Search

Housing social movements, in the course of their everyday activities, continually share and produce knowledge, a process defined as learning. This paper addresses a gap in the literature on housing activism, looking at learning as a crucial domain of housing movements' politics and practice. By looking at housing activism through the lens of theories on learning in social movements, we provide a nuanced understanding of Barcelona's neighbourhood-based housing groups. Previously centralized in one movement (the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca), housing activism in the city is now spread into a heterogeneous network, including small and localized collectives. The paper examines one neighbourhood housing group, the Grup d'Habitatge de Sants, and its relations with other groups, scrutinizing how processes and potentials of learning unfold in four critical moments: assemblies, workshops, direct action and debates/congresses. We reveal learning as a complex and multilayered phenomenon, arguing that it is fundamental for housing activism and an essential path towards achieving housing justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of homeownership in the working-class peripheries of post-war Europe has received little attention in planning history. The main reason is probably that public housing built at the time of massive operations of constructing Modernist housing estates in Western and Eastern Blocs adopted tenancy as the predominant form of tenure in almost all cases. In the context of widespread growth of urban homeownership during the second half of the twentieth century in European countries, this paper addresses the singularities of ownership in Francoist Spain. In this case, the main peculiarity is that the working classes that flocked to inhabit the new outskirts were the main protagonists of the intense process of the spread in homeownership. First, the article discusses the ideological roots of the spread of homeownership in Spain as a singular phenomenon. Second, the spectacular growth of homeownership in the peripheral working-class districts of Barcelona and in the municipalities of its metropolitan area is analysed. Then, the paper considers the relationships observed between ownership in the new peripheries and the development of powerful urban movements. A final epilogue places such movements in the Western European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the impact of the Spanish housing movement on policies regarding residential squatting of municipalist coalitions in Madrid and Barcelona. Combining literatures on social movement outcomes, new municipalism, and the importance of capitalism for social movement studies, we address the following research questions: How has the Spanish housing movement framed its claims regarding residential squatting? How have these claims impacted policies in Madrid and Barcelona between 2015 and 2019? What explains the differences—if any—in these outcomes? We conclude that—following the 2008 global financial crisis—activists have reframed squatting as a legitimate response to unjust evictions and foreclosures in neoliberal political economies. While this has prompted support from municipalist councilors in both cities, gains have been more substantial in Barcelona. We explain this from variations in political alliances and urban political economies. Our analysis underscores the importance of capitalism in urban and housing movement studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down "closed" spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice‐versa, the mechanisms through which bottom‐up, open spaces can be co‐opted through institutionalisation. This paper seeks to unpick dynamic interactions between different spaces of participation by looking specifically at two forms of participatory governance, or participatory forms of political decision making used to improve the quality of democracy. First, Mark Warren's concept of 'governance‐driven democratization' describes top‐down and technocratic participatory governance aiming to produce better policies in response to bureaucratic rationales. Second, we introduce a new concept, democracy‐driven governance, to refer to efforts by social movements to invent new, and reclaim and transform existing, spaces of participatory governance and shape them to respond to citizens' demands. The paper defines these concepts and argues that they co‐exist and interact in dynamic fashion; it draws on an analysis of case study literature on participatory governance in Barcelona to illuminate this relationship. Finally, the paper relates the theoretical framework to the case study by making propositions as to the structural and agential drivers of shifts in participatory governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water poverty is a multidimensional concept open to a variety of definitions. In this paper, we focus on the affordability component of water poverty which emerges as the most relevant dimension of water poverty in the developed world where an increasing number of households are unable to afford the price of water. As in energy poverty, this degrades the metabolic flows of an essential resource in households threatening the livelihoods of members. We examine water affordability in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona combining quantitative and qualitative information. Using data from Metropolitan Surveys as well as from specific studies, we depart from quantitative assessments of the impact of water affordability for the subgroup of households defined as "at risk of poverty". We complement the quantitative analysis with data on arrears, accumulated debt, and water disconnections, among other variables. Qualitative analyses are drawn from interviews with affected people attending meetings of a social platform, APE, created to fight energy and water poverty, offer a more precise assessment of the impacts of water poverty in vulnerable households and of the coping strategies by the affected and by APE. While some important achievements must be noticed, especially the Catalan law prohibiting disconnections of essential services to vulnerable households as well as the provision of financial help to pay the bills, important problems remain, above all the accumulated debt and the special case of the growing number of families occupying empty flats with no water connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019 the climate movement experienced an unprecedented growth in its mobilization capacity and its political and media impact. This success is closely linked to the rise of Greta Thunberg and her global impact, as well as to the organization effort of "Fridays for Future" in hundreds of local groups around the globe. This paper studies the connection between these two elements based on the movement frame analysis and its dissemination on social media. Through an analysis of the activists' speeches and social media messages, Greta's key role in the establishment and evolution of a new frame for the climate movement can be seen. This is reinforced and legitimized with her own personal story told through the hero's journey or monomyth. Then, the inclusion and adaptation of Greta's frame in the local group of "Fridays for Future" in Barcelona based on the content analysis of its publications on Twitter and Instagram will be analyzed. The results show how, despite the reluctance regarding personified leadership, Greta's frame has a significant influence on the discourse of the local movement and on the "Fridays for Future" Barcelona's social media followers. The analysis also provides empirical evidence of the relevance of glocal dynamics in online social movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolvement of the 'movement of the squares' following the end of the more visible cycles of mobilization of the squares´ occupations. We argue that a crucial aspect of this evolution lies in the creation of a social infrastructure of alternative (re)productive projects in the form of commons. We call this type of outcomes 