Làbas and Open Space

43 professionals in the field of mental health and psychology. The willingness of the centre to start new initiatives because of the lack of institutional support shows how Làbas seeks to create an open dialogue with the local population to address common and popular issue within the city organism. To this regard, Làbas managed to create a social network of solidarity and cooperation among civil society and the militants, whilst enhancing the perception of public safety and the (co)production of social capital in the neighbourhood (Giannini & Pirone 2019; Castrignanò 2012).

At the same time, most of the militants interviewed stressed the importance to avoid framing the centre as a ‘provider’ of services, but as a political subject that seeks for change. To this regard, an important strength of Làbas is its ability to enhance the participants’ desire and will to engage in political and social activities (Martìnez Lopez 2012; Giannini & Pirone 2019) due to the context in which they are situated. I found that the practices of autonomy allowed the political involvement and internal participation of diverse subjects. These range from the systematic participation to the collective political assemblies and life for the activists, the participation to the projects and activities occurring at the centre for the volunteers, and the sporadic involvement for those external people who sympathize with the goals and aims of Làbas.¹² The involvement of a wide range of people have allowed the participants of the project to find a direct access to not only new skills and knowledge, but also direct access to decent housing, psychological support, and language classes to enhance one’s emancipation through the learning of a new skill (Giannini

& Pirone 2019; Pruijt 2012).

44 5.2.2 Managing Common Space

During my stay, I found how Làbas’ freedom and flexibility in managing their activities is projected on how they handle collective space. This characteristic is key to understand how the centre engages in the reappropriation of space by those who have been expelled and marginalized from the neoliberal development of cities (Di Feliciantonio 2017). Within their space, the collective is offering an environment that is free of commercial activities and accessible for anyone to enter during the day. At this stage, it is important to underline that for the purpose of this paper I consider space reappropriation as the ability and agency of common people to take up urban space in an autonomous way in order to create subversive non-commercial environments. This process can be observed within the walls of Làbas due to its openness to external stimuli and ideas.

As briefly mentioned above, Làbas’ strength is to offer a space that is open for common people to access, in this way furthering the political engagement and involvement of the local population (Giannini & Pirone 2019; Castrignanò 2012). To this regard, the activists interviewed saw the process of opening their space as a positive transformation for the centre, as it helps to establish a stronger relationship of mutual support and help between the militants and external society.

This is important to have a stronger influence for positive radical change outside of the centre. To this regard, SI1 highlights:

“Here it might seem to be in a microcosm, but we strive not to isolate ourselves.

We don’t like to keep things this way: we reached a good level of autonomy inside the centre, and everyone is content because we created a community of equals.

But the process cannot stop here. The important thing is that this goes out of Làbas. We need to influence and be influenced from the outside.”¹³

To further exposure the space to the outside and gather new forms of political participation, Làbas organises public assemblies discussing various current socio-political issues, such as the excessive cost of living, the right to access professional psychological support, women’s situation in the workplace, and the right to have access to decent housing. During my active participation of the public assemblies, I observed how these are accessible for anyone from the outside to join, which usually results in the participation of those who are directly interested and involved in the precarity of today’s society. I would argue that the desire to host public events and projects represents a major step in breaking the gap between civil society and what occurs within the centre’s walls. To this regard, SCs tend to provide an innovative approach to political involvement

13 SI1.

45 by favouring the participation from people who are not part of the internal political collective to partake in radical change (Prujit 2012). This is done to ensure a greater degree of external support from civil society, rather than attracting members who only share a specific ideological affiliation (De Moor 2016; Prujit 2012). The pictures below (Fig. 5.1) show a public assembly organized on the issue of the excessive cost of living, during which both activists, students, and migrants’ families had the chance to speak up and commonly organize a protest (Fig. 5.2) to denounce the problem to the local government.

Figure 5. 1 Public Assembly organized inside Làbas on the topic of Carovita (high cost of living).

Figure 5. 2 Public demonstration organized after the assembly.

46 Thus, this process implies the socio-political involvement of those who have been denied a public space to raise their voices in the Italian welfare system (Di Felciantonio 2017), which include students, migrants, and precarious workers and families. I noticed that during the public assemblies, which are usually moderated by the militants, a dialogue is opened between the participants who take an active role in the discussion. Anyone who feels comfortable is allowed to speak, which results in a collective discussion and exchange of opinions on a given topic and how to approach these issues with the local institutions. Usually, these public assemblies are the first step to mobilize civil society into direct action and civil disobedience (Martìnez Lopez 2012), and to give a platform to marginalised people to revendicate their right to the city’s space and resources.

