Where Is Culture in Rome? - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 239

small opening for dialogue between social centers and the most progressive por-
tion of the left-wing parties.
The continuity and survival of a social center is heavily dependent not only
on the attitudes of the police, in terms of repression, and a continual generational
turnover, but also on the extent to which the members are able to reconcile per-
sonal needs with their involvement in the center's activities. issues such as the
organization of volunteer work, the assignment of tasks to different people and
ongoing membership turnover are the object of incessant debate in each social
center alongside the need to secure free spaces and ensure that people who orga-
nize activities also have time off (Romano 1998). when internal conflicts are too
strong or strategic visions too divergent, they are usually solved through separa-
tion (in 1990, the brancaleone collective came out of sisto V), while conflicts be-
tween social centers can lead to ostracism (in 2007, Villaggio Globale was blamed
for having hosted homophobic reggae singers).
The principle that members of social centers should be unpaid volunteer
workers held true at least until the mid-1990s. from then on, some centers start-
ed paying salaries to their regular volunteers and, in very few cases, accepting
funds from private corporations or local governments. There is ongoing debate
about just what kind of actions will prove most effective in the political arena
and should therefore be prioritized. issues under discussion include the extent to
which social centers can strike financial compromises without renouncing their
political identity and means of acquiring visibility at the cost of a biased com-
munication feedback. The current phase is characterized by a transition toward
new political organizational patterns and involves a concomitant redefinition of
social center activities, for example, through building networks with indepen-
dent food producers and urban community gardens (see trabalzi, chapter 17).
since 2002, acrobax has organized a rugby team that is now in the league's C
division. more importantly, in the last ten years, squatting for housing has seen
renewed struggles, supported by organizations such as action or Coordinamento
Cittadino di lotta per la Casa (Citizens' Committee for housing). The link with
protests in universities and against precarious work have also been reestablished.
for example, since 2004, esC has provided alternative university classes and
seminars (libera università metropolitana—free metropolitan university) or
free wireless connection. The latest significant focus concerns how best to coun-
ter the consequences of the financial crisis.
Theoretical implications
in social science research, what has been described in this chapter is linked to
many keywords—social movements and resistance, participation and democra-
cy, rights and justice, public space and the commons—to name a few. two main
approaches, new social movement and resource mobilization theories, are usu-