The lessons from the anarchist experiences on urban social cohesion

In the second part of this section, some proposals are described and criticized from an anarchist perspective. This is deemed to highlight some of the conceptual shortcomings present in the proposals analysed if they were to be understood from an anarchist point of view, i.e. framed by the constitutive elements of the anarchist vision. After, I end up this section with a short presentation of the social cohesion perspective which will be used afterwards while examining anarchist experiences.

Under similar lines, Kearns and Forrest (2000: 996) also suggested that social cohesion if often ‘used in such a way that its meaning is nebulous but at the same time the impression is given that everyone knows what is being referred to. The usual premise is that social cohesion is a good thing, so it is conveniently assumed that further elaboration is unnecessary’. The same understanding is held by Bessel (2001: 183) when arguing that ‘social cohesion can be described as the glue that bonds society together, thus promoting harmony, a sense of community, and a degree of commitment to promoting the common good’. It is my contention that these common assumptions about social cohesion are partially responsible for its lack of theoretical depth. This, in turn, has contributed to obstruct the relevance of social cohesion in terms of research as it does not possess the required consistency and analytical rigor.

There are, however, other understandings about social cohesion. An extensive analysis allowed Jenson (1998) to identify a number of distinct theoretical approaches about social cohesion. Whereas the predominant vision, as we have already seen, associates it with a set of shared values and a strong sense of commitment to a particular community, thus being understood as the foundational rock of social order, other perspectives tend to relativize the importance of values. Instead, they valorize mechanisms such as the role played by institutions and conflicts for the construction and dynamic of social cohesion within specific contexts.

Thus, on the one hand, the former understanding encompasses issues such as the construction of collective identities, which is closely related to feelings of belonging, and the capacity shown by a society to guarantee the inclusiveness of all its members, thus fostering equality and reducing marginality. On the other hand, the latter understanding, privileges issues such as those related to the democratic practices associated to political praxis and also those associated to the mediation of conflicts related to issues such as the access to power and resources (ibid.).

In a latter report, Beauvais and Jenson (2002) reviewed and updated the previously elaborated ‘state of the research’. They were able to distinguish two positions with regards to the role played by social cohesion. For some analysts and policy-makers, social cohesion is seen as an independent variable in a given polity, therefore responsible for generating outcomes. For others, it is perceived as a dependent variable, therefore, understood as the result of actions conducted in one or more realms. It does not seem to make much sense to trace such a stark distinction between both poles as probably they should be understood in terms of their interrelations, i.e. how is social cohesion fostered or hindered within certain specific contexts and how can we influence the outcome through the ‘manipulation’ of some of the inputs. In fact, according to Beauvais and Jenson (ibid.) one of the most significant changes in the literature about social cohesion produced in the last years has been the increased attention to the capacity of well-designed strategic action to foster social cohesion.

I consider that another important idea developed in this latter report was the recognition that since social cohesion can be understood as a ‘quasi-concept’ (see Bernard, 1999) it has to be flexible enough to allow that its analytical rigor as well as its utility are taken into consideration when studying it within a specific urban context. Therefore, as the Council of Europe (2005) suggests, social cohesion should not be acknowledged as a scientific or technical concept but rather as the result of interpretative exercises carried out by relevant actors while solving conflicting situations. In that sense, the Council of Europe (ibid: 26) ended up by suggesting that social cohesion, rather than a concept, should take the form of a dynamic and flexible ‘reference framework’. Although I believe that a more flexible understanding of social cohesion is necessary, I also reckon that there is a necessity to have some unifying aspects underlying a broad definition of social cohesion. Hence, in order to grasp it as a whole, social cohesion should be understood simultaneously as a concept and as a framework.

