What is FICEDL

FICEDL, the Fédération internationale des centres d’études et de documentation libertaires (International Federation of Anarchist Documentation and Study Centres), is an international coordination body among the institutes concerned with the documentation of the anarchist movements. Its founding aim is to create a network of mutual support and information exchange, and to ensure collective care over the preservation of the cultural heritage of the whole libertarian movement.

The Federation, which has no structure or staff of its own, meets periodically in gatherings organised on rotation by its member institutes, seeking to build a politics of cooperation while taking into account the specificities of each centre. Membership of the Federation is based on an “associative pact”.

The network’s website is ficedl.info; the organisations taking part in the Bologna 2026 meeting are listed on the participants page.

History

The Federation was born in Marseille in 1979. For several years the channel of communication between the institutes was the bulletin «Anarchives», intended essentially for internal circulation within the Federation, published first in Paris, then in Marseille and finally in Barcelona. Between 1979 and 1982 fifteen issues came out, spartan in their graphics, carrying news about the centres’ activities, notes on new publications and ongoing research, and some reviews. The bulletin was later suspended, although a column about FICEDL found a place for some years in the «Bulletin» of the Centre international de recherches sur l’anarchisme (CIRA) in Lausanne.

The meetings

  1. Marseille, April 1979
  2. Lyon, May 1980
  3. Wetzlar, April 1981
  4. Barcelona, October 1982
  5. Geneva, October 1985
  6. Milan, November 1987
  7. Lausanne, March–April 1990
  8. Amsterdam-Utrecht, May 1992
  9. Barcelona, April 1994
  10. Marseille, 1996
  11. Valencia, April 2000
  12. Marseille, November 2005
  13. Lausanne, September 2007
  14. Pisa, September 2009
  15. Lisbon, September 2011
  16. Lyon, September 2013
  17. Bologna, April 2016
  18. Bologna, 11–13 September 2026 — this meeting