Welcome to the website for Safer Spaces Edinburgh. Here you can find information about groups, venues, and events in Edinburgh which have adopted safer spaces policies; resources for implementing a safer spaces policy; and information, commentary, and debates on restorative justice and victim lead accountability processes. We look forward to seeing more inclusive and safer spaces in Edinburgh.
From the Coalition for Safer Spaces:
A safer space is a supportive, non-threatening environment that encourages open-mindedness, respect, a willingness to learn from others, as well as physical and mental safety. It is a space that is critical of the power structures that affect our everyday lives, and where power dynamics, backgrounds, and the effects of our behavior on others are prioritized. It’s a space that strives to respect and understand survivors’ specific needs. Everyone who enters a safer space has a responsibility to uphold the values of the space.
If you turn on your computer and switch to any social media outlet or online news media site, you’re likely to find instances of hate speech. Oftentimes, you don’t need to look very hard for it, as it pops up on your facebook feed or appears in the comments at the bottom of your favourite news provider. This usually takes the form of victim blaming – whether that person has been the victim of assault or the victim of a system that has failed to create space for them to grow and thrive. These online comments hurl the most vitriolic and threatening abuse at people who are perceived of as ‘benefit scroungers’, ‘sluts’, ‘illegal’ immigrants, or the working poor. Even within the confines of a national editorial outlet, such as the Guardian, hate speech can appear – and does appear – without warning. Continue reading
The Coalition for Safer Spaces has included a great foundation for a safer spaces policy (SSP) which can be used for large conferences, occupations, conventions, and other events where large groups of people converge in one place. Read more below. Continue reading
Activists, campaigners and communities working towards social justice often share accommodation, and having a safer spaces policy for your home is an important part of creating inclusive and welcoming places. Continue reading
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The Fundamental Requirement for Organised Safer Space
The following article has been reposted with permission from it’s author Floaker. You can read the original article and comments here.
This article will be a very basic introduction to the foundations of safer spaces, community accountability and transformational justice that arise from elements present from the very inception of anarchism as a political philosophy. These concepts are responses to verbal, physical and sexual abuse that have always been present within radical communities and continue to present a challenge to this day. As such this article will touch on all forms of abuse from problematic language through to rape and physical violence. An example of one such policy can be seen here. Continue reading →