Jaume Franquesa | SUNY: University at Buffalo (original) (raw)
Books by Jaume Franquesa
La cuestión de la energía se halla más que nunca en el corazón del debate público y la agenda pol... more La cuestión de la energía se halla más que nunca en el corazón del debate público y la agenda política. Sabemos que la transición energética es inevitable porque es el único modo que tenemos de luchar contra el cambio climático, pero ésta no es un mero asunto técnico que deba dejarse en manos de empresas y tecnócratas, sino una cuestión política que requiere de amplio debate, participación ciudadana y luchas populares. Porque transiciones puede haber muchas: por ejemplo, las que busquen un enésimo enriquecimiento de los gigantes del oligopolio eléctrico o las que aspiren a la democratización de los recursos y la protección de la naturaleza.
Así, Molinos y gigantes es, en primer lugar, una invitación a conocer la historia política y económica que hay detrás del sector eléctrico español, desde los acuerdos personales del caudillo con el presidente ultracatólico de Hidrola (actual Iberdrola) hasta la liberalización del sector decretada por el Gobierno de Aznar y la imbricación posterior de las energías renovables en los sucesivos booms del ladrillo.
En segundo lugar, este libro realiza una lectura crítica del modelo que caracteriza el desarrollo eólico en el Estado español, dominado por grandes empresas, con un enfoque extractivo, concentrado en zonas rurales donde produce una importante degradación de la vida de sus habitantes, sin apenas preocupaciones medioambientales y falto de mecanismos de participación democrátca. Para ello, Jaume Franquesa —en la línea de autores como David Graeber o James C. Scott— toma como zona de estudio el sur de Cataluña, la región más nuclearizada de España y entre las de mayor densidad de parques eólicos, donde ha vivido durante años y recogido los testimonios de sus vecinos, que llevan décadas luchando por defender su tierra y sus raíces frente al gran oligopolio eléctrico, y nos recuerdan: «Renovables sí, pero así no». En definitiva, la transición energética sólo será real si garantiza un mundo rural vivo y la dignidad de sus habitantes.
Introduction to Power struggles.
A principios de este siglo, las ciudades del Estado español se vieron sacudidas por un largo quin... more A principios de este siglo, las ciudades del Estado español se vieron sacudidas por un largo quinquenio de borrachera inmobiliaria, fiebre constructora y apología del pelotazo cuyas consecuencias seguimos sufriendo. Este libro vuelve sobre el análisis de aquel tsunami urbanizador e inmobiliario con la convicción de que es más necesario que nunca comprender lo que sucedió, y constatando que son aún relativamente escasos los estudios atentos a la vivencia cotidiana de este episodio de nuestra historia reciente. Combinando voces y estilos, atento al análisis de factores estructurales y sólidamente anclado en la tradición de la economía política crítica, el texto pone al descubierto la textura íntima y cotidiana del boom inmobiliario y de las políticas neoliberales que lo alimentaron a través de un estudio antropológico situado en el centro histórico de Palma (Mallorca). La mercantilización y gentrificación del centro de Palma es así descrita a través de las relaciones sociales y la experiencia cotidiana de sus moradores, aquellos que a veces apoyaron, a veces resistieron, y siempre sufrieron de cerca sus consecuencias.
Carrer, festa i revolta. Els usos simbòlics de l’espai públic a Barcelona (1951-2000), 2003
Edited Special Issues by Jaume Franquesa
Journal Papers by Jaume Franquesa
![Research paper thumbnail of Producing Capitalist Landscapes: Ethnographies of the Green Transition and its Contradictions [OPEN ACCESS]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/97854236/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2022
This introduction to the special issue "Producing capitalist landscapes: Ethnographies of the gre... more This introduction to the special issue "Producing capitalist landscapes: Ethnographies of the green transition and its contradictions" lays out the foundations of our shared approach to the study of capitalist processes of socioenvironmental transformation and spells out some of the main findings and common themes that traverse the articles in the collection. Thus, in the first part we present the basic tenets of Marxist historical ethnography, and discuss how it can be applied to the study of capitalism as an environment-making historical system. A brief summary of the articles in the special issue shows that each one of them represents a particular take on the study of the production of capitalist landscapes within the context of the green or low-carbon transition. In the second part we engage with three common threads that emerge from the collection: the dialectic between capitalist value, social worth and processes of cultural and economic devaluation; the role of the state in coordinating the production of environments appropriated to the goals of capitalist accumulation; and the symbolic and environmental dimensions of technological fixes.
Capitalism Nature Socialism
In Spain, wind energy development has followed a centralized, extractivist model, with wind farms... more In Spain, wind energy development has followed a centralized, extractivist model, with wind farms concentrated in peripheralized and impoverished rural territories. Wind developers benefit from these regions' low land value and lack of political power, thus reproducing patterns of geographical hierarchy and strengthening processes of uneven development. This paper examines these dynamics as they have unfolded in Southern Catalonia, a poor, rural area that concentrates a vast array of energy infrastructure. My ethnographic description focuses on what I call practices of devaluation: the variety of mechanisms through which wind energy companies erode both the economic value and the cultural worth of these regions, especially the land and the livelihoods it supports. Resistance to wind energy development in Southern Catalonia thus emerges as a reaction against these practices of devaluation, that is to say, as struggles to assert worth and preserve value. Overall, I argue that local experiences and cultural frameworks surrounding energy infrastructure reveal the inequities of existing processes of energy transition while foregrounding alternative logics to the dominant extractivist model.
