The lessons from the anarchist experiences on urban social cohesion

Mondragon is a Spanish complex of worker-owned industrial cooperatives located in the Basque Country, owing its name to the town where the first cooperatives were developed. It was founded in 1956 ‘when the first factory was incorporated as a cooperative, a business form in which workers were self-employed owners of the firm and had legal rights to participate in decision making’ (Kasmir, 1999: 384).

However, the foundations of this process had already been laid down by Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, a catholic priest who, with the help of Mondragon citizens, founded an elementary technical school in 1943. Five of the first graduates were then responsible for the foundation, in 1956, of a small worker-owned and managed factory named ULGOR (nowadays Fagor Electrodomésticos). The success of the organization made it develop into the flagship enterprise of the whole system which later was to come into being (Benello, 1996; Errasti, et al., 2003).

Nowadays, it has become a cooperative corporation (the MCC) of 147 cooperatives, structured around four sectors (industrial, distribution, financial, research & training) employing nearly 60 000 persons with a 2007 turnover of more than 15 000 million Euros³.

Thus, the MCC has shown great economic dynamism and vitality, opposing the conventional wisdom with regards to worker cooperatives. According to Whyte (1995) there are three weaknesses normally associated to this kind of organizational model, thus hindering the possibilities they have for being successful in the modern industrial framework, namely: i) lack of human, financial and technical resources to compete effectively with the large multi-national private firms; ii) worker-owners tendency to favour immediate income over reinvestment of profits directed at research and development; iii) tendency to conversion into a private company.

Recently, Gibson-Graham (2003) traced back this debate to the 19^th century antagonisms between the traditional pragmatic union labour discourse and the utopian socialist one, which we previously addressed. For them, the traditional discourse criticized the utopian on the basis of four mains topics: i) the absence of planning on how to replace the existent competitive capitalist system with socialized ownership, cooperation and voluntary associations of producers; ii) flawed economic analysis because it was based on the assumption that workers could appropriate the whole product of their labour; iii) ownership of the instruments of production by the workers could bring with it the possibility of group individualism; iv) worker cooperatives seemed not to last for long.

The MCC, however, has been able to cope with some of those problems/weaknesses. In effect, if one considers the broader logic underlying the capitalist system in which it operates today, either in terms of productivity or efficiency the MCC stands out as an extremely successful industrial corporation. This happens due to multiple factors. For example, some of the MCC workers argue that it was the cohesiveness and communitarian traditions of the Basque culture which allowed things to work out as they do because these ‘values’ are embedded in the MCC organizational culture. Further, one of the other reasons pointed out was the lack of ideological conscience among the workers. In fact, ‘the secret of Mondragon is, above all, organizational, not ideological: it is how-to knowledge that makes it work’ (Benello, 1996: 217).

On the other hand, Itçaina (2002) highlighted what I consider to be a somewhat thin connection between the religious roots of Mondragon, as it was founded by a catholic priest, and its working ethics and values. He referred four characteristics underlying this value system: i) creativity, associated to the interrelations between the MCC tactics and its strategic movement; ii) solidarity, concerning the limitations imposed by the organization to capital, the social affectation of its results, and so on; iii) oecumenicity, i.e. the importance of a socio-religious system of values and beliefs despite the cooperative principle of religious and political neutrality; iv) responsibility, related to the existent tension between the moral of results and the moral of intentions.

To my understanding, a more solid reason for the MCC ‘phenomenon’ is the ‘life story’ of its founder. I am specifically referring to his interest in cooperatives and horizontal forms of organization. This, I believe, in addition to the aforementioned contextual singularities of the Basque country, contributed strongly for the development of Mondragon. His main influences were Robert Owen and the Rochdale principles of cooperative organization which are still, although with some modifications, the guiding principles of the MCC⁴.

