Talk:Self-managed social center

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

It was proposed in this section that Autonomous social center be renamed and moved to Self-managed social centre . ed. put'r there 16:05, 1 November 2019 (UTC)[reply ] Links: current log • target log This is Template:Requested move/end

• Recognizability – I hope my reasoning above has made this clear
• Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English. - this is tricky because social centres go by different names but worldwide 'self-managed social centre' is the most often used term
• Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects - yes!
• Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects - we do need to differentiate this sort of social centre from other community centres, the 'self-managed' part does that perfectly
• Consistency - The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles - yup, this page is parent to Self-managed social centres in the United Kingdom and Self-managed social centres in Italy

• Comment Support as nominator. Mujinga (talk) 14:35, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• This is solely a matter of what
  OCLC 744314571
  .

  Autonomous spaces: There's a storm brewing in every teacup. (n.d.). Do or Die!, 8, 130-132.

• Sources such as Casaglia and Piazza (mentioned above but note that both are literally adjacent articles in the same journal) solely use "self-managed" in relation to the Italian translation. But when quoting literature from outside Italy, Piazza says:

  Also Martìnez (2012) has included the squatted Social Centres inside the wider squatters’ movement—involving also squatted houses, non-squatted autonomous Social Centres, rural squatting and tactical squatting like the occupation of squares—in which they play a key political role.
  — Piazza, Gianni (March 2018). "Squatting Social Centres in a Sicilian City: Liberated Spaces and Urban Protest Actors". Antipode. 50 (2): 500.

  ISSN 0066-4812

  .

And those were just looking at the sources invoked in the requested move. (And happy to pull from the additional sources in the bibliography if other editors aren't able to retrieve.) When I compiled and read the sources on first draft of this article, "autonomous" was most often the term used to disambiguate this type of social space from others. When "autonomous" and "self-managed" were used as direct synonyms, "autonomous" was more prominently used as the qualifier for the center/space. On balance, if "

autonomous space" is preferable over "autonomous social center," I could also see that being supported by the spirit of the sources. czar 12:29, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

• If people care to dig into the sources they will see there are a whole range of disambiguating terms used for these social centre projects such as radical / anarchist / libertarian / autonomous and self-managed. We could all go through texts highlighting various words. My point is that we need an article which has a name actually used in secondary sources. Self-managed social centres is a descriptor used by the five articles which I mentioned above and which actually appear in the article. What we seem to be establishing here is that the distinct phrase autonomous social centre is verging on original research since it is rather seldom used in the literature.

• As regards autonomous spaces well that is a very vague term which could be applied to a squatted
  WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Autonomous spaces might still be an interesting article to have on wikipedia in its own right, if more reliable secondary sources were found. Mujinga (talk) 11:53, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Oppose as proposed on its face as a violation of a WP policy,
  WP:RETAIN. "Center" should not be switched to "centre" without a very good reason. Red Slash 05:42, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply
  ]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a

talk page or in a move review

. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved as proposed. There is a consensus supported by reasonable evidence for the advantage of the proposed title, including consistency with existing subtopic titles. The center/centre debate is the subject for a separate discussion. BD2412 T 04:10, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that the article title should be changed to reflect the more widely-used term, given not only the amount of sources, but how other related articles have been labelled. Although I do think the phrase "Autonomous social center" is also used frequently enough that it should be included as an alternate in the lead section. This would look something like:

Self-managed social centers, also known as autonomous social centers, are self-organized community centers in which anti-authoritarians put on voluntary activities.