Journal of Peasant Studies, 2020
This study depicts various manifestations of what we call 'actually existing' right-wing populism... more This study depicts various manifestations of what we call 'actually existing' right-wing populism. Based on empirical insights from eastern Germany, Spain, the UK and Ukraine, we explored how nationalist tendencies unfold in different contexts and what role agriculture and rural imageries play in this process. We analyse contextual factors (rural 'emptiness', socioeconomic inequality, particularities of electoral systems, politics of Europeanization) and citizens' perceptions of social reality (selective memory, subjective experiences of democracy, national redefinition, politics of emotions). We conclude that resistance and alternatives to right-wing populism should be context-specific, grounded in the social fabric and culture of the locale.
Sociologia Ruralis, 2020
This special issue aims to understand the rise of right-wing populism in the European countryside... more This special issue aims to understand the rise of right-wing populism in the European countryside, as well as the forms of resistance and the alternatives being built against it. In this short introduction, we briefly present the main objectives and conceptual position of the special issue and introduce its articles. Each article is discussed here based on its contribution to one of the following themes: (1) analysis of the existing socioeconomic system and power relations that gave rise to right-wing populism in rural Europe; (2) critical examination of the major assumptions about rural support for populist movements; (3) problematic overlap between politics and rhetoric of right-wing populist parties and left-wing (green) parties and agrarian movements; (4) agrarian populism and food sovereignty movement as progressive alternatives to right-wing politics in the European countryside.
Sociologia Ruralis, 2020
Right-wing populism has gained ground in Europe in recent years, with the greatest support among ... more Right-wing populism has gained ground in Europe in recent years, with the greatest
support among rural communities. Yet the European countryside remains largely
overlooked in debates on the current political crisis and the ways out of it. This article
aims to provide keys for understanding the connection between right-wing populism
and the rural world in Europe. Our analysis unfolds around three main ideas. First,
we argue that the root cause of the spread of right-wing populism is the fundamental,
multidimensional crisis of globalised neoliberal capitalism, particularly pronounced
in Europe’s countryside. Second, we examine what role historical legacies, trajectories
of agrarian change, and other national, regional and local specificities play in shaping
populist movements in different rural areas in Europe. Finally, we discuss the constraints
and possibilities for the emergence of agrarian (populist) movements that may offer
progressive alternatives to right-wing populism in the countryside.
Revista Andaluza de Antropología, 2020
En el Estado español, el desarrollo eólico ha seguido un modelo centralizado, concentrado en ter... more En el Estado español, el desarrollo eólico ha seguido un modelo centralizado, concentrado en territorios rurales y de carácter extractivista. Esta última característica se hace patente cuando observamos que la puesta en valor del recurso viento ha supuesto la construcción de los territorios de donde tal recurso es extraído como lo que llamo "baldíos", es decir, su definición como carentes de valor. Este artículo examina la compleja dialéctica entre desarrollo eólico y dinámicas de valor a partir de un estudio de caso situado en la Cataluña Sur, una región que concentra una enorme variedad de infraestructuras energéticas. Mi descripción, basada en un trabajo etnográfico de larga duración, explora los mecanismos a través de los cuales la actividad de los promotores eólicos contribuye a abaratar material y discursivamente la región. Asimismo, argumento que la oposición que históricamente ha emergido en la zona en contra del desarrollo eólico debe ser comprendida como una reacción contra estas prácticas. Esta resistencia, que tiende a articularse como una demanda de dignidad, persigue afirmar y preservar el valor de las estrategias reproductivas locales, orientándose a reproducir las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que hacen tales estrategias posibles.
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019
In contrast to the dominant European tendency, the 2008 economic crisis and the ensuing austerity... more In contrast to the dominant European tendency, the 2008 economic
crisis and the ensuing austerity in Spain led to the emergence of left
populist movements that have kept authoritarian populism at bay.
However, those progressive movements have made few inroads
in the countryside, potentially ceding this ground to reactionary
politics. But if the specter of reaction haunts the countryside, I
also suggest that this specter coexists with emancipatory
possibilities. To examine these, I discuss a rural protest movement
against extractive practices that developed in the early 2000s. This
movement, I argue, provides valuable insight into how feelings of
abandonment can be given a class-conscious, popular democratic
expression.
