Originally published in 2003, Radical Space: Building the House of the People resituates the built environment in the history of working-class mobilisation – the physical, tangible, often vernacular architecture housing radical democratic practice and political resistance.

We spoke to the author, Margaret Kohn, about how these ideas have evolved and the continued importance of shared social spaces in shaping alternative forms of economy and collective life.

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JGF: Your book Radical Space argues that political theory has often overlooked the “power of places”, tending instead to privilege time and language in explanations of political transformation. What does focusing on space allow us to see that more conventional political histories miss?

MK: One thing I like to emphasise is the importance of what I call the ‘visceral register’. So this could include a lot of things, including emotion, body language, affect, and the precognitive dimensions of judgement. I think these are very important for how we relate to people and, ultimately, also political action. It's not the only way in which space or place can have an impact. There's also the more conventional understanding: if you look at symbols in the church, for example, you might have some sort of material depictions of ecclesiastical power. But what I'm really interested in is the way in which it stages encounters between different people.

There is also what I call the ‘phatic dimension’. This is the part of communication that is about maintaining social connection rather than just exchanging information. And I think all encounters have some sort of phatic dimension. But when we focus exclusively on language, I think what we really miss is how popular power operates. 

Could you talk a bit about identity formation – what power does space have in that process that might not exist outside of particular spaces and buildings? 

Well, I wouldn't say that it's unique, but it's an important site that's been overlooked. When I wrote this book 25 years ago, there was a great deal of emphasis on the Habermasian understanding of the bourgeois public sphere. This was initially something that was located in coffee houses and physical spaces, but as deliberative democracy was developed, it came to take the form of abstract reflections on morality and debates about ethics, so a bit of this rootedness in physical places was lost. And I think that's where we recognise the importance of coming together and the types of encounters that it facilitates. So think, for example, about the difference between reading a newspaper article and being in a demonstration or in a crowd. There's a sense of solidarity that comes through that physical encounter, and it's distinctive. I wouldn't say that it is more or less important, but it's overlooked and a dimension that we should be more attuned to. 

One of the key arguments that Habermas makes is that the really distinctive judgements that citizens reach are only possible if they have a private space to retreat to. What we think of as the public sphere rests on the bourgeois standard of living, which allows you to reflect by yourself – and it’s in this way you can have a more unique insight. I was interested in thinking about what happens when you don't have that, when you're living in crowded conditions, when your life is much more collective, when you're working in a factory and you're not reflecting by yourself. And that leads to a different understanding of how it is that we connect. 

All of this is also ultimately rooted in Marx's idea that class consciousness develops when we encounter people in the factory. But then what about when there's not an economy that's based primarily on factory employment? There were of course some big factories in Italy, but it was overall a much more agrarian and rural country. And so a lot of these Case del Popolo (Houses of the People) that I wrote about were rural organisations, and they were rooted in pre-existing communities, but could also be sites of politicisation and organisation. 

Organising for ownership: how communities can resist asset-stripping

I will never forget the day I met Len Maloney. It was a windy lunchtime, the day before the Budget in March 2017, and Len, a VW mechanic, was outside 10 Downing Street. He had travelled there with other small business owners from East London to deliver a petition with over 10,000 signatures to the government calling for fairer business rates. A planned rate hike loomed over Len’s garage and many other small businesses like his. The traders had come together to fight back in a powerful alliance called the East End Trades Guild, coordinated by a visionary community organiser called Krissie Nicolson. Outside that famous black door, flanked by Meg Hillier MP and then Mayor of Hackney Philip Glanville, Len held up the petition. He wore his regulation blue overalls and a woolly hat to ward off the chill. He was smiling, even though he never thought he’d have to turn up at the gates of power just to keep fixing cars in his railway arch.

His battle was personal – and not just about rates. Len had been told by his landlord, Places for London, the property arm of the publicly owned Transport for London, that the rent on his garage near Haggerston Station was tripling, effectively pricing him out of his neighbourhood. Over the next seven years, the Guild exercised every democratic lever they could to keep Len in his arch. There were more petitions and open letters. They organised meetings with Transport for London and members of the Greater London Assembly. They practised how to win support for small businesses at these meetings using community organising techniques. They mobilised around elections, running voter registration drives, encouraging people to check the position of local candidates on fair rents and security of tenure. Len even recorded a single, a cover of the classic Ben E. King anthem ‘Stand By Me’, that was played on BBC Radio and sung, flash mob style, to try and get the attention of the London Mayor outside City Hall. 