Taken as a whole, these organizational principles have had remarkable consequences in several dimensions. Gibson-Graham (2003) highlighted the following: i) production, as the MCC has shown great concern with the necessities of the region. In effect, production is relatively adapted to the regional context. This is made through a remarkable diversification of products, contributing to strengthen the regional economy; ii) payment, as the MCC strategy reflects a communitarian decision to balance income comparing it to the regional context, to minimize wage differentials, etc., indicating a valorisation of community sustainability over and above immediate personal consumption; iii) profit, since a large share of it is channelled to the enhancement of social services provision and also to the creation of new cooperatives. This is deemed to connect the MCC members to the wider community while expanding and strengthening its economy; iv) innovations, because the MCC principle of capital subordination has meant that technical transformations do not threat individual jobs. ‘While there is no question that innovation must take place to remain competitive, the cooperatives were designed primarily to gainfully employ people and not only to make profitable returns’ (ibid: 147); v) management, as the self-management principle means that many issues related to the direction of work and discipline in the work place are ignored. Workplace behaviour obeys to a number of regulations achieved through agreement by the members of the cooperative; vi) disputes, because, although it is not always easy to determine working conditions, wage levels and job classifications, the MCC’s willingness to discuss them in an open and democratic fashion has contributed to its success; vii) membership, because even despite the global market pressures to widen up membership, the MCC strategy is primarily aimed at protecting employment and operations in the Basque country, thus remaining committed to the sovereignty of labour over capital principle, while engaging in operations elsewhere along mainstream lines.

The second urban laboratory I will present is Christiania, a somewhat different case of anarchist influenced experiences since it seems to be primarily concerned with a broader understanding of what life should be in all its spheres, not only the socioeconomic one. Further, whereas the MCC is not a self-denominated anarchist experience, Christiania has been created on the basis of anarchist principles.

Christiania is the name of a Danish self-governing neighbourhood located in Copenhagen. It covers an area of 85 acres and has approximately 1 000 inhabitants. Its origins date back to September 26, 1971, when a former army camp, close to the city centre, was occupied by a group of young people in protest against the city’s shortage of available housing (Miles, 2005). Among them was Jacob Ludvigsen, a young publisher at the underground newspaper Head (Hovedbladet), who passionately wrote

The Danish government was pretty conservative, and this alternative community was at odds with the dominant socio-political discourse. The whole experiment was seen as a threat to the established order and to traditional Danish values. Thus, in 1976, after four years of indecision and permissiveness towards Christiania the authorities decided to terminate it. However, they met strong opposition from residents and a wide section of the public favourable of continuing Christiania as a ‘social experiment’ (Sanoff, 2000: 194), and were forced to retreat. Although facing the continual threat of eviction due to the successive government positions towards some perceived problems, namely the consumption of cannabis, but also because of tax benefits and other permissive regulations applied to its inhabitants, in 1989, a law institutionalized Christiania’s status as a ‘social experiment’. Recently, however, in 2004, the centre-right government nullified the law. After all, it seems that the political power structures find it hard to cope with alternative communities and concomitant lifestyles.

Despite the uncertainties it had to face regarding its own future, according to Bengtson and Hulgard (2001), Christiania witnessed the emergence of several social enterprises such as bars, restaurants, theatre companies, and bands which have contributed to enhance Copenhagen’s image as a cultural city. Further, it was also the birthplace of a number of innovative products (e.g. Christiania bike, Christiania oven).

Arguably, its openness to heterogeneity has contributed for its ‘social success’, i.e. the fact that Christiania accepts those who are not willing or able to comply with societal demands is one of the reasons for its success, since non-conformity seems to be somewhat linked to creativity and innovation (André and Abreu, 2006). Therefore, as Sanoff (2000: 192) suggested, ‘instead of a community based on institutional rules, orders, and control, [Christiania’s inhabitants] want to create a society based on the acceptance of everyone without asking about the past, on nonintervention, low standards of material consumption, reuse of materials, byodinamic food, and so on’. All in all, Christiania is ‘a model of autonomy based on the plural non-hierarchic knowledges of dwellers’ (Miles, 2005: 198).

Also related to this anarchist atmosphere is the traditional way of doing politics in Christiania. Recently, Parker et al. (2007) described the single most important feature of Christiania’s political praxis which is the fact that the community is governed by a series of meetings which all residents may attend. In addition to a larger common meeting there are fifteen smaller area meetings and functional meetings to deal with many issues (e.g. rocker violence, banning cars, zone restrictions to cannabis dealing, prohibition of heroin and the introduction of a local currency). Christiania’s political model also incorporates a concern with housing. If, by any reason, a room/house becomes empty, advertisement is sent to the local newspaper and if somebody applies a meeting takes place followed by an interview with the applicants. Thus, housing within Christiania’s walls is not treated as a commodity.