Notwithstanding, a holistic definition of social cohesion should not neglect the fact that it is a contested concept/framework, i.e. it has also to be understood in the context of the neoliberal policy-makers which have been developing and using it to sustain the policies being conducted during the last couple of decades. One should bear in mind that cohesion ‘alludes to social bonds and trust but not necessarily equity’ (Fainstein, 2001: 884). For Bernard (1999) it may even be used to mask a whole range of inequalities and social injustices. He contends that ‘social cohesion and related nebulous expressions such as social capital and mutual trust rightly attract attention to the perils of neoliberalism, but in most cases they implicitly prescribe a dose of compassion and a return to values rather than a correction of social inequalities and an institutional mediation of interests (ibid: 3).

In this sense, the definition provided by Judith Maxwell (1996) offers an understanding which is wide enough to entail not only the multiple perspectives about social cohesion but also its concept-framework tension. For her, ‘social cohesion involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same community’ (ibid: 13).

Specifically talking from the point of view of urban research, Kearns and Forrest (2000) underline that the reasons why social cohesion has become such a relevant topic are connected to the effects of global economic and technological transformations. Of particular importance in this respect is the reorientation of social policies and state intervention towards competiveness, thus putting more pressure on cities and neighbourhoods. Therefore, current concerns about social cohesion tend to be associated with urban problems, particularly those related to poor neighbourhoods. Underlying this rationale is also the assumption that there is less social cohesion now than somewhere in the past. According to Forrest and Kearns (2001: 2127) the so called crisis of social cohesion is linked to the ‘breakdown of Keynesian capitalism, an end to the progressive recruitment of households to the traditional middle classes and the lifestyles and living standards associated with such status, growing inequality and social fragmentation and a perceived decline of shared moral values. Rising crime rates, the growth of organised crime, long-term unemployment and underemployment particularly among young people, rising divorce rates and lone parenthood are all taken as signs of an increasingly stressed and disorganised society’.

As we have seen earlier, this somewhat idyllic and naïve understanding of past communitarian relations and human networks has been seriously contested. However, only a discussion about the constitutive dimensions of social cohesion may shed some light upon this issue.

After conducting an in-depth textual analysis, Jenson (1998) was able to argue that social cohesion has five dimensions: i) belonging/isolation, as feelings of isolation from a specific community are perceived as a threat to social cohesion; ii) inclusion/exclusion, related to the ability to fully participate in contemporary market societies particularly in terms of access to employment; iii) participation/passivity, linked to the relations between different scales of political influence whereby non-involvement in conventional political participatory mechanisms is perceived as a threat to social cohesion; iv) recognition/rejection, connected to the inherent pluralism of contemporary societies requiring institutional environments contributing to practices of recognition of difference which is in itself considered a virtue; v) legitimacy/illegitimacy, related to the role of institutions in conflict mediation which, if questioned, could represent a threat to social cohesion.

From an anarchist point of view, some of the dimensions identified above are problematic, namely, the assumption that conventional mechanisms of participation are intrinsically connected to social cohesion. This understanding seems to ignore the fact that political praxis is not necessarily attached to the existent channels allowing one to intervene in the public sphere, i.e. there are informal mechanisms of political intervention which do not seem to constitute barriers to social cohesion. Likewise, an anarchist vision would probably be suspicious of the foundations of the legitimacy of some institutions dealing with conflicting situations.

Kearns and Forrest (2000) offer another perspective in which social cohesion entails five constituent dimensions as follows: i) common values and a civic culture, whereby a cohesive society ‘is one in which the members share common values which enable them to identify and support common aims and objectives, and share a common set of moral principles and codes of behaviour through which to conduct their relations with one another. Furthermore, in a cohesive society, one would observe widespread support for political institutions and general engagement with political systems and institutions rather than indifference or disaffection towards them’ (ibid: 997); ii) social order and social control, referring ‘to the absence of general conflict within society and of any serious challenge to the existing order and system’ (ibid: 998); iii) social solidarity and reductions in wealth disparities, implying a conscious effort to tackle poverty and unemployment, to increase opportunities for income-generating activities, to reduce income disparities, and to foster social solidarity through the construction of a sense of shared responsibility and interrelation; iv) social networks and social capital, as there is a consensual belief that a cohesive society contains high density and high intensity of socialization processes maintained through social and civic engagement networks fostering social capital. It is believed that ‘many collective action problems can be overcome through co-operation, and voluntary co-operation is easier and more likely to be spontaneous where social capital exists’ (ibid: 1000); v) place attachment and identity, associated to a discussion on notions of belonging, place attachment and spatial mobility as it is usually assumed that social cohesion benefits from the existence of a strong attachment to places sharing a common past giving a unifying meaning to those living on it.