So it was clear in their minds, after Places for London proceeded to evict Len in 2024, what was necessary to prevent other businesses from suffering the same fate. It would take more than turning up at the gates of power, relying on the goodwill of politicians who had already shown themselves to be unwilling to stand up to global capital. The Guild would continue to employ every democratic means at their disposal to fight for the plight of small businesses – methods that had won them many gains and staved off evictions several times. But they are looking for new premises. This time, they will own the buildings outright.

The UK is in the middle of a crisis of asset stripping. We normally associate the term with corporate raiders and private equity firms that buy undervalued companies and sell off their assets for profit. But we might just as easily apply it to publicly owned bodies like Places for London or to local councils, which have been selling assets since austerity began under David Cameron and George Osborne in 2011. In some of the UK’s poorest communities, councils have accelerated the sale of community centres, daycare centres for the disabled offices, libraries, sports centres, and swimming pools. 

Rather than stop the practice, the Labour government has extended the flexible use of funds acquired through sales, which could historically only be used by councils for new buildings or equipment. At the same time, in 2025 the Labour government upgraded local people’s ‘Right to Bid’ on assets councils put up for sale to a ‘Right to Buy’. That means that when a building registered as an ‘asset of community value’ goes up for sale, whether that is a privately owned pub, a publicly owned railway arch, or a council-owned community centre, local people get 12 months to raise the funds to try and buy it, without competition from other bidders. This was an improvement on the community ‘Right to Bid’, which allowed a moratorium of only six months before a sale – and put communities in competition with private buyers, frequently with deeper pockets. But even these upgraded rights, introduced in a Devolution white paper in 2024, have so far proved ineffective at saving publicly owned places from private sale on the open market. Just 2-3% of assets of community value make their way into community hands.

The potential of people-powered research to co-create care co-operatives

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"Care is also a social capacity and activity involving the nurturing of all that is necessary for the welfare and flourishing of life. Above all, to put care centre stage means recognising and embracing our interdependencies.” – The Care Collective 

Why we need to reimagine care

We can’t get through life without care. It’s part of everyone’s lives in different ways. We take on different caring roles in our relationships throughout our lives, throughout a single day, at certain points needing more care, at other points providing more care, and, perhaps, at points coordinating care. Sometimes we feel we have a say in how the care in our life is run, but more often than not, we don’t feel like agents in our own care experiences.

In recent years, there has been increasing public scrutiny on adult social care in the UK. With growing evidence of financial extraction by private providers, undermining pay, quality and local value, adult social care has been identified as an area with opportunities to develop in order to fulfil the Labour government’s pledge to double the size of the co-operative and mutuals sector. The Casey Commission, an independent commission into adult social care begun in April 2025, sets out a plan for reform and the creation of a “national care service”. But how can we ensure this meets the needs of those most closely involved in care?

Redesigning care models 

In navigating the various joys and challenges of care, we become knowledgeable experts. Despite this, the way care work is currently run rarely gives the people involved much of a say in how their care happens. One of the ways in which this can be remedied, while also addressing some of the broader challenges in the sector, is through innovative business models. Throughout the UK, there are a number of not-for-profit care businesses operating as co-operatives (Equal Care Co-op, Shepshed Carers, Co-operative Care Colne Valley, Leading Lives, and Unlimited Potential, to name a few). In a co-operative model, the business is owned and governed democratically by those that are directly involved – in this case, the care workers and also potentially the users of the care service.

The Oxfordshire Care Co-op Pilot

To explore how this model could work in Oxfordshire, we designed the Oxfordshire Care Co-op Pilot. The project aims to understand and test how co-operative and co-produced models and approaches can fill gaps in the current market and solve challenges in the adult social care sector in Oxfordshire, while also creating more democratic ownership and giving a voice to both care workers and users.

Over five months, we heard stories about the everyday ins and outs of care from community members, about how their deeply personal experiences are shaped by challenges in the adult social care sector, such as recruitment and retention, both of which are affected by issues around pay, exploitation (particularly of migrant care workers), job security, lack of autonomy and control, and lack of flexible working hours. Cross-cutting these issues are inequities for migrant care workers and those from Global Majority backgrounds being under-represented in managerial and leadership positions. 

