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Infoshops
What
is an Infoshop?
An
infoshop is a cross between a radical bookstore and a movement archive.
Activists go there to read or buy movement literature; buy paraphernalia
such as stickers, masks and spray paint; attend meetings, lectures or
films; or just plain hang out.
Infoshops
are prevalent in Europe, especially in Germany where there are over sixty.
They form a decentralized information network, distributing magazines,
flyers etc. to local activists and providing information about local activities
to other infoshops. Many papers are produced at infoshops and distributed
through the infoshop network. When urgent communication is needed, in
cases of a state crackdown or fascist attack. Infoshops can call or fax
other infoshops who can then mobilize local activists.
The
infoshop network is an important part of autonomist left movements in
many European countries. Infoshops meet twice a year European wide. At
these gatherings infoshop collectives see what other groups are doing,
exchange information, and discuss strategy and theory.
Most
infoshops rent their space, but many are in squats. Others use part of
a cafe or center. Some are run by one collective, while others have a
different group in charge each day. None of them have paid positions.
Most infoshops have a women-only day either weekly or monthly.
In
addition to the groups running the infoshop, other groups use it as a
meeting place, and as a mailing address.
The latter is especially useful for security reasons. Instead of using
a private address, which can be dangerous because of fascists and police
repression, groups can have a mailbox at an infoshop. If the group has
problems with their mail being open or stolen, they can use a double envelope:
inner addressed to the group and outer to the infoshop.
Infoshops
could play a useful role here as well. With all the anarchist and leftist
papers around, no one person can get them all. Infoshops, receiving numerous
movement papers, would help keep the movement better informed. Infoshops
can be equipped with a telephone, fax, or computer, making communications
that much easier between groups. And infoshops serve the role of a movement
center, building community and facilitating action.
This
originally appeared in:
Slingshot
3124
Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley,
CA 94705
Your
Friendly Neighborhood Infoshop
By
Chuck Munson (chuck@tao.ca)
[This
article originally appeared in the January 1998 issue of MaximumRockNRoll]
If
you've been a big city punk at any time in the last decade, you've probably
visited or at least heard of infoshops.
Infoshops combine a social space, zine archive and library, meeting hall,
day care center, concert venue and bookstore into one autonomous space.
They are usually promoted and organized by anarchist activists, but infoshop
supporters and participants aren't necessarily all anarchists. Infoshops
are rooted in the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) ethic-they are created by people
who are interested in making the revolutionary process happen, not just
sitting around and talking about it.
Infoshops
have been around for years and are generally thought to have originated
in Europe, especially Germany
were there were over 60 at one time. They were nurtured by the squatting,
autonomist, punk, and anarchist
movements. The infoshops in Europe, especially Germany, functioned not
only as community centers, but also as mail-drops for groups which had
been outlawed by the state. The European shops and autonomous centers
inspired the creation of infoshops in North America, but it should be
noted that there is a long tradition of radical community centers in the
U.S. These are commonly known as peace and justice centers and have been
the basis for leftist activist and community organizing.
There
have been, and still are, infoshops in just about every big city in North
America. They've had some interesting
names: Beehive Infoshop in Washington, D.C., Long Haul in Berkeley, Emma
Center in Minneapolis, Croatan in Baltimore, Autonomous Zone in Chicago,
404 Willis in Detroit, Who's Emma in Toronto, Epicenter in San Francisco,
and many more.
In
the U.S., some infoshops are also known as alternative reading rooms or
community media centers. In fact, infoshops have been described as "a
cross between a radical bookstore and a movement archive." You can
find zine archives and book lending libraries in infoshops. This is a
grass roots response to the fact that most public libraries that are either
ignorant of radical literature and zines or deliberately exclude such
materials from their shelves. Infoshops sell books, zines, and t-shirts,
not just to support the community which wants these things, but also as
a way to raise money to pay the infoshop's rent.
What
happens at infoshops? Infoshops serve as community centers for the local
activists, so you'll often find activist
groups meeting there. Groups like the IWW, Earth First!, or the Lesbian
Avengers might have their regular
meetings at an infoshop. You'll also find projects like Food Not Bombs
or Book to Prisoners who use an infoshop as a staging area. A FNB group
may use the infoshop's kitchen (if it has one) to prepare the day's food
for the homeless and poor. Some infoshops provide office space for other
groups or a darkroom for alternative journalists. They also have "women's
space" which is an evening event held on a regular basis.