From an anarchist perspective this proposal raises even more doubts than the previous one. To begin with, it shows a concern with moral values, perceived as the cement linking the various members of a given society. However, this requires the existence of rather homogenous communities in which diversity tends to be associated to the disruption of social order. In addition, the authors also consider that cohesiveness is associated to a general support for the existing institutions. An anarchist would say that they completely miss the point, since they were not able to notice that more often than not social unrest is caused by the absence of valuable communication between the conventional institutional apparatus and its citizens. The authors also refer that the absence of conflict and challenges posed to the social order is a necessary condition for social cohesion. This understanding is completely at odds with the anarchist rationale which would probably perceive conflict as a necessary condition for widening up the conditions necessary to foster social cohesion. Moreover, the existent social order, revolving around market fundamentalism and authoritarian government structures, is often seen as the underlying cause for the absence of social cohesion. However, their understanding of social networks and social capital seem to resemble some of the ideas already presented anarchist ideas about autonomy and spontaneous order.

The Council of Europe (2005) also identified five basic components of social cohesion: i) confidence, understood as a tripartite dimension in which confidence simultaneously relates to oneself and its personal relationships, to institutions and to the future; ii) social bonds, linked to the capacity to developed bonds that cut across traditional separations between non-communicative groups, thus fostering a culture of dialogue and mutual respect; iii) values, i.e. ‘the dissemination of civic values, which guide social behaviour and its development, such as a sense of justice and the public good, solidarity and social responsibility, tolerance and respect for difference’ (ibid: 56); iv) knowledge, under the assumption that shared knowledge contributes to the development and continuity of a sense of belonging; v) feelings, i.e. ‘the feelings of satisfaction resulting from leading an autonomous, dignified life that is actively connected with public issues through the assimilation of civic values, as opposed to feelings of frustration, resentment, hatred’ (ibid.).

From an anarchist perspective, the five dimensions put forward by the Council of Europe are problematic mainly because they do not challenge the status quo, i.e. they take for granted that social cohesion can be achieved and sustained within the existing social order. This would not be consistent with an anarchist vision of the ‘world’.

A more flexible and synthetic proposal was put forward by Woolley (1998) who identified three recurrent aspects in the literature about social cohesion, namely: i) absence of social exclusion, as a necessary condition for the existence of social cohesion; ii) intensity of social interaction, because cohesion is closely linked to interaction; iii) shared values and communities of interpretation as cohesion can be associated to group identity. Although simpler than the previous proposals, this one has the merit of being able to identify the three broad areas where social cohesion operates, i.e. socioeconomic, political and cultural.

More recently, Andreas Novy et al. (2009) did a similar effort to clarify social cohesion both in conceptual as well as in political terms. In order to grasp the concept of social cohesion, the authors identified three dimensions, namely: i) socioeconomic, associated to inequality, poverty and social exclusion (see also Costa, 2004); ii) cultural, linked to common values, diversity and social capital; iii) political, concerning citizenship, rights and participation. In addition to this tripartite conceptualization, and due to the various ways to understand and apply the concept of social cohesion, the authors consider it as a problématique, i.e. ‘a range of questions and challenges posed by the political and methodological use of the concept’ (ibid: 8). Basically, this understanding aims at addressing social cohesion within the broader framework of the capitalist system and its incessant dynamic of ‘creative destruction’. In other words, ‘to understand social cohesion as a problématique means to accept the contradictory dynamics inherent in all efforts to foster solidarity in capitalist societies which need cooperation as well as competition’ (ibid: 9).