Nowadays, however, the risk faced by Christiania is that it can become a commodity in itself. Progressively, its relations with the state have become less contentious not only because it has started to be seen as an area where those considered to have deviant behaviours may go to but, more than that, because it has become one of the most important tourist sites in Denmark. Nevertheless, as Parker et al. (ibid: 44) noted, ‘whether it can avoid being incorporated as a merely bohemian quarter of a liberal city is probably the important issue for the next part of its history’.

Despite their differences in terms of strategy, not only the urban movements examined next have interwoven paths but they also share the same driving force, i.e. underlying their actions is a concern with urban public spaces. Therefore, they are taken into account as a whole, although here and there I do identify some of their distinctive traits.

Reclaim the Streets (RTS) is an urban movement of resistance which emerged out of the collusion between multiple agents (e.g. deejays, anti-corporate activists, political and New Age artists, radical ecologists, etc.) battling against the commodification of streets and public spaces. What had started has an ecologically rooted anti-road movement rapidly shifted towards broader political issues such as corporate globalization, anti-capitalism, and the politics of space and as now become one more among many ‘anti-globalization’ movements (see Klein, 2001; Harvie et al., 2005).

Therefore, RTS was originally formed in London, 1991, by a group which was involved in the campaign against the construction of the M3 motorway link. Activists were supporting the preservation of Twyford Down’s landscapes which featured ‘unique chalk escarpments called the Dongas’ (Moxham, 1996). Until that date it remained has one of the biggest direct action campaigns ever to be made in the UK. Activists were living on site and eventually a strong connection developed between them and the local community which ‘solidified unity in the anti-road movement’ (ibid.).

Two year later, in 1993, the second campaign was both quantitative and qualitatively different. Whereas the former campaign was only able to mobilize a small number of activists and local residents, this one, would attract many more. The campaign, aimed at stopping the construction of the new M11 link, as it would cut through one of London’s last ancient woodlands forcing the displacement of several thousand people, lasted more than a year (18 months) and involved constant direct-action resistance. On the other hand, whereas the Twyford campaign was essentially motivated by environmental concerns with the preservation of landscape, this one entailed wider social and political issues as people were defending their homes and community.

The tactics used involved the transformation of Claremont Road into a ‘living sculptural fortress’ (Klein, 2000). This involved the artistic transformation of space using objects, such as cars and trees, which could also be used to delay or at least temporarily old back the decision already taken by the government. Then, in late 1994, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (CJPOA) was passed criminalizing civil protest, contributing to unite and motivate even more the resisting groups.

In the end, however, the M11 link road campaign was to be lost in what became later known as the ‘battle of Claremont Road’ in which all the activists were evicted. Nevertheless, as Klein (ibid: 314) pointed out, ‘when Claremont Road was levelled in November 1994, it had become the most creative, celebratory, vibrant living street in London (…) by the time all the activists had been cherry-picked out of their tree houses and fortresses, the point of the action – that high speed roads suck the life out of a city – could have had no more graphic or eloquent expression’.

This campaign also marked a turning point, since hereafter the RTS would become more and more concerned with widening the debate beyond anti-road protests, addressing the political and economic forces underlying the politics of streets and public spaces thus attracting activists of different radical sensibilities. Regarding its modus operandi, revolving around street parties, the RTS started to be acknowledged as the crystallization of what Hakim Bey (1991) called ‘temporary autonomous zones’, i.e. temporary spaces eluding formal structures of control. After all, ‘the idea of a street party is simple enough: decide a date and a venue, get as many people as possible to turn up, and empower everyone involved by taking away public space from cars and showing that the seeming uncertainties of everyday life can be altered to everyone’s benefit and pleasure’ (SchNEWS, 2000: 113-114).

