Spanish 15M Research Articles

Left populism, commons and radical democracy: counter-hegemonic alliances in our times

This paper advances the thesis that democratic populism and the commons can and should complement each other in counter-hegemonic interventions promoting egalitarian and ecological democracy in our times. After elucidating its key terms, the article makes, first, a theoretical case for the combination of egalitarian, inclusionary populism and the commons by debunking arguments which highlight the conflicts between them and by explaining the political significance of their conjugation. Subsequently, discussion builds an empirical argument for the real possibility and the democratic promises of such a convergence by considering three ways in which populist politics and the commons merge and recompose each other in contemporary social movements, from the Spanish 15M and new municipalism to Occupy and other collective contestation in the Americas over the last two decades. These cases will illustrate how late social activism has effectively blended populist mobilization with the spirit of the commons, engendering a hybrid figure of ‘common populism’ that fosters grassroots processes of democratization.

Public, libre, commons: On the logics, logistics and locations of democratic participation in the digital age

This paper tells the story of Decide Madrid (Decide), a civic tech platform designed by Madrid’s municipality in 2015 in the spirit of the autonomous and hacker philosophies that spearheaded the Spanish Occupy or 15M movement. We develop a biographical account of Decide to show how the design of the platform was modified over the course of four years to accommodate shifting ideas of how digital infrastructures can channel, both online and offline, the social energies and technical rationalities of political participation. In particular, we identify three design assemblages of democratic participation: the public, the libre and the commons, whose orientations and configurations sometimes share, and sometimes diffract, different logics, logistics and locations of where and how democracy ought to be activated in the digital age. We further show how over time these modulations cultivated a view of democratic culture as an experimental process.

Politician, activist… or hero?

AbstractThis article explores how narratives and their discursive elements construct the idea of rebelliousness in subjects who followed different pathways through politics and activism after the Spanish 15-M movement. Methodologically, two representative examples of narratives have been selected on the basis of interviews with participants in the movement. To study these cases, the concept of rebel narratives is proposed from the perspective of narrative as social practice. The analysis applied here is based on a dialogue between the two cases studied, as discourses in which the activity of their tellers develops in certain contexts of discourse production. Based on this analysis, it is suggested that rebelliousness, in addition to manifesting subjective affiliations, fulfils a performative function with which the subjects legitimise their chosen path and constitute themselves, motivating, in the cases presented, revisions of the past or the rhetoric characteristic of a hero.

When a Movement Becomes a Party: Computational Assessment of New Forms of Political Organization in Social Media

Social media has become a key mechanism for the organization of grassroots movements. In the 2015 Barcelona City Council election, Barcelona en Comú, an emerging grassroots party, was the most voted one. This candidacy was devised by activists involved in the Spanish 15M movement in order to turn citizen outrage into political change. On the one hand, the 15M movement is based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties historically develop oligarchical leadership structures. This tension motivates us to examine whether Barcelona en Comú preserved a decentralized structure or adopted a conventional centralized organization. In this article we propose a computational framework to analyze the Twitter networks of the parties that ran for this election by measuring their hierarchical structure, small-world phenomenon and coreness. The results of our assessment show that in Barcelona en Comú two well-defined groups co-exist: a cluster dominated by the party leader and the collective accounts, and another cluster formed by the movement activists. While the former group is highly centralized like traditional parties, the latter one stands out for its decentralized, cohesive and resilient structure.

La lucha por el liderazgo adecuado en las organizaciones de los movimientos sociales: reflexión colectiva y reglas como base para la autonomía

This article analyzes how leadership is practiced in social movement organizations (OMS). Drawing on Critical Leadership Studies, and based on qualitative empirical research conducted in the organizations of the Spanish 15M protest movement, we analyze leadership perceptions, tensions and practices in dealing with these challenges. Our findings indicate that leadership practices in the investigated OMSs are autonomous, reflective and rule-based. Emphasizing collective reflection and rules highlights two aspects of leadership in OMSs that have been largely ignored in the discourses. Nevertheless, they turn out to be important means to address the challenges of autonomous leadership.