These outward looking activities and project are possible within Làbas as the centre is not a squatted space anymore. This allows the activists to focus on their internal praxis rather than protecting the space from the outside, without having to negotiate its spatial existence and meaning with authorities and institutions (De Moor 2016). This change between the Masini barrack and the location in Vicolo Bolognetti allows Làbas to establish a more stable political significance in Bologna, as well as gain meaningful momentum and victories in their campaigns and protests against current issues with the local municipality. Many of the activists interviewed agreed that the centre has such an important presence in Bologna due to the fact that the militants do not have to worry about possible police raids or evictions, and therefore can focus on how to bring meaningful change to the city through their activities.¹⁴

However, I found that the change of location and its further institutionalisation forced Làbas to interface itself with limitations on its freedom of managing and organizing common space. First, due to the lack of physical space, the current location does not allow projects like Accoglienza Degna, the autonomous social dormitory born in the Masini barrack, to be run. Nevertheless, the issue of homelessness in Bologna persists, even aggravated following the recent pandemic, which resulted in the creation of a meeting space for people without shelter inside Làbas during the daytime. As discussed by the activists, since bringing homeless people together is challenging because of their precarious condition that does not allow stability, the daytime situation represents an important chance for the militants to form a collective and shared identity among the group, by promoting everyone’s self-emancipation and dignity.¹⁵ During my stay, I realised how the space allows people without shelter to rest and have access to essential services, such as

14 SI1, SI2, SI3, SI4, SI7.

15 SI2, SI7, GI9.

47 a clean toilet and electricity to charge their devices. At the same time, this situation allows them to encounter other people with shared life experiences, therefore building a sense of community between the participants and the militants (Giannini & Pirone 2019). To this regard, it is important to highlight that within Làbas various social realities meet each other: people without shelter share the same space as elementary school kids, migrants’ families, and university political collectives.

Nevertheless, although the daytime activity promotes a sense of inclusivity and acceptance, SI7 emphasizes the struggles related to the place’s autonomy and freedom of organization:

“When I oversee the reception, I spend my time with them [people without shelter]. We watch videos or talk about soccer… It is amazing because you create a sense of companionship and solidarity with them. You can help them with clothes, with documents, or health related stuff… but in the end you are the asshole who have to say: do you know what? We need to go home because I need to close this place down for today. And then I say to myself ‘Well, I am the only one who goes home’. And I am the one who denies them from a place they love and feel safe in.” ¹⁶

Having closing and opening times implies important limitations in the freedom of managing space according to the political collective’s aims and goals. When the space was squatted, the militants had the possibility to regulate the space without giving account to the local municipality of governmental rules. On the contrary, Vicolo Bolognetti represents now a struggle for the scope and aims of various projects born in the centre. For this reason, if on one hand the institutionalization of Làbas brought significant positive outcomes, allowing the centre to gain important influence in the local politics, on the other the collective must not continuously face limits on how to manage the space internally. These constant mediations and negotiations raise questions on the extent to which the activists can affectively reclaim and reappropriate the internal space at Làbas. To this regard, although the militants expressed their awareness on the limitations Làbas faces, they also acknowledge that an open dialogue with the institutions may be a positive way to move forward and have a real impact on society’s issues and contradictions. To this regard, one interviewee stated:

“What we do inside here is not dictated by them [the institutions]. Sometimes I miss other SCs where you could do whatever you want... Here it is not the case…

you have keys to enter anywhere, walls must stay clean, if you want to do

16 SI7.

48 something you ask. But I don’t care about it. I don’t care if it is less punk and more

organised. It works.”¹⁷

Here, Làbas is framed as a space that is well organized, aware, and cautious of the complexities inside its walls. Given the intricacy of the various groups who frequent Làbas regularly, who vary in nationalities, backgrounds, and life experiences, the activists themselves question how to offer a space that is respectful of such diversity. Some militants highlighted the difficulty to paint on the walls what they ‘wanted’ because of the possibility to be disrespectful of people who come across the space. Although this process may appear as a significant limitation to the reappropriation of space, the activists involved in the centre perceive it as a challenge and a way to reinvent what they can do and accomplish despite the limitations. This implies a constant re-inventing and re-negotiating of the urban commons, where diverse people involved at Làbas come together to create a collective emancipation from individualist society through managing common space and resources.