Thus, following the same assumptions, in May 1995 the RTS organized its first street party assembling five hundred people on Camden Street. With the CJPOA in full effect, RTS attracted many of those belonging to the increasingly politicized rave scene since raves were also targeted by the CJPOA. As a result, the next RTS event mobilized three thousand people and electronic music was on the background creating the atmosphere. Klein (2000: 315) believes that this combination of ‘rave and rage’ seemed to have been contagious since the whole RTS dynamics started spreading across Britain (reaching its high point with the 1997 Trafalgar Square event where twenty thousand people showed up) and eventually internationally with events held in cities such as Tel Aviv, Helsinki or Sidney.

In a RTS agitprop written in 1996 one could read: ‘we are basically about taking back public space from the enclosed private arena. At its simplest, it is an attack on cars as a principle agent of enclosure. It’s about reclaiming the streets as a public inclusive space from the private exclusive use of the car. But we believe in this as a broader principle, taking back those things which have been enclosed within capitalist circulation and returning them to collective use as commons’ (Fourier, 2003: 54). This, I believe, sums up well what the RTS is all about and the political underpinnings of the actions committed by them.

On the other hand, Critical Mass (CM) is an urban movement consisting of hundreds of cyclists riding together through specific routes within urban spaces, predominantly, those considered more problematic in terms of traffic congestion. Although there were previous similar experiences in the early 1970s, in its contemporary form, CM started in San Francisco in 1992 and rapidly spread to other cities in North America, Europe, and Australia thus sharing a similar timeframe to the RTS movement.

The methodology employed by CM starts with a pre-arranged gathering at a designated intersection on the last Friday of every month near rush hours. However, these gatherings are regarded by the CM as large-scale coincidences (Boyd, 2002). Then, due to the sheer force of numbers, bikers form a critical mass and drivers are forced to concede them priority.

According to Stevens (2004) each month the CM follows a different route, unknown even to most participants, ‘they gradually explore the city’ (ibid: 142), while occupying whole streets, ignoring traffic signals, and temporarily blocking vehicular traffic at a series of major intersections. For her, this event can be perceived as a political critique, promoting the rights of cyclists to freely use streets and public spaces.

On similar grounds, Switzky (2002: 186) contends that CM ‘demands a democratization and re-visualization of streets as vital public space, rightfully the domain of human civilization. CM acts out as a re-occupation of streets under new ground rules regarding the balance between movement and destination, participant and spectator, serious dialogue and clowning levity. And above all, Critical Mass reintroduces the joyous spontaneity of living in contact with other into the regular course of city life’. Therefore, one of its main tenets is the capacity to blend celebratory and serious political intervention in urban public spaces. However, the separation between both is not that clear and that is how things are supposed to be according to the predominant CM political understanding. First and foremost, CM is acknowledged as being a celebration of prefigurative politics in which social interaction is fostered and perceived as the desirable paradigm for urban spaces. As Ferrell (2001: 115) suggested, most of all, CM ‘constitutes a cultural conquest, an attempt to inscribe new values, new images, new pleasures in the street – and thus to construct new cultural space’.

Another relevant aspect regards the synergies and complementariness existing between RTS and CM at the strategic level. Due the great overlap between both movements it has become rather common for the streets to be cleared of traffic by the CM movement, moments before the area is bounded by the RTS through the use of barricades and other obstacles and the participants arrive (Klein, 2000).

Finally, I would like to mention a specific feature of the CM movement, namely, its non-vertical organizational structure. On the one hand, it has no leadership and there are no requirements in terms of formal association with the movement. On the other hand, some of the routes taken by the participants are spontaneously decided by whoever is leading the group, while others are previously determined through voting after a prior discussion. This way the CM seeks to build up interactivity while disrupting possible restraint procedures taken by the official authorities.
5. Anarchist influenced experiences as innovative strategies for urban social cohesion
The purpose of this section is to put all the pieces back together. It seeks to examine how can anarchist influenced experiences be useful in terms of research on urban social cohesion. In other words, it questions whether or not the abovementioned experiences do present innovative strategies to deal with a number of problems associated to urban social cohesion. Obviously, all this is done within a rationale incorporating the anarchist vision-goals nexus as well as the social cohesion theorisation described earlier.