Grnrchst (talk) 15:23, 13 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Nothing has changed since the last discussion above. It is not a more widely used term. No additional sources have been added or proposed. I showed last time how "autonomous social center" and variants (e.g., "autonomous space") are the
  common name in the most prominent sources. "Self-managed social center" is predominantly used with social centers in Italy, based on its translation from Italian. All in all, "autonomous" is the most common descriptor used here. czar 21:40, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Comment regarding the oppose, I'm just not finding sources giving the precise term "autonomous social centre". To add to the five sources already in the article using "self-managed social centre", I can offer:

• Regarding Spain, Webb says in their book Coding Democracy: "the name for this type of center is Centro Social Okupado Autogestionado (CSOA) meaning 'Occupied Self-managed social center' (page 306) and the term is also used in for example Squatters in the Capitalist City: Housing, Justice, and Urban Politics
• Regarding France, in the book La ville conflictuelle: Oppositions – Tensions – Négociations, Auclair and Desponds write "Il y a quelques années, les membres de l'Espace autogéré des Tanneries, ancien squat conventionné par la Mairie de Dijon, avaient entendu parler d'un projet immobilier sur la parcelle occupée par le lieu." - Espace autogéré translates to self-managed social centre
• Regarding Denmark, Krøijer discusses "self-managed social centres" in their English-language book Figurations of the Future on pages 8, 67, 68 and 80
• Regarding USA, Toupin's article in Contention Journal is entitled "An Open-Air Self-Managed Social Center Called Occupy". https://doi.org/10.3167/cont.2013.010102
• Talking on a philosophical level in their book Posthuman Urbanism: Mapping Bodies in Contemporary City Space, Shaw discusses taking "the self-managed social centre as a model of the TAZ" page 160
• I'm fine with Grnrchst's suggested compromise and happy to supply more sources if needed Mujinga (talk) 19:59, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an accounting of sources within the article:

• Amster, et al. 2009: "social centers", "squatted social centers"
• Atton 1999; Atton 2010: "information centre", "squatted anarchist centres", "free spaces"
• Casaglia 2016: [in reference to the Italian CSOA] "self-managed social centre"
• Downing 2000: "social centers"
• Franks & Kinna 2014: "autonomous spaces – squats, camps, social centres"
• Hodkinson & Chatterton 2006: "social centres movement", "autonomous spaces"
• Piazza 2018: "social centres", "... movement"

  Martìnez (2012) has included the squatted Social Centres inside the wider squatters’ movement—involving also squatted houses, non-squatted autonomous Social Centres, rural squatting and tactical squatting like the occupation of squares—in which they play a key political role.
  — Piazza 2018, p. 500

  • n.b. p. 504 shows how the Italian squat names (proper nouns) like CSOA and CSA translate the "A" ("Autogestito") as "self-managed", again this is primarily in relation to Italian social centers. In English-speaking regions like the UK, "autonomous" is more prevalent in the UK, both in social center names (e.g., Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh) and sources (e.g., Martinez 2019, Hodkinson & Chatterton 2006).
• Klein 2001: "social centers"
• Lacey 2005: "autonomous spaces", "social centers"
• Pusey 2010: "social centres movement", "Social centres are self-managed 'autonomous spaces'." "social centres and autonomous spaces", "a network of self-managed social centres", "autonomy clubs" (Britain 1980s), "During this period [1990s], spaces rarely called themselves 'social centres,' opting more often for 'infoshop' (for example 56a in London) and simply 'squat cafe' (e.g., Cookridge Street cafe in Leeds). Recently, however, there has been a newer wave of spaces established, explicitly identifying as 'social centres' ..."
• Shantz 2010: "collective social centers", "social centers", "autonomous groups", "@-zones", "anarchist community centers"
• Shantz 2011: "anarchist spaces", "community spaces or infoshops", "A-zones", "anarchist heterotopias"
• Haworth/Noterman & Pusey/Shantz 2012: "autonomous social center", "social centers"
• Ward 2003: "autonomous groups"

As discussed last time, the predominant turn of phrase (or

natural disambiguation. "Social center movement" could be another natural disambiguation but isn't used as often as "autonomous". Per the sources above, these spaces have been referenced by many names but it is certain that "autonomous" is far more prevalent than "self-managed" in the English-language literature when referring to the global movement. It's fine to mention alternative names in the lede per @Grnrchst but I'd recommend referring to "self-managed" only in reference to Italy. Do mind that the subarticles are labeled as they are after being renamed by the nominating editor. czar 20:32, 21 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