The project has been funded by Oxfordshire County Council and has been delivered by a partnership including a number of community-based organisations, including African Families in the UK, Community Catalysts, Oxford Community Action and Dr Maria Daskalaki, Professor in Organisation Studies, Oxford Brookes University. The project is also supported by Owned By Oxford, a partnership of grassroots community enterprises and anchor institutions working to build a community-led economy.

An interview with James Blake, Chief Executive of the YHA

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Jonny Gordon-Farleigh: The Youth Hostel Association (YHA) was founded in the early twentieth century with a strong moral and social vision around access to the countryside, young people, and collective self-help. Who were the individuals and organisations that set up YHA, and what kind of organisation was it trying to be at the outset? And looking back, how much have those founding choices – around membership, voluntarism, property ownership, and regional and natural structures – shaped the institution that YHA is today?

James Blake: Youth hostelling started in Germany, just before the First World War, with schoolteacher Richard Schirrmann. In 1909, while taking his pupils on a walking tour during the holidays, they got trapped in a storm and couldn't make it to where they were expected to go. They were relatively near a school, so he decided that they would shelter inside. That gave him the idea to use buildings as facilities for young people to stay in – getting fresh air and exercise while moving freely between places. Interestingly, he never really got that vision off the ground. But Schirrmann also volunteered at a local museum, which received government investment, and Schirrmann ensured that part of that investment involved creating a place where young people could come and stay to experience the heritage and visit the countryside nearby. That became the first youth hostel – basically just a male and a female dorm with bunk beds – and the concept took off, spreading around Europe to Switzerland, Austria, and the Netherlands.

In the UK, people started to travel to the hostels in Germany during the 1920s. The people who were travelling around Europe included some members of the Bloomsbury group, such as John Maynard Keynes; and mountaineer George Mallory – many people connected in different ways around that time, and those ideas were flowing back into literature, history, and education. It was a time in which a whole range of social groups related to outdoor access were set up. This was also a period of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation, and there was a sense from the founders of YHA that young people in cities were losing connection with the land and the countryside. In Germany, there were ways in which you could travel and stay affordably, but there were fewer in the UK. Then with the stock market crash in 1929, suddenly people really hadn’t got any money. 

Tom Fairclough, an office clerk from Liverpool, was a key figure in the UK’s hostel movement. Along with a group of friends, Fairclough visited German hostels and found inspiration in these places that allowed people to travel around freely. Back in the UK, he talked to individuals such as T.A. Leonard, who had set up the Holiday Fellowship [now HF Holidays]. At this point, others got the idea and started to set up locally based groups and associations – particularly in Merseyside and Liverpool. In April 1930, a meeting took place at the NCSS offices in London to bring together all of these groups, including the National Union of Teachers, the National Union of Students, the National Association of Boys Clubs, CPRE, and so on. We say that is the official start point of YHA as a national organisation. 

Various establishment figures, many from the Quaker tradition, also got involved. Barclay Baron became the first chair of YHA. He knew Jack Catchpool, who had worked for various organisations, including Toynbee Hall. In the first council, formed in 1930, you had the National Trust, the YMCA, the National Adult School Union, the Workers Travel Association, the Holiday Fellowship, the Countrywide Holiday Association, and the British Youth Council. They were the first organisations associated with the movement. 

What really struck me was that YHA was started as a social reform organisation, not an environmental or countryside conservation organisation... the roots were in fact very much in social reform and young people’s education.

When I first arrived at YHA, we were developing a new strategy, and I had an absolutely fascinating day in the YHA archives in the University of Birmingham. What really struck me was that YHA was started as a social reform organisation, not an environmental or countryside conservation organisation. When I started, most people, particularly older members, told me that YHA was all about countryside conservation, and some felt it had lost touch with its roots. Somehow the historical narrative had shifted, probably in the 1950s, and people had forgotten that the roots were, in fact, very much in social reform and young people’s education. That was really helpful to developing our strategy, and we went back to that founding era to look for inspiration for our social impact and purpose.

The broader point I'm making about membership organisations is that the narrative that's in the communal mind can shift away from what the original purpose was. I think your point about going back to the history is absolutely critical; actually understanding what it was, not necessarily what people say it was.