This somewhat fluid understanding of social cohesion seems to suit an anarchist understanding of social cohesion because, more than any of the previous perspectives, it is able to combine the material aspects related to socioeconomic status with apparently more immaterial and symbolic aspects such as those under the cultural or the political labels. Moreover, instead of advancing a ‘passive’ conceptualization without challenging the existing social order, by understanding social cohesion as a problématique, it is able to put forward an ‘active’ notion of social cohesion. Its foundations can be found in the three challenges proposed by the authors.

The first challenge concerns the socioeconomic dimension. It stresses the need to introduce a utopian perspective if one wishes to build a socio-economic order in which all can participate. Accordingly, there is a need to foster a culture of experimentation with regards to alternative economic systems. For Novy, et al. (2009: 14), ‘a concrete utopia of social cohesion has to advance towards a society which accommodates freedom, equality and solidarity’. The second challenge is a cultural one, whereby ‘society has to overcome a single-language, monoethnic norm and embrace a society which accommodates diversity, equality and order’ (ibid.). Finally, the political challenge consists ‘in advancing from an essentialist and exclusionary concept of national citizenship to a scale-sensitive and inhabitant-centred conception of citizenship’ (ibid.).

Considered as a whole, these challenges have the potential to reconfigure the way social cohesion has been theorised during the last decades. However, our main concern here is on how assemble their underlying dimensions (i.e. socioeconomic, cultural and political) with the anarchist rationale developed earlier in order to understand how can anarchist experiences provide some relevant and socially innovative insights in terms of urban social cohesion.

Furthermore, there is a concern to bring to the fore both historical as well as contemporary experiences. This happens for two reasons: on the one hand, I do not want to be a victim of the kind of collective historical amnesia characterising many of the analysis being made nowadays; on the other hand, I also believe that some contemporary experiences are sometimes misunderstood and that their singularities are often neglected.

Experiences can acquire multiple forms and crystallize differently in urban contexts. They can take the form of social movements, projects, collectives, organizations, cultural centres, and so on. In order to narrow the scope of our examination, thus reducing the complexity, two domains of anarchist influenced experiences are distinguished, namely: i) urban laboratories; ii) urban movements (see Castells, 1977; Estanque, 1999; Harvey, 2001; Pickvance, 2003; Hamel, 2008). This distinction allows us to grasp both ‘solid’ and ‘liquid’ urban experiences, i.e. those who are attached to a specific locale and those having the capacity to stretch and move all around urban spaces. With this in mind, it is now time to start by examining a number of historical urban experiences and after some contemporary ones.
4.1. Historical urban experiences
In my opinion, an historical experience is one which does not exist anymore but, nonetheless, still manages to preserve some features interesting enough to be examined. In other words, they possess a kind of archaeological importance because through their comprehension one may understand better what is going on in the present.

I also believe that the so called utopian socialist experiences can be understood as urban laboratories within the framework of anarchism. In the context of the industrial revolution, new problems emerged (e.g. lack of sanitation, undeveloped water infrastructures, fast dissemination of contagious diseases, high levels of mortality in some urban areas, increasing levels of poverty, etc.) which needed to be answered, thus, multiple responses were elaborated but only few were really ‘tested’, i.e. put to practice.

According to Bookchin (2005) this era witnessed an immense proliferation of utopias, with different characteristics, such as the completely authoritarian communistic utopia of Mably, the patriarchal ascetic one of Cabet, and the technocratic and hierarchical vision of Saint-Simon. However, he also pointed out that there were two ‘utopians’ that were more influential than any others, Charles Fourier, one of France’s great libertarian thinkers, and Robert Owen, a welsh social reformer. Whereas the former was the main source of inspiration for many utopians but never managed to go beyond theoretical elaborations, the latter was responsible for some of the most interesting utopian experiences ever to be made. Some even advocate that, unlike that of Fourier, Owen’s doctrine proceeded from practice, experiment and experience (Buber, 1996).