The key underlying assumption one has to have in order to establish the linkages between anarchism and urban social cohesion has to do with the understanding of the later. As we have seen earlier, conventional (i.e. mainstream) conceptualizations of (urban) social cohesion present some shortcomings in terms of alternative thinking, i.e. they do not seem able to overcome/transcend the existent dominant rationale. In my understanding, that is absolutely necessary if the linkages between the anarchism and urban social cohesion are to be consolidated and strengthened. In other words, from an abstract point of view, anarchist vision-goal requires a conceptualization of urban social cohesion willing to challenge the existent social order.

In that sense, the three dimensions/challenges presented earlier, i.e. socioeconomic/povert-inequality-social exclusion, cultural/common values-diversity-social capital, political/citizenship-rights-participation, need to be connected to the anarchist vision ‘pillars’ (power-authority and freedom-equality) and to its goals (modern-postmodern). In order to grasp this interrelation, I will start by comparing and contrasting the various anarchist inspired experiences described before.

The urban experiences chosen present a considerable number of anarchist-social cohesion articulations regardless of the chronological ‘position’ they occupy in the timescale or their ‘type’ (i.e. laboratory or movement). If anything else, this serves to remind us that the existent possibilities are context-dependent but only up to a certain extent. In other words, the experiences seem to show that there are some singularities enabling them to become relatively successful. Obviously, this success is not evaluated using the same measures that are used by the analysts working for the hegemonic ‘belief system’ (Peet, 2007) which tend to think in terms of competitiveness, instrumental usefulness and efficiency.

Despite all their differences, according to the constitute pillars of the anarchist vision, the historical experiences of Fourier and Owen can be understood in terms of their proximity towards the freedom-equality dichotomy. I believe that it is possible to suggest this closeness because they were not aimed at fully challenging the hegemonic power structures of the industrial capitalist system which was still emerging at the time. Instead, they were primarily focused on tackling some of the most severe problems associated to conventional working sites at the time.

In other words, they wanted to change without transforming power relations. In order to do so, an archaic form of prefigurative politics was used as it was not negotiated or contested. The ideas developed supporting the proposals put forward by Fourier and Owen had to be taken by their face value with no further critique or possibility for changing. Thus, in terms of anarchist goals it does not seem to fit contemporary understanding of what they should be. Nevertheless, this does not mean that they should be immediately dismissed as ineffective or useless.

Regarding social cohesion they do provide some ‘archaeological’ examples of ways to deal with its socioeconomic dimension, mainly in terms of mitigating inequalities and diminishing social exclusion levels, since the ones fortunate enough to be living within those urban laboratories were at the time allowed to experience some truly innovative practices and had access to facilities usually only accessible to the ruling elites. Nevertheless, this does not eliminate the patronizing sense involving all these projects. Further, in terms of the cultural dimension of social cohesion they do seem to have some relevance as they managed to foster a sense of communality among the dwellers. Nevertheless, due the lack of information about the daily lives of dwellers according to their own understanding it is not possible to say much more about this specific issue.

In addition, these historical urban laboratories can be connected to the socioeconomic challenge requiring a culture of experimentation. This was exactly what the ‘utopian socialists’ were seeking, i.e. an alternative to what existed in a few domains of life. As suggested earlier, this alternative is not an all encompassing one because it still operates within broader systemic forces sustaining the dominant order which it fails to address. However, the willingness to experiment and take risks is something which should be regarded as being positive. At the time, imagination and creativity were still allowed some space to create alternative models and to experiment new arrangements in terms of social relations.

On the other hand, SAAL seems to represent a paradoxical vision as it occupied a gap within the power-authority structures which were still trying to figure out the best way to manage internal political affairs in Portugal. It shows how the anarchist vision can operate within more or less authoritarian state structures. On the one hand, the SAAL was originally produced by the state apparatus thus having quite rigid limitations in terms of its possibilities. On the other hand, it rapidly gained a life of its own due to the popular mobilization developing around its objectives. Hence, it was also an arena where freedom and equality were being played since there was freedom to intervene and participate in the public sphere thus contributing to maximize equality, at least from a strictly political perspective. However, as soon as it became uncomfortable for the just consolidated state apparatus to continue supporting such an audacious and innovative process the SAAL was extinct and the housing problem was institutionalised differently, in a more controlled and manageable fashion.