Arxiu d'Etnografia de Catalunya , 2018
Resum: A l'Estat espanyol, el desenvolupament eòlic ha seguit un model centralitzat i concentrat ... more Resum: A l'Estat espanyol, el desenvolupament eòlic ha seguit un model centralitzat i concentrat en territoris rurals i empobrits, cosa que ha perpetuat una dinàmica extractiva: mentre que els beneficis i l'electricitat són transferits a altres llocs, les zones productores són assimilades a un erm, és a dir, desvalorades econòmicament i moralment. Aquest article, basat en un treball de camp etnogràfic de llarga durada a la Catalunya meridional, té dos objectius principals. El primer, mostrar que aquest moviment dialèctic - valoració del vent i desvaloració del territori i dels seus habitants - és funcional per als interessos dels promotors eòlics, ja que permet justificar la seva activitat i abaratir-ne els costos. El segon, examinar les resistències, especialment les de caràcter quotidià, que el desenvolupament eòlic ha generat. En aquest sentit, paro especial atenció a la demanda de dignitat que ha articulat aquestes resistències a la regió, argumentant que cal entendre-la com a part d'una trajectòria de lluita orientada a reproduir les condicions objectives i subjectives que fan possible el sosteniment i la valoració de les formes de vida locals.
Paraules clau: dignitat; energia eòlica; Terres de l'Ebre; desvaloració; sistema elèctric.
Dialectical Anthropology, 2016
In the current Spanish conjuncture, characterized by political and economic crisis and the rapid ... more In the current Spanish conjuncture, characterized by political and economic crisis and the rapid impoverishment of the working classes, we have seen the emergence of moral discourses around indignation and the demand of dignity. While these moral exhortations have rightly been scrutinized with skepticism from Marxist positions for their lack of attention to political economic structures, this paper discusses whether we can find in them elements for what Gavin Smith calls a “revindicative politics,” able to transcend the frame of reference of the society of capital. Exploring the notion of dignity both in the Indignados movement and in my own ethnographic field site of Southern Catalonia—a region where claims to dignity have saturated the sphere of the political for decades—I suggest that the demand for dignity should be understood as an expression of what Ernst Bloch called “nonsynchronous contradictions,” being not entirely reducible to the contemporary workings of capitalist accumulation. Dignity points toward unsettled memories and unfulfilled pasts as well as to a rejection of servile relations and the desire to make sense of oneself outside of the morality of capital. Understanding this demand for dignity forces Marxist anthropologists to look at capital from the “margins,” challenging its centrality. In so doing it also invites us to refine and invigorate our critique of political economy.
Current Anthropology, Jun 2013
"In recent years, heritage has become a hegemonic idiom helping to legitimize, but also resist, t... more "In recent years, heritage has become a hegemonic idiom helping to legitimize, but also resist, the gentrification and private appropriation of urban space in a global conjuncture dominated by neoliberal policies and voracious real estate pressures. Through the analysis of a conflict around a historical building in a gentrifying neighborhood in Palma (Spain), and drawing on recent contributions analyzing the processual character of cultural heritage as well as on Annette Weiner’s theoretical insights on inalienability, the article explores the economic logic that underpins this hegemonic character of heritage. My analysis shows that the loose articulation of developers, gentrifiers, preservationists, expert discourses, and municipal policies is made possible by and enforces an objectifying definition of heritage as an enclosed, incommensurable sphere. This definition, even if detrimental to individual developers, is consistent with the abstract yet differentiated space the marketization of the area requires. In an urban policy context characterized by progressively weaker regulations, this dominant discourse works as an unlikely arbiter capable of effecting a piecemeal, contingent coordination between the particular and general interests of developers, while diffusing the struggles of those actors who, by connecting heritage to everyday practices and to broader issues of political economy, may challenge those interests altogether."
Antipode, 2011
The “mobility turn” claims that conceding analytical priority to the study of mobility is the bes... more The “mobility turn” claims that conceding analytical priority to the study of mobility is the best way to overcome methodological approaches based on fixed and stable categories argued to be unviable in a world that is increasingly mobile. In this paper I argue that the mobility approach, far from reaching this goal, in fact reifies the cleavage between mobility and immobility, relegating immobility to a passive, undertheorized position, and collapsing the complex workings of power, thus foreclosing a dialectical understanding of the contradictory albeit co-produced processes of mobilization and immobilization. Drawing on an ethnographic analysis of the impacts of changing patterns of accumulation of the tourist industry on the urban space of Palma (Majorca, Spain), I suggest a relational approach attentive to the dialectics of mobility and stability, continuity and change.
REIS: Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2007
"El presente artículo propone el análisis de la producción del espacio como estrategia metodológ... more "El presente artículo propone el análisis de la producción
del espacio como estrategia metodológica para
analizar, desde las ciencias sociales, los procesos de
neoliberalización y el funcionamiento de los flujos de
capital en nuestras ciudades. El interés de esta propuesta
reside en la creciente penetración de políticas
neoliberales en nuestro país, una penetración singularmente
tangible en el campo de la planificación urbanística.
Combinando la discusión teórica con la presentación
de un estudio de caso del centro histórico de
Palma (Mallorca), el artículo muestra cómo la dinámica
del valor de cambio y la creación de plusvalías no
suceden en una supuesta esfera económica exenta regida
por sus propias leyes, sino que necesariamente
deberá articularse con relaciones sociales de carácter
extramercantil a las que movilizará y reformulará exigiéndoles
que se ajusten a las necesidades de reproducción
(y expansión) del sistema de acumulación."