If
you want to get an alternative education, check your local infoshop's
calendar for free educational classes. Infoshops
frequently have "Free Skools," which are the 90s version of
the "free university" concept which originated
in the 60s. Anybody who feels like they know something about a particular
subject, be it the Spanish Civil War or practical bicycle repair, can
arrange with the infoshop for a day and a spot on the calendar to do some
freelance teaching. Generally classes are non-hierarchical and there are
no tests, grades, or certificates. If the Skool ain't your thing, your
local infoshop will have film nights or visiting lecturers. In the Atlantic
region, the Atlantic Anarchist Circle has a speaker's bureau which makes
arrangements for speakers to go on lecture tours. Several years ago the
infoshop in Portland, Oregon arranged a speech by Noam Chomsky, which
was pretty successful.
Infoshops
are very valuable as meeting spaces for activist groups. It can be difficult
finding a meeting space for a radical group, especially a place that feels
safe and isn't at the mercy of unsympathetic hosts. Meetings at an infoshop
can also serve to fertilize the activist scene, with new groups sprouting
from others. For example, some people who have been attending prisoner
solidarity meetings may decide to start a new group dedicated to sending
prisoners free books. Folks who are doing Food Not Bombs may decide to
open a food co-op or even a community garden.
Infoshops
are important nodes for alternative publishing. They provide an outlet
for zine authors and small publishers
to sell their creations. Some shops have computers, printers, and other
materials which are available for zine editors and fly-poster artists.
The anarchist newspaper Slingshot has been published by the Long Haul
Infoshop in Berkeley, California for many years. The folks at the A Space
in Philadelphia have recently started publishing a zine called "defenestrator,"
which covers the local political scene.
Urgent
communications are also disseminated at infoshops. News and emergency
flyers can be posted on bulletin
boards. The shop may have a phone tree that can be used to get the word
out about a crisis, such as the police arrest of activists. If a shop
has a computer and an Internet connection, it can receive or retrieve
news items from activist web sites or mailing lists. It can also send
out news, announcements, or emergency requests for aid.
An
infoshop is usually run by a collective and volunteers; there is no paid
staff. Major decisions are made during regular meetings. Since infoshops
are frequently staffed by anarchists, there is a tendency to gravitate
towards using consensus to decide things, although this is not always
the case. Needless to say, it is impossible to find an infoshop "director"
or "president." Some infoshops are membership-based, which is
done to promote commitment to the project and to make sure that not just
anybody off the street could come in and vote.
The
movement's social base is in the punk scene. This is probably due to the
fact that infoshops are the kind of community space where punks feel at
home, plus they provide either a punk concert venue or a place to promote
the local scene. The shops also are usually the best local outlet for
zines and in some towns they may be the best place to pick up the latest
7 inch.
However,
this reliance on the punk scene has its flip side. While punks infuse
a lot of energy into a new infoshop,
especially if they see it as being punk-oriented, punks are, by and large,
transient youth. Like many young people, they have a wide range of interests
and tend to move around a lot. They aren't settled members of the community
so they may perceive that the project will carry on if they leave. An
infoshop not grounded in the surrounding community, be it geographical
or activist, will end up being just another punk clubhouse. There's nothing
inherently wrong with having an infoshop that only serves a local punk
subculture, it's just that the participants have to be open about that
and need adopt an approach that reflects that reality.
Infoshops
can also be beset by other problems. Since the organizers are usually
working class or middle class whites (and typically young), they usually
don't have much cash (capital) and therefore have to settle for cheap
storefronts in depressed areas of a city. The end result is an infoshop
organized by white youth in a community they don't live in, usually populated
by minorities. The subculture that patronizes the shop, be it punk, hippy,
or radical, sticks out in contrast to the surrounding neighborhood. The
neighborhood residents may perceive the infoshop as a beachhead in the
gentrification happening in that town. Sometimes an infoshop will be confused
about its purpose or mission and may decide that it needs to "do
things" for the local community. These programs may or may not be
needed by the community. This isn't always the case for all infoshops
-- certainly many have had successful community programs-but it can be
a complicating factor. The community residents may also resent the fact
that most of the infoshop activists typically don't live in the community
and can always go home to someplace nicer, somewhere else in town.
