From dissent to resistance: Locating patterns of horizontalist self-management crisis responses in Spain

Abstract

In response to the EU-wide austerity politics, large numbers of people took to the streets, occupied central squares, held popular assemblies, and participated in strikes or acts of civil disobedience. Scholarly attention has predominantly focused on the disruptive event politics of short-lived mass protests. Considerably less attention has been paid to the coagulation of structures of resistance that take shape as concrete praxis-oriented activities, frequently involving a transformation of the social relations of production, such as in the case of the solidarity economy. Cooperatives and other horizontally organized and democratically run self-management economic practices have expanded considerably in Spain since the outbreak of the crisis. Moreover, new alliances among different solidarity economy initiatives have been formed, creating an ever-denser network structure. Drawing on a historical materialist perspective, and engaging with anarchist principles and organizational logics, this article locates the agents, structures and contradictions in the formation of resistance in the Spanish context, and seeks to grasp the transformative potential of the solidarity economy as part of a wider political struggle for an alternative future.