L'homme et la Société, 2007
Cet article s’attache à analyser un aspect largement négligé dans la littérature spécialisée : le... more Cet article s’attache à analyser un aspect largement négligé dans la littérature spécialisée : le rôle joué dans les processus de gentrification par les associations locales. À partir d’un quartier situé dans le centre historique de Palma (Mallorca, Espagne), l’auteur met en lumière les mécanismes qui permettent à une association de quartier (Associació de veins) de gérer, et de rendre possible, cette gentrification. Comment l’association mobilise-t-elle stratégiquement des marqueurs identitaires pour accomplir cet objectif ? De cette étude de cas éthnographique, l’auteur tire quelques conclusions théoriques et méthodologiques autour du concept de gentrification.
Journal of Mediterranean Studies , 2005
This article describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat de Mal... more This article describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat
de Mallorca / Palma (Spain). The case study is framed within a global movement for recentralizing,
embellishing, commodifying and calming the historic centres of many cities,
in a process of re-direction of flows that can be observed both at metropolitan and global
levels (competition between cities). This case is composed of three reform planning
schemes (Sa Calatrava, Sa Gerreria and El Temple) legally independent but that are parts
or phases of a single large-scale execution unit with shared aims (fundamentally the
creation of added value) and which becomes obvious in its promotion as a single heritage
tourism product. Nevertheless, the different planning schemes seem to coincide with a
specific functional specialization of two differentiated sectors: Sa Calatrava becomes a
luxurious and calmed residential area without neighbourhood or outdoor life; Sa Gerreria
is to be upgraded both as a central and a corridor area.
The paper shows an interest in the way in which the actors re-signify and appropriate
this reforming action, re-creating from this ideas and social relations. Within this axiomatic
approach, we have focused on two ethnographic examples that show a parallel logic of
appropriation of discourse and action of reform, a logic that reads its arguments in a
zealous manner and therefore uncovers resources, which we call deviations.
La cuestión de la energía se halla más que nunca en el corazón del debate público y la agenda pol... more La cuestión de la energía se halla más que nunca en el corazón del debate público y la agenda política. Sabemos que la transición energética es inevitable porque es el único modo que tenemos de luchar contra el cambio climático, pero ésta no es un mero asunto técnico que deba dejarse en manos de empresas y tecnócratas, sino una cuestión política que requiere de amplio debate, participación ciudadana y luchas populares. Porque transiciones puede haber muchas: por ejemplo, las que busquen un enésimo enriquecimiento de los gigantes del oligopolio eléctrico o las que aspiren a la democratización de los recursos y la protección de la naturaleza.
Así, Molinos y gigantes es, en primer lugar, una invitación a conocer la historia política y económica que hay detrás del sector eléctrico español, desde los acuerdos personales del caudillo con el presidente ultracatólico de Hidrola (actual Iberdrola) hasta la liberalización del sector decretada por el Gobierno de Aznar y la imbricación posterior de las energías renovables en los sucesivos booms del ladrillo.
En segundo lugar, este libro realiza una lectura crítica del modelo que caracteriza el desarrollo eólico en el Estado español, dominado por grandes empresas, con un enfoque extractivo, concentrado en zonas rurales donde produce una importante degradación de la vida de sus habitantes, sin apenas preocupaciones medioambientales y falto de mecanismos de participación democrátca. Para ello, Jaume Franquesa —en la línea de autores como David Graeber o James C. Scott— toma como zona de estudio el sur de Cataluña, la región más nuclearizada de España y entre las de mayor densidad de parques eólicos, donde ha vivido durante años y recogido los testimonios de sus vecinos, que llevan décadas luchando por defender su tierra y sus raíces frente al gran oligopolio eléctrico, y nos recuerdan: «Renovables sí, pero así no». En definitiva, la transición energética sólo será real si garantiza un mundo rural vivo y la dignidad de sus habitantes.
Introduction to Power struggles.
A principios de este siglo, las ciudades del Estado español se vieron sacudidas por un largo quin... more A principios de este siglo, las ciudades del Estado español se vieron sacudidas por un largo quinquenio de borrachera inmobiliaria, fiebre constructora y apología del pelotazo cuyas consecuencias seguimos sufriendo. Este libro vuelve sobre el análisis de aquel tsunami urbanizador e inmobiliario con la convicción de que es más necesario que nunca comprender lo que sucedió, y constatando que son aún relativamente escasos los estudios atentos a la vivencia cotidiana de este episodio de nuestra historia reciente. Combinando voces y estilos, atento al análisis de factores estructurales y sólidamente anclado en la tradición de la economía política crítica, el texto pone al descubierto la textura íntima y cotidiana del boom inmobiliario y de las políticas neoliberales que lo alimentaron a través de un estudio antropológico situado en el centro histórico de Palma (Mallorca). La mercantilización y gentrificación del centro de Palma es así descrita a través de las relaciones sociales y la experiencia cotidiana de sus moradores, aquellos que a veces apoyaron, a veces resistieron, y siempre sufrieron de cerca sus consecuencias.