La lucha por el liderazgo adecuado en las organizaciones de los movimientos sociales: reflexión colectiva y reglas como base para la autonomía

This article analyzes how leadership is practiced in social movement organizations (OMS). Drawing on Critical Leadership Studies, and based on qualitative empirical research conducted in the organizations of the Spanish 15M protest movement, we analyze leadership perceptions, tensions and practices in dealing with these challenges. Our findings indicate that leadership practices in the investigated OMSs are autonomous, reflective and rule-based. Emphasizing collective reflection and rules highlights two aspects of leadership in OMSs that have been largely ignored in the discourses. Nevertheless, they turn out to be important means to address the challenges of autonomous leadership.

They don't represent us? Synecdochal representation and the politics of occupy movements

The aim of this article is to better understand the function and place of representation in the politics of occupy movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish 15-M movement. It is often assumed that these movements categorically dismissed any form of political representation, as they criticised representative democracy in its current state and instead experimented with alternative forms of organisation and decision-making. My claim, however, is that these movements employed various forms of representation. In order to establish this, I distinguish between various notions of ‘representation,’ which are then applied to the practices and rhetoric of these movements. Engaging with the work of Ernesto Laclau, I then construct a particular – distinctively synecdochal – concept of representation that I claim is key to an adequate understanding of these movements and their radical-democratic repertoire.

Don’t they really represent us?

In this article we position ourselves as socially and politically committed anthropologists, thinking about the possible ways research and activism come together in contemporary anthropology. We emphasize how critical social sciences have contributed to this debate mainly around two key ideas: the democratization of knowledge production and the politicization of that knowledge. We examine our experiences in the Spanish 15M movement and share four examples -two ‘failed’ and two ‘successful’ experiences- in which we discuss two key aspects of being activist academics. First, the difficulties and advantages of doing activism and research as a combined anthropological engagement; and, secondly, the usefulness of combining a long-term commitment to social justice as an effort to democratize mechanisms of knowledge production.

Commodification and Digital Political Participation: The “15-M Movement” and the Collectivization of the Internet

La mercantilizacion y la participacion politica digital: el “Movimiento 15-M” y la colectivizacion del Internet A mercantilizacao e a participacao politica digital: o Movimento 15-M e a coletivizacao da internet DOI: 10.5294/pacla.2018.21.4.3 The objective of this article is to analyze an emerging process in the network society: the commodification of the Internet and political communication. This strategy of technological capitalism is becoming increasingly present in the lives of citizens around the world, and it represents a new challenge for critical thinking. In this article we will show the debate around this process and we will point out a few examples. However, despite the existence of this process of commodification, society is not taking a passive attitude. On the contrary, we have cases of social movements, such as the Spanish 15-M, which identified this process and designed a strategy to try to reverse it. However, and despite the efforts of this movement, many of the achievements of the 15-M against commodification have lost their validity. In this paper we review the current state of the debate on the commercialization of politics and, through a qualitative study, we show how the 15-M defined this process and established instruments to fight it. In the conclusions we discuss this process and show its current situation in Spain.

Spanish anarchist engagements in electoralism: from street to party politics

The eruption of the Spanish 15M movement in 2011 was marked by a high degree of political participation and creative experimentation. The political repertoire has constantly been re-evaluated, with methods revised and evolving, from the occupation of public spaces to the recent creation of new constitutional parties. One of the key aspects of these tactical revisions has been the involvement of anarchist actors in an experimental process of engagement in electoral processes, a method of political engagement anarchists standardly oppose. Our study identifies the motivations and theoretical justifications that have recently led libertarian activists to take the electoral path. This paper stands in the small but growing tradition of works that examine the recent phenomenon of new parties built by ‘street’ activists, but uniquely concentrates on a detailed case study of the anarchist actors linked to the platform Castelló en Moviment (CsM). It thus describes the anarchist influence in recent electoral developments, identifies proponents’ justifications for engaging in these previously rejected methods and highlights some of the doubts raised about the electoral experiment.

