Crossan, John (2015) Social Centres, Anarchism and the Struggle for Glasgow's Commons
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Crossan, John (2015) Social centres, anarchism and the struggle for Glasgow's Commons. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6655/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] PhD Thesis Social Centres, Anarchism and the Struggle for Glasgow’s Commons Dr John Crossan University of Glasgow, School of Geographical and Earth Science 1st Supervisor: Dr David Featherstone 2nd Supervisor: Prof. Andrew Cumbers Submitted on the 30th of September 2014 Abstract This thesis charts the work of a group of people in their efforts to set up a social centre in Glasgow. A social centre is like our once prolific community centre but with an explicit political character and agenda. They are social and cultural hubs where people can take part in a variety of communal events (e.g. dancing, cooking, eating, game play or simply hanging around). They are also places that encourage political debate, organization and action. Crucially, users are encouraged to participate in the day-to-day running of the centres. Social centres have a rich history in European radical politics. While proponents of various political philosophies use social centres, they are most commonly associated with anarchism. Anarchism is a tradition of political thought and practice that aims to build a society based on mutual aid and mass democratic participation characterised by a rejection of all forms of human domination over other humans. In this work I explore a variety of political and cultural initiatives employed by anarchist-influenced activists in Glasgow as they struggle against the neoliberalization of the city. It is the intention of this thesis to highlight the totalizing impositions of neoliberal urban governance and anarchist- inspired alternatives to these impositions, which I argue, constitute a different way of knowing and engaging with the city. These alternatives are prefigured in the doing of social centre work. Social Centres, Anarchism and the Struggle for Glasgow’s Commons Contents Acknowledgments p. 4 Author’s Declaration p.5 Introduction A Brief Introduction to the Fundamentals of Social Centre Activism p. 6 Chapter 1 The Neoliberalization of the Urban Environment p. 30 Chapter 2 Anarchist Influenced Social Centres and Prefigurative Politics p. 72 Chapter 3 Doing Anarchist Research: The Politics of Action-Orientated Work p. 125 Chapter 4 The Appropriation of Glasgow’s Commons and the Seeds of its Rebirth p. 144 Chapter 5 Inside the Glasgow Social Centre: Organising Difference, Building Solidarities p.186 Chapter 6 The GSC and the City Council Planning Complex: Two Different Ways of Knowing the City p.228 Conclusion Social Centres: The Persistence of a Common Will p. 260 Bibliography p.269 Appendix p.277 Acknowledgements I would like to thank all those activists involved with the Glasgow Social Centre, as well as those social centre activists that came before us: notably those who participated in the Printworks and Chalkboard projects. I would also like to thank my supervisors Dr Dave Featherstone and Prof. Andy Cumbers. Their knowledge of and enthusiasm for human geography and social movement studies more generally, has been an inspiration over these last three years. A huge ‘thank you’ to all of my fellow PhD candidates in the school of Geographical and Earth Science, in particular Emma Sid James Laurie, Kim, Trish and Anna. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my wife Louise Osborne and my family for their constant support. Author’s Declaration I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, that this dissertation is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of Glasgow or any other institution. Signature: Printed name: Date: Introduction A Brief Introduction to the Fundamentals of Social Centre Activism When I first became interested in social centres, or rather, when I first started to speak to others about my interest in social centres I found it difficult to explain what they are to people who had never experienced one. This was probably because, in part, I was over-thinking them, as I hadn’t fully grasped their role and worth. I think it was also because I’d invested a fair amount of practical and emotional energy as a social centre activist and wanted to ‘flower’ them up as great centres of revolutionary thought and action placing political dissent and creativity in the hearts of our towns and cities. In short, I was playing the part of a propagandist. Today I am still a social centre propagandist of sorts but slightly more tempered in the promotion of my counter-information (and hopefully a better propagandist for a more composed approach). Nowadays when I am asked what a social centre is my answer, on the face of it, seems pretty straightforward. A social centre is like our once ubiquitous community centre but with an explicit political character and agenda. They are social and cultural hubs where people can take part in a variety of communal events (e.g. dancing, cooking, eating, game play or simply hanging around). They are also places that encourage political debate, organization and action. Crucially, users are encouraged to participate in the day-to-day running of the centres. This DIY1 ethic can be placed in a wider geography of autonomous political spaces, which include 1 DIY means ‘Do It Yourself’. In socio-political terms the DIY ethic is most associated with the Anarcho-Punk movement, beginning in the late 1970s and found across Europe today (see Ch.2). Anarcho-Punks promote self-sufficiency and collective heuristic learning, amongst other things. 6 climate camps, blockades and occupations. However, unlike these “Temporary Autonomous Zones” (Bey 1991), social centres strive to achieve a greater degree of longevity in their locations. This thesis is about the relationship between social centres, a political tradition of practice and theory known as anarchism and a struggle between those who understand the value of maintaining a socio-spatial activity known as the urban commons and those whose primary task is to extract value from this experience. These issues are framed within debates about the changing nature of neoliberal urban governance and played out in the specific context of the city of Glasgow. At various points in the thesis I take a reflexive look at my politics and how it has been altered offer the last few years of working with the Glasgow Social Centre (GSC). Before offering a brief explanation of the component parts of this thesis I want to begin this process of positioning myself in pages that follow. I was born in 1974 in Paisley, a working class Scottish town, which like most provincial towns in northern Britain at the time was undergoing a period of long-term decline that continues to this day. The heyday of the great Paisley mills had long since past and Thatcher’s Britain was just around a corner soon to be laden with overflowing dustbins. My parents were working class people. Today some might call them middle-class, due to my father’s move to work in the Middle East during the mid 1990s and the marked increase in wages that came with it. Their political sensibilities, however, remain firmly routed in working-class struggle. Both now retired, my mother was a mill-worker, a cleaner and market research interviewer; my father, before the opening-up of the Middle East oil industry, a panel beater in the automotive trade and rigger steel-erector in oil and gas. While there was never any shortage of love in the family, money was often short on the ground. My father, the main earner, spent long periods without work and my mother’s wage fell short of 7 what was needed to raise a family of five. Through their creative use of the benefits system and the informal economy, even during these lean times, my siblings and I wanted for nothing. Politics was part of growing up. Whether hearing my grandmother shout obscenities at the television anytime a Tory came on to applaud that party’s assault on working class people, or watch my uncle hold back tears at the news of another unemployed man’s suicide, the anger, the fight and the sadness, and the necessary life-affirming humour, of working-class life was always on full view. Everyone, barring one or two uncles who had married into the family (and were Protestants!), was a Labour voter and member of the union. Some were active members of both, while others had taken a more militant stance by joining revolutionary socialist parties. The adults in my family seldom spoke directly to the weans2 about politics but it was always there. It was not something remote, not something that happened in another place; it was part of the everyday ebb and flow of our lives. The politics that suited me best was not the aggressive masculine type, usually associated with the politically active industrial worker out on strike or at a union meeting. Rather, it was the domestic type, associated with the domain of women. Certainly not domestic in the sense of being tame, my mother, grandmother and aunts created a political space around their kitchen tables that was sharp, passionate and thorough.