'social' in order to distinguish them from the cultural, political and biographical outcomes underlined in typologies on the consequences of social movements. Bridging social movement studies with the literature on the commons, we build a conceptual framework of their relationship. Through a comparative analysis of the movements in Athens and Barcelona, we show how the commoning practices of the square encampments gave rise to more endurable commons disseminated across cities´ social fabrics. We identify both direct and indirect mechanisms of movements´ transmutation into commons, and distinguish the former into transplantation, ideation, and breeding processes. Our second aim is to scrutinize the political dimension of these commons in relation to what has been framed as the 'post-political condition'. We maintain that the post-square commons constitute political and politicizing actions for activists and users for their effects on everyday life, for their capacity to link their practices with broader, structural dynamics of injustice, inequality and exclusion, and for their selective engagement with counter-austerity politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can present day grassroots direct actions be considered revolutionary? In this paper, I argue that seemingly 'reformist' demands can be considered revolutionary in today's neoliberal capitalism. At the turn of the twenty-first century, working class Ecuadorian migrants in Barcelona were trying to join the global middle classes via subprime mortgage loans and despite their precarious jobs. Following the collapse of Spain's housing bubble, unemployed, defaulting on their mortgages, and risking home eviction, they turned to housing activism. They joined the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) and became daily protestors for the right to housing and against indebtedness. Looking at PAH approaches that encouraged debt default among low-income families, strategies to reconvert repossessed homes by rescued banks into social housing units, or the effective occupation of buildings that belonged to these banks by the PAH to house evicted families, I claim that these moments represent revolutionary instances of a broader fight against indebtedness taking place globally which can be considered-as many did at the PAH-a fight against capitalism at large. In this paper I illustrate how people who had seldom participated in social mobilization became part of a small Barcelonan movement for the right to housing that grew exponentially throughout Spain succeeding in canceling thousands of mortgage debts and stopping equally as many evictions. PAH's spaces of encounter and action made possible a cross-class alliance upheld by weekly assemblies and near daily direct actions against financial institutions and a pro-austerity central government. These moments demonstrate the ability of everyday people to reclaim housing, redefine the narrative of indebtedness, and-in the case of Barcelona-it even made possible taking control of City Hall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the following paper, from my position as a politically and socially committed anthropologist I will reflect on the different ways I have been articulating my research and activism. Starting from the questions about the purpose of knowledge production and more specifically who we do ethnography for, I have involved myself in a research project that was born with a dual goal. On the one hand, democratizing the production of knowledge and, on the other hand, politicizing its contents. I have used my experience in the Platform of Affected by the Mortgage of Barcelona to visualize, through a retrospective analysis, the disagreements and the difficulties I have gone through while combining research with my participation and involvement within the collective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish cities have suffered increasing social inequality after the 2008 economic crisis and austerity policies. However, harshening social conditions have also led to ‘acts of citizenship’. Against the background of Marshallian and Tocquevillean takes on citizenship and civil society this paper analyses the emergence of the political confluence that gained office in the municipal elections of May 2015 in Barcelona incorporating citizens’ organisations and advocacy groups.Barcelona en Comúclaims a radical change in policy orientation with a renewed citizenship agenda. We argue that this is an example of urban citizenship that requires historical contextualisation. We see continuities and discontinuities between the current local governance model and agenda and the democratic local governance model established during the 1980s when civil society provided significant input. However, it is a challenge to implement an urban citizenship agenda in a globalised city with resources controlled elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances two arguments. First, the liveability of modern cities depends to a large extent upon urban and peri-urban ecosystems and their services. Second, these services are not only a gift of nature, but co-produced by human labour. Ecosystem services, in other words, are not just natural; they are also the outcome of historical, political, economic and social endeavours. We support our case with a study of the city of Barcelona and the adjacent Collserola Natural Park. Through an inter-disciplinary project combining biophysical, historical, and archival research, interviews and activist research we show that, first, the liveability of Barcelona highly improves because of the services provided by the ecosystem of Collserola. Second, that Collserola was not originally a pristine forest; it became one after agricultural abandonment institutional interventions and the action of social movements. If ecosystem services are co-produced by human action, and social struggles, as we argue is the case of Collserola, then this has implications for the ways ecological economists think about ecosystem services, their value and valuation. Whereas the social production of ecosystem services may seem an obvious and intuitive idea, it certainly challenges the foundational aspects of monetary valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 350,000 families have been evicted from their homes since Spain's property market crashed in 2008. The response of Spanish civil society has been the emergence of a networked social movement, Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH; the Spanish Mortgage Victims Group), to stop the evictions and change applicable legislation. This paper uses social movement theory and the travel of ideas metaphor from organization theory to understand how the PAH movement and its practices and tactics, originally born in Barcelona in 2009, have successfully spread to over 160 cities and stopped over 1135 evictions throughout the country. We argue that the ability of networked social movements to quickly replicate has fuelled their power to resist, protest, and induce change. We contend that the fast growth of networked social movements in Global North and South cities, is fuelled by its ability to create a hybrid space between communication networks and occupied urban space in which face-to-face assemblies and protests take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text focuses on a concrete example of the political struggle of migrants which, beginning in the last decade and continuing to the present, occupies Catalan public space in the form of an extremely novel social movement led by migrants from the post-colonial peripheries. These migrants, upon installing themselves in the Spanish state and more specifically in the city of Barcelona, choose to escape the position of victim assigned to them by the "miserablist" representation of immigration to become agents and political subjects. This article is a socio-analytic reconstruction about this social movement which demands the unconditional regularization of all migrants without papers who live in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]