Online network organization of Barcelona en Com\xfa, an emergent movement-party

The emerging grassroots party Barcelona en Comú won the 2015 Barcelona City Council election. This candidacy was devised by activists involved in the Spanish 15M movement to transform citizen outrage into political change. On the one hand, the 15M movement was based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties develop oligarchical leadership structures. This tension motivates to examine whether Barcelona en Comú preserved a decentralized structure or adopted a conventional centralized organization. In this study we develop a computational methodology to characterize the online network organization of every party in the election campaign on Twitter. Results on the network of retweets reveal that, while traditional parties are organized in a single cluster, for Barcelona en Comú two well-defined groups co-exist: a centralized cluster led by the candidate and party accounts, and a decentralized cluster with the movement activists. Furthermore, results on the network of replies also shows a dual structure: a cluster around the candidate receiving the largest attention from other parties, and another with the movement activists exhibiting a higher predisposition to dialogue with other parties.

Functional Diversity as a Politics of Design?

This article is an inquiry into the activism around ‘functional diversity’ after the public square occupations of the Spanish 15-M movement; and, more specifically, how, in them, ‘functional diversity’ developed into a repertoire for the politicisation of design (notably, the market of technical aids and accessible environments created according to the social model of disability). To underpin the particular reading of the politics of design —in the sense developed by political philosopher Jacques Ranciere— that appears there, I will describe a small collaborative project put together by the Barcelona-based open design collective En torno a la silla.

Twitter and video activism as tools for counter-surveillance: the case of social protests in Spain

ABSTRACTFrom a communication perspective, social movements of international significance such as the Arab Spring, Toronto G20, Spanish 15M or Occupy Wall Street have been characterized by the use of mobile communication and social media as tools for video activism and counter-surveillance against the abuse of power committed by the state forces. A representative case of this reality, which reached a high coverage and support in social media environment, can be found in the riots that took place in the Gamonal neighbourhood (Burgos, Spain) in January 2014. In this regard, this article focuses on the denunciation of police violence through video activism by Twitter users during the demonstrations across the country, applying a quantitative–qualitative mixed methodology. First, by means of a content analysis, a sample of 784 tweets linked to videos is analysed in order to identify the main topics and functions of the shared content. Second, a textual analysis of those linked videos of a violent nature recorded by witnesses in order to document police interventions is carried out. The prominent use of Twitter for distributing videos to denounce police violence stands out among the main findings, underlining the audiovisual exposure and ‘secondary visibility’ of the police officers. The results obtained also reinforce the idea of citizen empowerment through the development of an alternative form of journalism, as a practice to criticize the mainstream media coverage of the protests. Additionally, this article sheds light on the open debate about the relevance of social media to encourage citizen involvement in a face-to-face interaction.

Occupy is not a place

In this article, I compare the origins and early development of the Occupy movement with that of the Spanish 15M, the Indignados or ‘outraged’, movement. How movements are integrated into longer lived global networks has been insufficiently studied. The ‘hyperlink’ can serve as a material representation of more durable affiliations between entities with a shared collective identity, in this case, activist Web sites, reflecting underlying network structures. Combining qualitative analysis of movement identities and narratives with analysis of hyperlinking patterns provides a more holistic understanding of the interrelations between the 15M and Occupy movements. I argue that the similarities in the structural hyperlinked network properties of the 15M and Occupy movements and their transnational interlinkages can be explained in part by commonalities in the two movements’ collective identities and dominant narratives.

They called it democracy? The aesthetic politics of the Spanish transition to democracy and some collective hijackings of history after the 15M movement

<p>This article studies the imaginaries of political change available during the Spanish transition to democracy (1973–1982) and their new political usages by the Spanish 15M Occupy movement in the context of the 2008–2014 economic crisis. I argue that protesters are now rediscovering the old symbols used against Franco’s dictatorship and adapting them to the new political circumstances, through graffiti, slogans, artistic performances and other ephemeral materials.</p>

Feminisms and the 15M Movement in Spain: Between Frames of Recognition and Contexts of Action

The purpose of this profile is to address the Spanish 15M movement from a gender perspective, focusing, on the one hand, on the role played by feminist demands within it and, on the other, on how feminism may have contributed to the 15M, its internal debate and its further developments unfolding in the current Spanish political context. In order to do that, we first explore how feminist demands were initially received in the camps and the reactions they raised among the media and citizenship. Second, we tackle how this case of overlap between a larger group and feminist groups is different from previous collaborations and confrontations. Finally, we focus on how the 15M movement has transformed (or not) as a result of feminism and the implications of this process towards rethinking the role of feminism within contemporary Spanish politics.