The
Beehive Infoshop, which used to exist in a storefront in downtown D.C.,
was situated in a gentrifying zone between a depressed African-American
community and a predominantly white, affluent gay yuppie neighborhood.
The Beehive grew out of the local D.C. punk scene, which was young and
mostly white. It experienced
an identity crisis where it couldn't figure out if it was serving the
local punk and anarchist movements,
or the geographical community in which it was located. Several members
of the Beehive collective tried to talk about the gentrification issue,
but the infoshop dissolved before it was adequately resolved. One of the
former Beehive collective members, Brad Sigal, wrote an excellent pamphlet
about his experience with Beehive and infoshops in general, titled "Demise
of the Beehive Collective: lessons for the infoshop movement in North
America." It should be required reading for anybody thinking about
opening a new infoshop.
The
main problem that infoshops face is internal dissension and factions which
are a result of a project which includes members with a wide range of
goals, different lifestyles, and a collective that doesn't have a clearly
defined mission. If an infoshop starts with mostly members from the local
punk scene and grows to include other activists, lifestyle issues may
come to the fore. Some collective members may not want a weekly series
of loud concerts. Others may insist on vegan food at all functions. Some
may not be interested in doing outreach to the local community.
The
Emma Center was an infoshop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that opened in
1992. It closed its doors in 1995. It was started by activists who were
involved in the Twin Cities Anarchist Federation (an umbrella group) and
some folks involved in the Powderhorn Food Co-op. The Emma Center was
"a center for anarchist activities" and it had "books and
magazines for sale, free clothes and food, free weekend child care, Women's
and Queer Space nights, and frequent punk shows." (Kieran Frazier,
The Blast!, 1995). The infoshop had the typical confusion about who it
was trying to serve. Frazier noted that it "never made solid connections
with neighborhood people, and never had a solid plan to do so." The
Center also lost its base in the anarchist activist and punk communities
when several of the members went off to work on other projects. The original
vision of the Emma Center had been to "tighten the anarchist community
in the Twin Cities, serve as an educational information tool and network,
and be able to provide certain services to the surrounding communities
like child care, a food shelf, soup kitchen, a bookstore, a meeting place
for anarchist organizing, and a place for accessible all-age gigs and
events like art shows, theater, and other types of performances."
The Emma Center accomplished some of these goals, but it failed to become
a long-term counter-institution, which is needed by a community.
The
infoshop movement peaked around 1995-1996. There was excitement in the
air because there were several
established infoshops and many new ones being opened. A "Counter-Institutions"
conference was held in Detroit, mainly because of all the new interest
in the infoshop concept, plus the need that existing infoshop had to network
and share information with other shops. In the Fall of 1994, the movement
spawned its own zine, called (Dis)Connection, which was devoted to movement
networking, information exchange, creative musings, news dissemination,
and advice sharing. Five issues of the zine have been produced to date.
The production of each issue rotated among infoshops.
Around
this time the movement also started its own organizational network, known
as the Network of Anarchist Collectives. NAC was an infoshop for infoshops.
It had its own email listserv and helped coordinate activities among infoshops.
In August of 1996, NAC and the A-Zone in Chicago put together Active Resistance
'97, which brought over 700 activists to Chicago to talk about community
organizing and to protest the Democratic National Convention, which was
happening only blocks away. The existence of the A-Zone infoshop and its
community of supporters was instrumental in pulling off this successful
conference.
In
1997 the North American infoshop movement is going through a period of
self-reflection. There are some infoshops
that are still going strong after at least 5 years, others are struggling,
and many more have come and gone. The ones that remain in existence include
Long Haul in Berkeley (opened its doors in 1979 as an activist center),
A Space in Philadelphia, Lucy Parsons Center in Massachusetts, and Who's
Emma in Toronto. Infoshops that have closed their doors in the last year
include the 223 Center in Portland, Oregon. The Autonomous Zone infoshop
in Chicago has closed its doors twice in the last year and moved several
times. They are currently moving into a new location.
It's
hard to tell what the future holds for the Infoshop movement in North
America. The 1990s have seen some successes and some failures. Even the
infoshops that existed for a short period of time had an impact on the
activists that were involved. The experience gained during the last decade,
be it good or bad or in between, should help activists and infoshop supporters
avoid some basic mistakes and maybe clarify their vision. Infoshops can
be an important resource to a community, but it's not easy creating a
successful one.
http://www.infoshop.org/infoshop_page.html
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