Carrer, festa i revolta. Els usos simbòlics de l’espai públic a Barcelona (1951-2000), 2003
Capitalism Nature Socialism, 2022
This introduction to the special issue "Producing capitalist landscapes: Ethnographies of the gre... more This introduction to the special issue "Producing capitalist landscapes: Ethnographies of the green transition and its contradictions" lays out the foundations of our shared approach to the study of capitalist processes of socioenvironmental transformation and spells out some of the main findings and common themes that traverse the articles in the collection. Thus, in the first part we present the basic tenets of Marxist historical ethnography, and discuss how it can be applied to the study of capitalism as an environment-making historical system. A brief summary of the articles in the special issue shows that each one of them represents a particular take on the study of the production of capitalist landscapes within the context of the green or low-carbon transition. In the second part we engage with three common threads that emerge from the collection: the dialectic between capitalist value, social worth and processes of cultural and economic devaluation; the role of the state in coordinating the production of environments appropriated to the goals of capitalist accumulation; and the symbolic and environmental dimensions of technological fixes.
Capitalism Nature Socialism
In Spain, wind energy development has followed a centralized, extractivist model, with wind farms... more In Spain, wind energy development has followed a centralized, extractivist model, with wind farms concentrated in peripheralized and impoverished rural territories. Wind developers benefit from these regions' low land value and lack of political power, thus reproducing patterns of geographical hierarchy and strengthening processes of uneven development. This paper examines these dynamics as they have unfolded in Southern Catalonia, a poor, rural area that concentrates a vast array of energy infrastructure. My ethnographic description focuses on what I call practices of devaluation: the variety of mechanisms through which wind energy companies erode both the economic value and the cultural worth of these regions, especially the land and the livelihoods it supports. Resistance to wind energy development in Southern Catalonia thus emerges as a reaction against these practices of devaluation, that is to say, as struggles to assert worth and preserve value. Overall, I argue that local experiences and cultural frameworks surrounding energy infrastructure reveal the inequities of existing processes of energy transition while foregrounding alternative logics to the dominant extractivist model.
Journal of Peasant Studies, 2020
This study depicts various manifestations of what we call 'actually existing' right-wing populism... more This study depicts various manifestations of what we call 'actually existing' right-wing populism. Based on empirical insights from eastern Germany, Spain, the UK and Ukraine, we explored how nationalist tendencies unfold in different contexts and what role agriculture and rural imageries play in this process. We analyse contextual factors (rural 'emptiness', socioeconomic inequality, particularities of electoral systems, politics of Europeanization) and citizens' perceptions of social reality (selective memory, subjective experiences of democracy, national redefinition, politics of emotions). We conclude that resistance and alternatives to right-wing populism should be context-specific, grounded in the social fabric and culture of the locale.
Sociologia Ruralis, 2020
This special issue aims to understand the rise of right-wing populism in the European countryside... more This special issue aims to understand the rise of right-wing populism in the European countryside, as well as the forms of resistance and the alternatives being built against it. In this short introduction, we briefly present the main objectives and conceptual position of the special issue and introduce its articles. Each article is discussed here based on its contribution to one of the following themes: (1) analysis of the existing socioeconomic system and power relations that gave rise to right-wing populism in rural Europe; (2) critical examination of the major assumptions about rural support for populist movements; (3) problematic overlap between politics and rhetoric of right-wing populist parties and left-wing (green) parties and agrarian movements; (4) agrarian populism and food sovereignty movement as progressive alternatives to right-wing politics in the European countryside.
Sociologia Ruralis, 2020
Right-wing populism has gained ground in Europe in recent years, with the greatest support among ... more Right-wing populism has gained ground in Europe in recent years, with the greatest
support among rural communities. Yet the European countryside remains largely
overlooked in debates on the current political crisis and the ways out of it. This article
aims to provide keys for understanding the connection between right-wing populism
and the rural world in Europe. Our analysis unfolds around three main ideas. First,
we argue that the root cause of the spread of right-wing populism is the fundamental,
multidimensional crisis of globalised neoliberal capitalism, particularly pronounced
in Europe’s countryside. Second, we examine what role historical legacies, trajectories
of agrarian change, and other national, regional and local specificities play in shaping
populist movements in different rural areas in Europe. Finally, we discuss the constraints
and possibilities for the emergence of agrarian (populist) movements that may offer
progressive alternatives to right-wing populism in the countryside.
Revista Andaluza de Antropología, 2020
En el Estado español, el desarrollo eólico ha seguido un modelo centralizado, concentrado en ter... more En el Estado español, el desarrollo eólico ha seguido un modelo centralizado, concentrado en territorios rurales y de carácter extractivista. Esta última característica se hace patente cuando observamos que la puesta en valor del recurso viento ha supuesto la construcción de los territorios de donde tal recurso es extraído como lo que llamo "baldíos", es decir, su definición como carentes de valor. Este artículo examina la compleja dialéctica entre desarrollo eólico y dinámicas de valor a partir de un estudio de caso situado en la Cataluña Sur, una región que concentra una enorme variedad de infraestructuras energéticas. Mi descripción, basada en un trabajo etnográfico de larga duración, explora los mecanismos a través de los cuales la actividad de los promotores eólicos contribuye a abaratar material y discursivamente la región. Asimismo, argumento que la oposición que históricamente ha emergido en la zona en contra del desarrollo eólico debe ser comprendida como una reacción contra estas prácticas. Esta resistencia, que tiende a articularse como una demanda de dignidad, persigue afirmar y preservar el valor de las estrategias reproductivas locales, orientándose a reproducir las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que hacen tales estrategias posibles.