Although not necessarily an urban thinker, since his thought revolved around industrial co-operation and he had an organicist vision about the universe, Fourier, however, was relevant because he paved the way for further understandings on communitarian life. For some, like Marshall (1993), he went far beyond the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity put forward by the lawyers of the French Revolution, recognizing that social liberty without a degree of economic equality is meaningless, for others, such as Bookchin (2005: 426), ‘Fourier turns out to be the most libertarian, the most original, and certainly the most relevant utopian thinker of his day, if not of the entire tradition’.

Marshall (1993) provided a vivid account of Fourier’s rational/romantic schemes which were based on the existence of communities where ‘there would be agreeable and voluntary labour, non-repressive sexuality, communal education and communal living’ (ibid: 150). Each community would be a phalanx housed in a phalanstery. In turn, each phalanx
would consist of a self-managing and self-sustaining association of co-operative workers. The members would work in voluntary groups of friends or a series of groups who have gathered together spontaneously and who are stimulated by active rivalries. Work would be made as attractive as possible, and the division of labour would be carried to the supreme degree in order to allot suitable tasks to different individuals. While work would be co-operative and property enjoyed in common, members would receive dividends proportional to their contributions in capital, work and talent. Everyone would have a right to work and as a key principle Fourier insists on a ‘social minimum’, a guaranteed annual income. Every effort would be made to combine personal with social freedom and promote diversity in unity. The equality of unequals would prevail (ibid: 150-151).

However, for this ideal to be fulfilled, rigorous lifestyle had to be followed by the members of the phalanx. According to Bebel (1880, quoted in Freitag, 2001: 9), the standard daily routines of the phalanstery during summer were: ‘3:30 – wake up and get dressed; 4:00 – animals breeders working session; 5:00 – gardeners working session; 7:00 – morning coffee; 7:30 – wheat farmers working session; 9:30 – horticultures working session; 11:00 – another session with animal breeders; 13:00 – lunch; 14:00 – works conducted in the woods; 16:00 – manufacture works; 18:00 – irrigation of plants; 20:00 – accounting; 20:30 – dinner; 21:00 – conversation; 22:00 – go to bed and sleep’.

Fourier never lived to see the practical applications of his theories but Owen who had similar social ideals, although he was more flexible, i.e. not as obsessed with setting precise specifications for every single possible activity, was able to materialize his own ideas.

New Lanark, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was originally the name of a Scottish cotton mill owned by David Dale. After getting married to Dale’s daughter, and thus becoming co-owner of New Lanark, Owen started to introduce some modifications according to his own ideas. His main contribution was linked to the importance he attributed to education. Education and community were deeply interrelated, since the progressive education he championed required a communal context for its success (Kumar, 1990).

One should also not forget the context where he lived, which constituted a rather suitable environment for making his doctrine so appealing. Indeed, the great resonance of Owenism was due to the fact that it was a social philosophy with significant grounding in traditional practice (ibid.). Moreover, and contrasting with Fourierism and other similar experiences, it was deeply rooted in Owen’s practical experience as an industrial manager.

At the time, New Lanark did manage to incredibly raise the living and well-being standards of its workers. As Bookchin (2005: 430) noted, ‘cleanliness, decent pay, benign discipline, relatively short working hours, cultural events, company schools and nurseries – all tailored to the worker’s stamina, sex (most of the operatives were women), and physical condition – demonstrated to a deluge of admiring visitors from all parts of Europe that factory towns could not only be free of demoralization, alcoholism, prostitution, rampant disease, and illiteracy, but they could also yield substantial profits, even in periods of economic depression’. Nevertheless, three years after being acquired by Owen, i.e. in 1828, it went out of his control and from then onwards lapsed into obscurity.

New Harmony, another social experiment conducted by Owen was indeed the greatest American Owenite experiment. Using most of his fortune to establish his American utopia, soon after arriving, Owen declared: ‘I am come to this country to introduce an entire new system of society; to change it from an ignorant, selfish system to an enlightened social system which shall gradually unite all interests into one, and remove all causes for contest between individuals’ (Holloway, 1966: 104).