As to anarchist goals, as soon as the SAAL was ‘appropriated’ by popular powers, direct action emerged as a way to immediately address the housing question. Many people took the initiative to build their own houses, sometimes even without any help from the official authorities. Such an urgent matter (i.e. housing) was not able to be organized under the same rigid rules guiding conventional political praxis and to follow the same timelines. Moreover, the process involved the creation of more or less spontaneous cooperative organizations responsible for the decision-making process. This is very important because control over one’s habitat is one of the main sources of empowerment and well-being (Ward, 1983).

Despite that fact, Garnier (2006) pointed out some of the problems associated to ‘autoconstrucción’, namely the fact that most of the times the self-built environment is one where aesthetic mediocrity and banality predominate. Thus, the mere fact that people gain the possibility of intervening in their environment does not means that they immediately gain the technical and conceptual instruments allowing them to proceed correctly. Sometimes, during the SAAL process, damages were made to landscapes that still exert their influence in the contemporary urban spaces of Lisbon, Oporto and Setúbal.

The SAAL also presented some interesting features associated to the socioeconomic and the political dimensions of social cohesion. Regarding the former, managing the fact that people had access to proper housing probably played a significant role influencing their future options in terms of employment, family, perspectives for the future, etc., thus reducing inequalities. Notwithstanding, first and foremost, it was relevant because it minimized the many risks associated to social exclusion. In political terms, although I already referred some of the implications associated to it, the SAAL process contributed to enhance the rights of citizens by giving them access to a fundamental right but also by allowing them to have real decision power, not only the cosmetic one associated to conventional democratic political praxis (see Peet, 2007).

As a result, the SAAL also meant that the conditions of access to proper housing were intrinsically linked and determined the widening of the citizenship horizons. To my understanding, this relationship seems to be crucial to produce the kind of political challenge associated to a conception of citizenship centred on the conditions of inhabitancy. Looking back, the whole SAAL philosophy constituted the basis for this kind of challenge. The control over urban space or, in other words, the right to the city (Lefebvre, 1996; Harvey, 2008), is a necessary condition for the control over one’s life.

Moving on towards contemporary experiences, the MCC experience seems to resemble some of the historical laboratories which were examined before because, in terms of anarchist vision, it operates, quite successfully indeed, within a system which stands at odds with some of its principles. In other words, the organizational logic and the principles guiding the MCC whole conduct contrast with the dominant capitalist logic (i.e. capital over people). This way, just like Owen (Fourier is not considered as it never really put his ideas to practice) presented alternative models that did not truly challenged the dominant social order, so does Mondragon which maximizes freedom and equality within the broader context. As we have seen already the tension between principles and profit is constantly threatening the MCC experience. Nevertheless, until now it seems that the former is more successful than the latter.

On the other hand, anarchist goals are always emerging since the procedural guidelines allow consensus to be used as a political method of decision-making, although it is not the only method used. In general terms, I believe that it is also possible to suggest that the MCC can be acknowledged as a particular form of prefigurative politics. On the one hand, it remains firmly attached to the ‘original vision’ of its founder which was influenced by historical ‘utopian’ experiences, although rooted in the regional cultural environment. On the other hand, it demonstrates that it is possible to build an alternative future today, i.e. to work under a different logic even within a dominant and hegemonic context which functions according to totally different rules.

Although I believe that the MCC experience is able to influence the whole range of social cohesion dimensions, it is my contention that the ones which are more influenced are the cultural and the political ones. In what concerns the cultural dimension the MCC is rooted in a set of common values underlying and encompassing the strategic options it takes but perhaps more significant is the importance the MCC has for the Basque Country. Basically, the MCC works as a regional economic network imbued by a cultural significance which simultaneously is the product and the producer of its existence. With regards to the political dimension, the MCC has obviously taken very seriously the participatory process engaging all the workers in it ever since it was founded. This, in turn, contributes to develop a sense of commitment and responsibility towards it which is mutually beneficial since the workers have control over all the steps taken by the MCC while, at the same time, the working process runs much more smoothly than in conventional corporations.