• Talking about the UK, Pusey says in "Social Centres and the New Cooperativism of the Common": "In recent years a network of self-managed social centres has been spreading across the UK and further afield."
• The UK-based Trapese Collective's book Do It Yourself: A handbook for changing our world has a chapter entitled "How to set up a self-managed social centre" (ISBN 9780745326375).
• Talking about Italy, Piazza employs "self-managed" 12 times as well as using the precise phrase
• Casiglia begins "The article takes into consideration the spatialised action of self-managed Social Centres in Northern Italy over the last 20 years".
• Lacey uses "self-managed social centre" when discussing social centres in the UK.
• In discussing radical pedagogies, Noterman and Pusey (ISBN 9781604864847) also use "self-managed social centre" Mujinga (talk) 12:21, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Those are one-off mentions of a term that, as I said above, is mainly invoked in reference to Italy. It is not the

most common/widely used term

for most of the world and especially our English-speaking general audience who, again, as I said above, often use the term "autonomous" as in "autonomous space" or "autonomous zone" to refer to these centers/spaces.

Though it's hard to believe that you're genuinely "baffled" by a policy-based rationale unchanged from the last year and prior, when I originally wrote and titled this article from over a dozen sources, here is one last attempt to summarize: "Social center" is the

naming criteria. The best blend of the terms used most often for this topic is "autonomous social center", combining the terms used most often to identify the topic: "social center" and "autonomous space". Another such option is "social center movement", which does not use the common term "autonomous" but still naturally disambiguates the common name. "Self-managed social center", however, is almost exclusively invoked in relation to Italian social centers (it is a translation from Italian) and is neither recognizable (the name most people will call it) nor natural (reflecting what it's usually called) for much of the English-speaking world, our general audience, so it is not a good option. Less preferable than natural disambiguation is to just use another term. "Autonomous space" would be the best such option since it and its variants are used far more often for American and British social centers than "self-managed". This is as simple as I can put the rationale I've offered since the beginning. If for some reason you disagree, that disagreement is already noted, so please give other editors the space to participate. czar 22:09, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

We are slowly getting somewhere! I thought for a moment there was a policy based argument there but there isn't since you simply persist in claiming the term "self-managed social center" is only used in Italy, which at this point in the debate is a bizarre assertion. No evidence has been provided that you have reviewed the secondary sources in general. I did that and showed that scholars in the UK, Australia, Spain, Denmark, USA and yes Italy are using the term "self-managed social center." I've offered up over ten sources now, if that is cherry picking then what is taking the phrase "autonomous social center" which is used by precisly two sources and doing a "full source assessment" of the cites already on the article, which pretends the term "self-managed social centre" is used in a couple of sources on the article, when it is actually used in SIX.

I'd also ask you to engage with the argument, rather than attacking the person making it. On this page alone you have made the unsubstantiated claim I am gaslighting you and now you are saying my use of bolding is "unjudicious", although when you do it, it's totally fine. Editors are telling you that globally "self-managed social centre" is more widely used, you yourself admit that "autonomous social center" is little more than

WP:OWN says: "No one, no matter how skilled, or how high-standing in the community, has the right to act as though they are the owner of a particular page." Mujinga (talk) 14:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply

]

Sorry, I don't think this is going anywhere. My argument is really straightforward and as succinct as it's going to get for anyone who cares to read it. I disagree with the rest of your assessment, both the characterizations and read of sources. I see nothing in the quoted policies that applies to this discussion. "Self-managed social center" is not more widely used than the examples I cited in this discussion and the last. I'd recommend letting others participate at this point. czar 03:22, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support sources quoted by both czar and Mujinga confirm that "self-managed social center" is more common term than the current name. (t · c) buidhe 04:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per argument above. But IMO, "self-managed social centre" is more common spelling than "self-managed social center" given that more source referred as "centre" rather than "center" unless it is US publication. 36.68.186.36 (talk) 02:08, 26 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a

requested move

. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.