Social Nucleation of Counterhegemonic Spaces

The paper proposes the original concept of social nucleation (SN) as a bridge between ecology and the social sciences to study counterhegemonic spaces where contentious politics take shape. Drawing on ecological nucleation (EN)—a process by which species modify environmental conditions to enable the establishment of other species—the author argues an analogous process occurs in socioecosystems. SN offers a socioecological, holistic lens to visualize how multiple social nuclei emerge and develop, to identify their common functionalities, and to connect disparate concepts used in social movement literature. While SN can occur in diverse spaces (e.g., neighbourhood associations, religious groups, sports clubs), the paper focuses on counterhegemonic spaces because they explicitly seek to generate practices opposing dominant sociopolitical and economic systems. As an umbrella concept, SN helps: (1) knit together related concepts; (2) categorize spaces by shared socioecological functions that can serve as methodological tools; and (3) reveal activist networks crucial to the creation and maintenance of these places and to the continuity of social movements.

The review maps a suite of concepts related to counterhegemonic spaces—autonomous spaces, spaces of hope, free (social) spaces, TNRCs, contested spaces, and social centres—and their ties to contentious politics. Polletta’s (1999) ‘free spaces’ are small-scale settings removed from dominant control that nurture cultural challenges preceding or accompanying mobilization; she distinguishes indigenous structures, transmovement organizations, and prefigurative groups, though movements may contain all three (Roth et al. 2014). Examples include church communities in the U.S. Civil Rights movement and feminist informal groups. Scholarship variously labels similar phenomena (safe spaces, social havens, counterpublics), often analyzing internal dynamics while neglecting diffusion. Other strands discuss urban social movements, militant particularism, and diffuse movements, emphasizing that such spaces support movements and enable organization within a broader ‘scene’ (Leach and Haunss 2009; Creasap 2012). Counterhegemonic spaces and movements are mutually constitutive across abeyance and visible phases, sustaining networks, repertoires, and prefigurative practices (Yates 2015; Flesher Fominaya 2014). The squatting movement in Spain exemplifies how squatted social centres interlink with other organizations and transnational campaigns. These spaces oppose capitalism through diverse activities, provide shelter from repression and hegemonic ideologies, and serve as hubs for diffusion and framing processes. The review motivates SN as a broader concept to connect structurally and culturally diverse spaces that share the need for places within the system to develop alternatives, resistance, and opposition to patriarchal and capitalist logics.

The study is a conceptual synthesis grounded in a socioecosystemic approach that transposes ecological nucleation (EN) to social contexts and operationalizes it via socioecological functions. Methodologically, the author conducts a literature review of key concepts describing counterhegemonic spaces (e.g., autonomous spaces, free spaces, TNRCs, contested spaces, social centres), extracting their definitions, related terms, contexts, and documented functions. These materials are comparatively organized (as summarized in a table within the paper) to identify common socioecological functions—habitat, production, regulation, and information—following De Groot et al.’s (2002) ecological function typology adapted to socioecosystems (Martín-López et al. 2009). The analysis evaluates how different spaces perform these functions, the conditions and factors that foster or limit them (e.g., criminalization, gentrification, institutionalization), and the interrelations among spaces through activist networks and diffusion processes. The approach illustrates SN as an explanation-oriented analytical tool that links disparate concepts within a unified socioecosystemic framework.

• Social nucleation (SN) is defined as the process by which social spaces—physical or otherwise—modify surrounding socioenvironmental conditions to facilitate socioecosystem functions through interactions, paralleling ecological nucleation (EN).
• SN functions as an umbrella concept that unifies varied notions of counterhegemonic spaces (autonomous spaces, free spaces, TNRCs, contested spaces, social centres), enabling a panoramic, socioecosystemic analysis of their interrelations within a common ‘social movement scene’.
• Across cases reviewed, counterhegemonic spaces consistently perform four socioecological functions (after De Groot et al. 2002, adapted): • Habitat: provide meeting places and protective environments for individuals and groups (e.g., social centres as homes, Occupy camps as ‘home’, infoshops as gathering points). • Production: generate activities, skills, identities, tactics, strategies, projects, and networks (e.g., workshops, campaigns, cultural events, counter-information, cooperative initiatives). • Regulation: shield, nurture, and empower through connectivity, diffusion, mutual aid, recruitment, and coordination; act as incubators and reservoirs during abeyance phases; create stepping-stone connectivity across spaces and movements. • Information: produce and disseminate knowledge and critical frames via talks, publications, media networks, libraries, themed workshops, and events.
• The literature implicitly employs socioecological language (e.g., niches, embryos, climate, rhizome, nucleous/core), reinforcing the ecological-social analogy underlying SN.
• Activist networks are crucial for the creation, maintenance, and continuity of these spaces and for the diffusion of ideas and practices; SN clarifies these networked interdependencies and flows.
• Existing categories have scope limitations (e.g., ‘autonomous spaces’ or TNRCs often restricted to squats; ‘contested spaces’ to legal disputes), whereas SN encompasses them while allowing distinction by shared functions and conditions.

The proposed SN framework addresses the challenge of disparate, overlapping concepts describing counterhegemonic spaces by situating them within a unified socioecosystemic perspective. By analogizing to EN, SN explicates how such spaces alter socioenvironmental conditions to enable the establishment, growth, and interconnection of groups and practices that resist hegemonic systems. The literature review shows these spaces collectively enact habitat, production, regulation, and information functions, which together underpin mobilization, diffusion, and movement continuity (including abeyance phases). SN thereby renders visible activist rhizomes: origins, influences, dispersion pathways, and inter-space connectivity. It also foregrounds cooperative processes—mutual aid, solidarity, community—that challenge competitive logics, and highlights factors shaping functions (e.g., criminalization, gentrification, institutionalization). Thus, SN not only links concepts but provides methodological leverage to classify spaces by function and analyze their socioecosystemic effects and limitations, revealing the significance of physical sites and caring practices (aligned with feminist political ecology) for sustaining counterhegemonic alternatives and networks.

SN contributes a socioecosystemic, holistic framework that: (1) groups related concepts within a common ‘social movement scene’, bridging ecological and social movement literatures to analyze shared functions, influencing factors, and relationships; (2) emphasizes socioecosystemic functions (habitat, production, regulation, information) to categorize spaces and visualize their effects, cooperation, solidarity, and mutual aid; and (3) underscores the centrality of activist networks in creating, maintaining, and being maintained by these places, evidencing movement continuity as a rhizome. The approach integrates feminist political ecology by valuing care and nurturing as essential socioecological processes—akin to ecological ‘nurse plants’—and argues for the importance of physical spaces to sustain life-worthy alternatives amidst urban dispossession and commodification. SN thus offers a tool to recognize, analyze, and defend counterhegemonic spaces as integral components of socioecosystems.

The paper does not present an explicit limitations section. It notes scope limitations in existing categories (e.g., ‘autonomous spaces’ and TNRCs often confined to squats; ‘contested spaces’ restricted to legally disputed sites) and warns that analyzing categories separately obscures interrelations and dynamics.