Additionally, demonstrating his own belief in the transformative power of education he argued that through education ‘a whole community can become a new people, have their minds born again, and be regenerated from the errors and corruptions which ... have hitherto everywhere prevailed’ (Harrison, 1968, quoted in Kuman, 1990: 17). Notwithstanding, as an integrated community, New Harmony lasted less than a year since by March 1826 (it had started in May 1825) it was already divided in three minor communities. Its disintegration continued during the following years and it would completely disappear after Owen’s departure in June 1827. Afterwards, most of New Harmony’s lands and buildings were sold or rented.

All things considered, Owenite communities were doomed to disappear. However, I do agree with Kuman (1990: 20) when he suggests that ‘to regard the communities as failures on the criterion of long-term survival is to mistake their purpose, and their value’.

The historical urban movement I will address has a rather peculiar origin. It emerged from within the revolutionary context existing after the revolution on the 25^th of April, 1974. Therefore, it has to be understood as being part of what Fortuna and Silva (2005: 415) called ‘spontaneity cycle’. For them, this was a short cycle but, nonetheless, marked by the most vibrant exaltation of popular intervention in public life ever to be witnessed in Portugal. During this period, ‘to participate’ was the maxim and this meant that people were actually reshaping their own political understanding of public events.

In July, 1974, Nuno Portas, i.e. the secretary of state of housing and urbanism at the time, launched a document aimed at reorienting the FFH (Fund for Housing Development), which had recently been purged and restructured. In it, he defined a number of priorities for the housing sector, the most important being the rehabilitation of degraded neighbourhoods. It also created SAAL (Mobile Service for Local Control), which was directed towards the poorest layers of society, providing state support with regards to land, technical infrastructures and financing (Mailer, 1977; Portas, 1986; Ferreira, 1987).

One of the reasons why I consider SAAL to be an urban movement, or maybe the catalyst underpinning them, is because it was launched in several urban areas involving architects, engineers, jurists and students, but, first and foremost, the inhabitants of poor or degraded neighbourhoods which were organized in local commissions which shared responsibilities regarding the definition and application of new rights and new living standards. Thus, it can be acknowledged as being one of the first experiences of democratic popular participation if we consider that the country had just come out of a dictatorship lasting 48 years.

As part of the revolutionary dynamic the SAAL operation assumed a particular importance in the urban areas of Lisbon, Setúbal and Oporto. This last, was also where the operation was more developed in theoretical terms (Rodrigues, 1999). A detailed analysis of the Oporto SAAL, which can also be used to illustrate more general features present in the other SAAL’s, was provided by Nunes and Serra (2005), who highlighted several aspects of the SAAL. Firstly, it meant a rupture with the past, because it channelled the contextual conditions existent at the time thus fostering the development of spontaneous popular movements vindicating their rights in various spheres of life and, at the same time, creating the conditions for a procedural democratization and elimination of hierarchical cleavages between different actors. Secondly, it was the outcome of an actor/dynamic convergence, i.e. the SAAL comes out of a convergence of interests between the organizations managed by the inhabitants of poor neighbourhoods, the scientific and technical bodies connected to housing and urban policies, the state, through its services and sectorial departments, parties and other political organizations. Thirdly, among the objectives underlying the SAAL interventions were: i) decentralization, i.e. connecting the state to the most dynamic sectors of the civil society; ii) link technique and intervention, i.e. those who had the technical and scientific know-how were expected to cooperate with those with the capacity to intervene at the local scale; iii) work against previous urban tendencies, i.e. recognizing the ‘right to place’; iv) maximize the use of all possible resources in terms of housing intervention. Fourthly, despite the multiple ambiguities and divergences between all the actors involved, the SAAL should be seen as an experience of social emancipation and participatory democracy. Finally, on the 27^th October, 1976, the SAAL was extinguished due to three conjectural reasons of social, political and historical nature, namely, the state incapacity to accompany o rhythm of the process, the inexistence of past experiences of participation, open confrontation, dialogue and debate, and the dynamic of ‘normalization’ underlying the post-revolutionary period.