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2019
In contrast to the dominant European tendency, the 2008 economic crisis and the ensuing austerity... more In contrast to the dominant European tendency, the 2008 economic
crisis and the ensuing austerity in Spain led to the emergence of left
populist movements that have kept authoritarian populism at bay.
However, those progressive movements have made few inroads
in the countryside, potentially ceding this ground to reactionary
politics. But if the specter of reaction haunts the countryside, I
also suggest that this specter coexists with emancipatory
possibilities. To examine these, I discuss a rural protest movement
against extractive practices that developed in the early 2000s. This
movement, I argue, provides valuable insight into how feelings of
abandonment can be given a class-conscious, popular democratic
expression.
Arxiu d'Etnografia de Catalunya , 2018
Resum: A l'Estat espanyol, el desenvolupament eòlic ha seguit un model centralitzat i concentrat ... more Resum: A l'Estat espanyol, el desenvolupament eòlic ha seguit un model centralitzat i concentrat en territoris rurals i empobrits, cosa que ha perpetuat una dinàmica extractiva: mentre que els beneficis i l'electricitat són transferits a altres llocs, les zones productores són assimilades a un erm, és a dir, desvalorades econòmicament i moralment. Aquest article, basat en un treball de camp etnogràfic de llarga durada a la Catalunya meridional, té dos objectius principals. El primer, mostrar que aquest moviment dialèctic - valoració del vent i desvaloració del territori i dels seus habitants - és funcional per als interessos dels promotors eòlics, ja que permet justificar la seva activitat i abaratir-ne els costos. El segon, examinar les resistències, especialment les de caràcter quotidià, que el desenvolupament eòlic ha generat. En aquest sentit, paro especial atenció a la demanda de dignitat que ha articulat aquestes resistències a la regió, argumentant que cal entendre-la com a part d'una trajectòria de lluita orientada a reproduir les condicions objectives i subjectives que fan possible el sosteniment i la valoració de les formes de vida locals.
Paraules clau: dignitat; energia eòlica; Terres de l'Ebre; desvaloració; sistema elèctric.
Dialectical Anthropology, 2016
In the current Spanish conjuncture, characterized by political and economic crisis and the rapid ... more In the current Spanish conjuncture, characterized by political and economic crisis and the rapid impoverishment of the working classes, we have seen the emergence of moral discourses around indignation and the demand of dignity. While these moral exhortations have rightly been scrutinized with skepticism from Marxist positions for their lack of attention to political economic structures, this paper discusses whether we can find in them elements for what Gavin Smith calls a “revindicative politics,” able to transcend the frame of reference of the society of capital. Exploring the notion of dignity both in the Indignados movement and in my own ethnographic field site of Southern Catalonia—a region where claims to dignity have saturated the sphere of the political for decades—I suggest that the demand for dignity should be understood as an expression of what Ernst Bloch called “nonsynchronous contradictions,” being not entirely reducible to the contemporary workings of capitalist accumulation. Dignity points toward unsettled memories and unfulfilled pasts as well as to a rejection of servile relations and the desire to make sense of oneself outside of the morality of capital. Understanding this demand for dignity forces Marxist anthropologists to look at capital from the “margins,” challenging its centrality. In so doing it also invites us to refine and invigorate our critique of political economy.
Current Anthropology, Jun 2013
"In recent years, heritage has become a hegemonic idiom helping to legitimize, but also resist, t... more "In recent years, heritage has become a hegemonic idiom helping to legitimize, but also resist, the gentrification and private appropriation of urban space in a global conjuncture dominated by neoliberal policies and voracious real estate pressures. Through the analysis of a conflict around a historical building in a gentrifying neighborhood in Palma (Spain), and drawing on recent contributions analyzing the processual character of cultural heritage as well as on Annette Weiner’s theoretical insights on inalienability, the article explores the economic logic that underpins this hegemonic character of heritage. My analysis shows that the loose articulation of developers, gentrifiers, preservationists, expert discourses, and municipal policies is made possible by and enforces an objectifying definition of heritage as an enclosed, incommensurable sphere. This definition, even if detrimental to individual developers, is consistent with the abstract yet differentiated space the marketization of the area requires. In an urban policy context characterized by progressively weaker regulations, this dominant discourse works as an unlikely arbiter capable of effecting a piecemeal, contingent coordination between the particular and general interests of developers, while diffusing the struggles of those actors who, by connecting heritage to everyday practices and to broader issues of political economy, may challenge those interests altogether."
Antipode, 2011
The “mobility turn” claims that conceding analytical priority to the study of mobility is the bes... more The “mobility turn” claims that conceding analytical priority to the study of mobility is the best way to overcome methodological approaches based on fixed and stable categories argued to be unviable in a world that is increasingly mobile. In this paper I argue that the mobility approach, far from reaching this goal, in fact reifies the cleavage between mobility and immobility, relegating immobility to a passive, undertheorized position, and collapsing the complex workings of power, thus foreclosing a dialectical understanding of the contradictory albeit co-produced processes of mobilization and immobilization. Drawing on an ethnographic analysis of the impacts of changing patterns of accumulation of the tourist industry on the urban space of Palma (Majorca, Spain), I suggest a relational approach attentive to the dialectics of mobility and stability, continuity and change.
