community media
. Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-317-50941-7
.
- Dodge, Chris (May 1998). "Taking Libraries to the Street: Infoshops & Alternative Reading Rooms".
American Libraries
.
29
(5): 62?64.
ISSN
0002-9769
.
JSTOR
25634969
.
- Goyens, Tom (December 2009). "Social space and the practice of anarchist history".
Rethinking History
.
13
(4): 439?457.
doi
:
10.1080/13642520903292476
.
ISSN
1364-2529
.
S2CID
144854156
.
- Haworth, Robert H; Elmore, John M (2017).
Out of the Ruins: The Emergence of Radical Informal Learning Spaces
.
Oakland
:
PM Press
.
ISBN
978-1-62963-239-1
.
- Hedtke, Lacey Prpic (2008).
"Cereal Boxes and Milk Crates Zine Libraries and Infoshops are Now"
.
LIBREAS. Library Ideas
(12).
ISSN
1860-7950
.
- Hodkinson, Stuart; Chatterton, Paul (December 2006). "Autonomy in the City?".
City
.
10
(3): 305?315.
Bibcode
:
2006City...10..305H
.
doi
:
10.1080/13604810600982222
.
ISSN
1360-4813
.
S2CID
143032260
.
- Lapolla, Luca (2019). "Social Centres as Radical Social Laboratories". In Kinna, Ruth; Gordon, Uri (eds.).
Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics
. New York: Routledge. pp. 417?432.
ISBN
978-1-138-66542-2
.
- Olson, Joel (2009). "The Problem with Infoshops and Insurrection: U.S. Anarchism, Movement-Building, and the Racial Order". In Amster, Randall; et al. (eds.).
Contemporary Anarchist Studies: An Introductory Anthology of Anarchy in the Academy
. New York:
Routledge
. pp. 35?45.
ISBN
978-0-415-47402-3
.
- Thompson, Sylvia (October 29, 2015).
"Squatters bring life to old buildings"
.
The Irish Times
. Retrieved
October 7,
2018
.
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