Does the Spanish 15M have an ideology? Issues of method and measurement

The broad aim of this paper is to look into the implications of applying two different methods of research and analytical assumptions to the study of social movements. In order to develop and discuss this aim, I focus my analysis on the emergence of a social movement that impacted Spanish society in 2011: the ‘indignados’ movement 15M. Particularly, in this case, I confront the main conclusions of two different methodological approaches that analyze the emergence of the movement, focusing my interest in the ideological roots of its collective identity. The first approach is mainly based on ethnographic data (Larana & Diez, 2012a; 2012b) and the second one consists of a statistical macro-analysis. Whereas in the two first works we highlighted the most micro and intersubjective aspects of the social action, through ethnographic techniques, that allowed us to study how the activists organize the actions of the movement, spread their frames and construct its collective identity, this paper mainly focuses on macro statistical data in order to: i) analyze the ideological bases of the movement, ii) compare the results obtained regarding this issue from the both aforementioned approaches, and iii) look at their complementarities.

The Spanish 15-M Movement: a consensual dissent?

Since May 2011, the Spanish 15-M Movement (commonly referred as los indignados [the outraged]) has become a major player in the domestic political scenario. Public opinion data reveal that there is a cross-sectional support for the 15-M among the general population in Spain, affecting people of different ages, genders, employment situations and levels of urbanization. The data present a “movement of dissent” and confirm the crisis of the consensual culture of the Spanish political transition from Franco's regime to democracy. The 15-M challenges previous consensus and expresses the need to reform or to overcome the close-knitted institutional map designed by the elites driving the transition. The outraged movement advances and leads a new political culture based on widespread social dissent. Our data suggest an imbalance between the cultural and the political impact of the 15-M, and how this tension will be a central element of cultural and civic life in the next decades in Spain.

The 15M Movement. Collective and volatile actions in the political arena

From data obtained in a survey conducted in May 2011 to identify some characteristics of the media impact of Spanish 15M Movement, this paper presents a critical reflection on the role of new media, especially social networks, in the generation of massive social actions. As a result of current information processes, social networks have been positioned in the imaginary as informative multiplication scenarios, and as spaces that generate immediate social mobilizations. However, the rapid spread, spontaneity, immediacy and volatility that characterize these movements contrast with the lack of lengthy movements, which arise from deliberative processes, necessarily built on institutionalized public spheres. The article shows the opposition between the change in media consumption habits and the reception of information by citizens and their permanent apathy to action-mobilization. Thus, changes in the forms of communication, individualization, connection and multipresence keep unchanged collective action spaces, and can even reduce these spaces if they are not utilized properly.

Politics of the encounter: Cognition, emotions, and networks in the Spanish 15M

This article seeks to analyze the mobilizations that are currently taking place in Spain as a result of the multidimensional crisis unleashed in 2008. The authors study the ‘15M movement,’ or that of the Spanish indignados, by focusing on three analytical axes: the cognitive, emotional, and relational processes feeding the construction of a social movement identity. First, the article refers to the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing tasks performed by 15M participants to define the problematic situation and attribute blame, articulate a solution to the problem and devise strategies to achieve that end, and motivate participants to sustain their engagement and remedy the situation. Second, the article concentrates on the emotions that were ‘mobilized’ by social movement organizations linked to the 15M (e.g. outrage or indignation), and those emotions that emerged spontaneously during the ‘encounters’ that took place in the public space: joy, efficacy, and empowerment. Finally, the article addresses the relational aspects entailed in the process of identity construction, that is, the activation and de-activation of both ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ ties between 15M members and previous and/or current political and social collectives within the ‘progressive field.’ In following this triple objective, the article describes the process of identity-synchronization that has allowed people with no previous political participation and with different and oftentimes opposing politico-ideological trajectories to feel part of the movement. The data come from 17 in-depth interviews and eight focus groups with key activists, ethnographic observations in camps and assemblies in both Bilbao and Madrid during the summer of 2011, and visual materials displayed in web pages and Facebook accounts associated to the 15M.