As a result, the MCC also poses relative cultural and political challenges to the dominant order. It shows that a substantially different organizational model, associated to failure within the dominant rationale, can be successful (and here I am considering the mainstream vision of what success is all about) and, more than that, it can be more successful than conventional practices as it is reasonable to expect that it extends its influence outside the MCC boundaries. Thus, it is this diverse political culture which can be understood as a challenge because it values an alternative model which seems to be more close to the political aspirations of workers while being embedded in the Basque Country territory thus promoting urban social cohesion.

Christiania due to its very singular history can be regarded as an example of the fulfilling of the anarchist vision. On the one hand, it clearly entails a power-authority relationship since it has always counterpoised the dominant political structures of power. In fact, due to that rather fragile position its existence has been threatened many times. Until recently, i.e. until Christiania became yet another commodity, the Danish authoritarian powers in charge questioned the legitimacy of Christiania. In return, Christiania has been doing the same throughout its entire history. This clash, I believe, also entails another relevant characteristic as it promotes the development of a particular conception of what freedom should be like.

When compared with the other urban laboratories examined Christiania is perhaps the one with the wider variety of anarchist goals. In fact, I believe that it incorporates all the postmodern goals identified earlier. First, consensus, since many of the decisions taken there are the result of assemblies that use many different methods to take a decision, including consensus. I am specifically thinking about the processes related to the ‘recruitment’ of new dwellers as being good examples of this kind of goal. Secondly, direct action, not only because the foundation of Christiania was in itself an act of direct action but also because this specific goal is used by many as the do-it-yourself ‘alternative entrepreneurial’ culture bears witness. Lastly, prefigurative politics, because ever since it was founded, Christiania has been a clear example of an alternative future being constantly made and re-made. In fact, nowadays, Christiania is perhaps the best case of an alternative urban laboratory within the European territory.

However, despite its whole encompassing character, i.e. the fact that it is able to touch all the spheres of life of its residents, it is my contention that the capacity it shows in socioeconomic terms is much smaller than the capacity is seems to have with regards to the cultural and political dimensions of urban social cohesion. For example, Christiania seems able to valorise both diversity as well as a set of common (anarchist influenced) values which built up its alternative community identity. Likewise, it enhances social capital as the success shown by some of its initiatives seems to suggest. On the other hand, it fosters participation enhancing a sense of citizenship which is closely attached to Christiania’s urban space.

Therefore, Christiania is also a synonym of cultural and political challenges. The fact of the matter is that, despite some problems it had to face related to drugs Christiania has been able to demonstrate that order can emerge out of territories not subject to conventional regulatory structures. Further, it has also shown that participatory models not based on the conventional mechanisms of representative democracy can increase the sense of belonging to a community thus benefiting the overall politics of its space.

Regarding contemporary urban movements, both RTS and CM seem to have a much stronger connection to the anarchist vision concerning the dialectic of power and authority. This is not to say that freedom and equality are not among their concerns but it I believe that the general attitude underpinning their actions is one of contestation of power and even one of explicitly confronting its apparatus. The use of ‘celebratory’ strategies by both movements is not only an innovative way to address issues of power but also of exposing the contradictions and the hypocrisies within those same power structures.

In terms of goals, it is also interesting to note that both movements combine modern goals associated to massive demonstrations occupying public spaces with postmodern goals such as direct action and consensus. This innovative combination seems to have already proven to be fruitful as it incorporates the impact of a massive number of participants with the horizontal, non-authoritarian goals characterizing anarchist political praxis turning its interventions harder to predict thus to stop. Furthermore, they also seem to incorporate a prefigurative politics concern since they tend to act as if the public spaces were subject to a completely different rule from the one which prevails nowadays, i.e. they enact an anarchist influenced public space.

Obviously, although at least the RTS takes economic issues into consideration, to my understanding they are only capable of influencing urban social cohesion in its cultural and political dimensions. Regarding the former, because they are also aimed at fostering diversity (in political, cultural, ideological terms) although it seems to me that social capital is not something that is considered as being relevant since their actions are clearly marked by a sense of anonymity in which the goals are guided by many different visions and multiple ideological underpinnings. As to the latter dimension, it suffices to say that the kernel of both movements is the active engagement of all those involved in every stage of their actions. Particularly important are the rights associated to public space but from a completely different point of view when compared with the conventional rational prioritizing privatization and commodification of public spaces.