REIS: Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2007
"El presente artículo propone el análisis de la producción del espacio como estrategia metodológ... more "El presente artículo propone el análisis de la producción
del espacio como estrategia metodológica para
analizar, desde las ciencias sociales, los procesos de
neoliberalización y el funcionamiento de los flujos de
capital en nuestras ciudades. El interés de esta propuesta
reside en la creciente penetración de políticas
neoliberales en nuestro país, una penetración singularmente
tangible en el campo de la planificación urbanística.
Combinando la discusión teórica con la presentación
de un estudio de caso del centro histórico de
Palma (Mallorca), el artículo muestra cómo la dinámica
del valor de cambio y la creación de plusvalías no
suceden en una supuesta esfera económica exenta regida
por sus propias leyes, sino que necesariamente
deberá articularse con relaciones sociales de carácter
extramercantil a las que movilizará y reformulará exigiéndoles
que se ajusten a las necesidades de reproducción
(y expansión) del sistema de acumulación."
L'homme et la Société, 2007
Cet article s’attache à analyser un aspect largement négligé dans la littérature spécialisée : le... more Cet article s’attache à analyser un aspect largement négligé dans la littérature spécialisée : le rôle joué dans les processus de gentrification par les associations locales. À partir d’un quartier situé dans le centre historique de Palma (Mallorca, Espagne), l’auteur met en lumière les mécanismes qui permettent à une association de quartier (Associació de veins) de gérer, et de rendre possible, cette gentrification. Comment l’association mobilise-t-elle stratégiquement des marqueurs identitaires pour accomplir cet objectif ? De cette étude de cas éthnographique, l’auteur tire quelques conclusions théoriques et méthodologiques autour du concept de gentrification.
Journal of Mediterranean Studies , 2005
This article describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat de Mal... more This article describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat
de Mallorca / Palma (Spain). The case study is framed within a global movement for recentralizing,
embellishing, commodifying and calming the historic centres of many cities,
in a process of re-direction of flows that can be observed both at metropolitan and global
levels (competition between cities). This case is composed of three reform planning
schemes (Sa Calatrava, Sa Gerreria and El Temple) legally independent but that are parts
or phases of a single large-scale execution unit with shared aims (fundamentally the
creation of added value) and which becomes obvious in its promotion as a single heritage
tourism product. Nevertheless, the different planning schemes seem to coincide with a
specific functional specialization of two differentiated sectors: Sa Calatrava becomes a
luxurious and calmed residential area without neighbourhood or outdoor life; Sa Gerreria
is to be upgraded both as a central and a corridor area.
The paper shows an interest in the way in which the actors re-signify and appropriate
this reforming action, re-creating from this ideas and social relations. Within this axiomatic
approach, we have focused on two ethnographic examples that show a parallel logic of
appropriation of discourse and action of reform, a logic that reads its arguments in a
zealous manner and therefore uncovers resources, which we call deviations.
A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, 3rd edition (James Carrier, editor), 2022
In recent decades, as the frontiers of extraction have expanded to an unprecedented scale, natura... more In recent decades, as the frontiers of extraction have expanded to an unprecedented scale, natural resources have become a key area of anthropological interest. This chapter reviews some of the main contributions of this work and engages in a conceptual discussion around the notion of natural resources, defining them as the cultural form through which capital and the state relate to nature as manageable matter ready to enter production. Arguing both against the view of natural resources as fixed and given and against constructivist understandings that underplay the workings of nature, I propose a political ecological approach, attentive to both mental and material processes, that places emphasis in the analysis of history and power. This approach is illustrated through the presentation of a series of case studies, which help reveal the distinctive temporalities, spatial configurations, value relations and affects linked to natural resource extraction.
The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor, edited by Leslie Gill and Sharryn Kasmir, 2022
This chapter focuses on the role of labor in the upcoming and ongoing low-carbon energy transitio... more This chapter focuses on the role of labor in the upcoming and ongoing low-carbon energy transition. After a first section discussing the connection between labor and energy transitions at a theoretical historical level, the chapter moves to the particular case study of Southern Catalonia. My description, which is based on long-term historical ethnographic research, explores the arrival to this peripheralized, poor rural region of nuclear and wind energy, analyzing their deep yet contrasting effects upon the livelihood practices and political strategies of the inhabitants of Southern Catalonia. This divergence, I argue, is largely explained by the different organizational characteristics and labor requirements of these two forms of electricity generation: whereas the availability of cheap labor was a key factor motivating the location of nuclear plants in the area, wind developers primarily seek spaces that can be cheapened, that is to say, treated as lacking in economic value and moral worth. To close the chapter, I connect empirical material and theoretical insights and suggest some general conclusions about the role of labor and peripheral regions in the ongoing green transition.
