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Over its almost 25 years of existence (1964–1988), the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS, or Centre) was chronically understaffed, at times thriving academically and politically, and all too often on the edge of closure. It however left a tangible trace in the history of academia and political activism, not only by laying the groundwork for a new research field, that of cultural studies, but also by having been a place of nearly constant pedagogical freedom and experimentation. By being a space of cooperation and confrontation both within and without, the Centre has been deeply influenced by political events and university reforms alike. It became a democratic space: guarding the walls of an unstable academic praxis, reinventing itself over and over, redefining its aims and objects, publishing ground-breaking research in the realm of social science and doing field work in constant relationship to left wing politics. This paper aims at situating the CCCS and analysing the ways in which it has invested the concept of fragmented powers: first, by replacing the Centre in the wider context of British post-war politics, then by retracing its steps alongside the evolution of the British university system over the second half of the 20th century and finally by examining its administrative, pedagogical and publishing practices, as so many instances of fragmented powers inside a university research study.