Thus, the only major challenge posed by these movements is a cultural one. On the one hand, they raise a collection of questions regarding the nature of politically movements since diversity becomes the alternative predominant paradigm. On the other hand, by proceeding like this they are able to shake the epistemological foundations of the hegemonic cultural paradigm, i.e. essentialist conceptions of socially constructed categories.

This extensive in-depth interpretation of anarchist influenced experiences from the perspective of urban social cohesion, allow us to get to grips with a number of ways through which these experiences may contribute in an innovative fashion to reinvent and to reconfigure urban social cohesion. In other words, these experiences do seem to present various innovative strategies to achieve urban social cohesion, understood as the development of its three constitutive dimensions and the concomitant pursuit of the challenges associated to each one of those dimensions.

Nevertheless, a number of problematic and disputed areas still continue to exist. Firstly, the problems associated to scale, since most anarchist influenced experiences seem to be firmly attached to the local scale despite the broader reverberations of their actions (e.g. the MCC effects in the regional, national and international scales). Recently, a wide array of problems associated to multi-scalar perspectives (i.e. neighbourhoods, cities, metropolises, urban regions, countries, and so on) has been raised by many scholars and has become one of main sources of debate within the broader field of regional and urban studies (see Mingione, 1996; Kearns and Forrest, 2000; Moulaert et al., 2000). Thus, it seems to me that it would be useful to incorporate anarchist influenced experiences within this rationale since because, using Klein’s (2005: 36) argument, it is fair to say that the contemporary experiences examined have contributed to ‘the reconstruction of the social from the bottom, based in collective actions able to awake or intensify territorial conscience’.

Secondly, apart from a few exceptions (e.g. Albert, 2003) anarchist experiences appear to be incapable of seriously addressing issues within the economic sphere. This is not to say that, for instance, the MCC experience does not presents itself as an alternative economic mode of functioning, quite the opposite. Nevertheless, as already argued, it does not seriously challenge the hegemonic economic order. To my understanding, at least from a theoretical point of view, this can be linked to the classical distinction between the Marxist concept of exploitation and the anarchist concept of domination. Whereas the former is a political economic concept, the latter is has a broader scope since it can be understood as referring to ‘oppressive power relations’ (May, 2009: 12) which may not have an economic basis (e.g. patriarchal power relations, racism, etc.). In other words, anarchist experiences seem to be more concerned with this broader understanding of power relations than the one primarily concerned with economic exploitation.

Finally, the issue of sustainability associated to the fact that most anarchist experiences are not able to endure in time. As we have seen earlier, this indicator is not the most suited to assess the qualities of alternative experiences. To my understanding this is somehow connected to the wider question about the effects of institutionalisation on bottom-up processes of resistance such as those we have been analysing here either in their laboratory of movement arrangement. From a perspective rooted in urban movements and the possibility of their ‘ossification’, Milstein (2000) suggests that
it is time to push beyond the oppositional character of our movement by infusing it with a reconstructive vision. That means beginning, right now, to translate our movement structure into institutions that embody the good society; in short, cultivating direct democracy in the places we call home. This will involve the harder work of reinvigorating or initiating civic gatherings, town meetings, neighborhood assemblies, citizen mediation boards, any and all forums where we can come together to decide our lives, even if only in extralegal institutions at first. Then, too, it will mean reclaiming globalization, not as a new phase of capitalism but as its replacement by confederated, directly democratic communities coordinated for mutual benefit.
Thus, she is advocating the progressive transformation of urban movements into more stable and durable organizations. In other words, it means that one should capture the momentum gained from the intervention of urban movements and use it to build forms of resistance which are not fluid, i.e. build urban laboratories, to employ the notion used earlier.

In the end, however, these issues are not unsolvable and the anarchist praxis has been able to show how to deal with them, although not always in a successful manner. What I am trying to say is that most probably the best way to successfully address them is engaging with the resistance practices associated to anarchist inspired experiences. By the same token, it would also be important to consider the implications these problems have for the impact of anarchist experiences in urban social cohesion.