A research agenda for economic anthropology, edited by James Carrier, 2019
The central premise of this chapter is that natural resources constitute the baseline around whic... more The central premise of this chapter is that natural resources constitute the baseline around which an economic anthropology that is attentive both to the commodification of nature and to the particularities of environmental relations can be articulated. My argument is divided into two parts. The first one explores the concept of resources and the key processes through which resources are made and argues that research on natural resources finds its common ground in the dialectical analysis of value relations. Throughout my discussion I briefly engage with a series of issues that inform key contemporary anthropological debates: materiality, temporality, power, the nature-culture dualism. In the second part I offer a series of paths for future research. Arguing for the need to both focus on and go beyond the alienation-extraction-exhaustion cycle that characterizes natural resources, I identify a series of research areas, and within them I suggest potential research topics.
Antropologías en transformación: Sentidos, compromisos y utopías, edited by Teresa Vicente et al. Valencia: Alfons el Magnànim, 2017
Contested Mediterranean Spaces: Ethnographic essays in honour to Charles Tilly. Edited by Maria Kousis, David Clark and Tom Selwyn), 2011
Los limites del patrimonio. Consumo y valores del pasado (edited by Camila del Marmol, Joan Frigolé, and Susana Narotzky)., 2010
Llegint pedres, escrivint ciutats (edited by Carles Carreras and Sergio Moreno)., 2009
La cuestión del centro, el centro en cuestión (edited by Sergi Martínez Rigol)., 2009
Turismo, cultura y desarrollo (edited by Ángel Espina Barrio), 2008
Intersecçöes ibéricas. Margens, passagens e fronteiras (edited by Manuela Y. Cunha and Luis Cunha), 2007
Cultural Tourism: global and local perspectives (edited by Greg Richards)., 2007
Ecología Política, 2020
The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) is a scholar-activist community that aims at un... more The Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative (ERPI) is a scholar-activist community that aims at understanding the rise of right-wing populism in the rural world, as well as the forms of resistance being built against it. As members of this network, the authors conducted a mul-ti-country research project on the causes, consequences and cures of right-wing populism in rural Europe. Two main conclusions stem from the results of this project. First, that the root cause of right-wing populism is the fundamental crisis of neoliberal capitalism, which is especially pronounced in the European countryside. Second, that food sovereignty has the potential to mobilize various progressive rural across the continent and act as a counterforce to the spread of right-wing populism.
ERPI (Emancipatory Rural Politics Initiative) es una red académico-activista que tiene por objetivo comprender tanto el auge rural del populismo de derechas como las re-sistencias que se alzan frente a él. En tanto que miembros de esta red los autores han llevado a cabo un proyecto de investigación, comparando distintos Estados europeos, que ha arrojado dos conclusiones principales. La primera, que la raíz del crecimiento del populismo autoritario o de derechas debe buscarse en la crisis del capitalis-mo neoliberal y sus profundos efectos sobre el mundo rural europeo. La segunda, que el marco de la soberanía alimentaria es el más propicio para articular coaliciones rurales progresistas ca-paces de hacer frente al auge de este populismo reaccionario. Palabras clave: Mundo rural, Europa, crisis neoliberal, populismo autoritario, soberanía ali-mentaria
Revista Soberanía Alimentaria, 2019
Un fantasma recorre Europa, pero no es aquel que vislumbrara Marx. Se trata del auge y la extensi... more Un fantasma recorre Europa, pero no es aquel que vislumbrara Marx. Se trata del auge y la extensión de partidos y movi-mientos de extrema derecha, prestos a aplicar políticas excluyentes y antidemocráticas, encum-brar liderazgos autoritarios y promover una visión jerárquica del orden social.
Paper presented at ERPI 2018 International Conference Authoritarian Populism and the Rural World, The Hague, Netherlands, 2018
![Research paper thumbnail of Heritage, a matter of position // 2010 [2003] // Journal Article // (only first and last pages)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/35186995/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Environment, Land, Society: Architectonics, 2010
First part of the text in lieu of an abstract: Some institutions have lately championed the le... more First part of the text in lieu of an abstract:
Some institutions have lately championed the lengthening of heritage. Among the examples available in this recent common-place, the clearest is that of UNESCO when claiming the need to take into account Intangible Heritage. that is to say, to lengthen heritagisation. The claim for the expansion of the horizons of heritage pretends to comprise a whole area labelled under diverse and vague criteria: the popular, the ethnological, the everyday life, etc.; and which, in a certain way would come into the field of what anthropologists have named culture (a set of norms, practices and beliefs applied as a whole and which, taken as a whole, make sense).
It would be naïve to believe that this lengthening or widening of horizons is only this, that is to say, a quantitative change, a mere increase of objects: what it implies is a reformulation of the very notion of heritage and its praxis.
Alfatara Digital (http://www.alfatara.com/?p=7006), Feb 2012
Express 90: 35., Dec 2008
Based on ethnographic research on wind farm development in Southern Catalonia, the central aim of... more Based on ethnographic research on wind farm development in Southern Catalonia, the central aim of the paper is to question and complicate the common assumption that renewable energy sources represent a stark break with other forms of energy production.
Throughout the last decade, Spain has become one of the main producers of wind energy in Europe, in a process that has been progressively dominated by large corporations and a strong intervention from the state. Although justified by the need to achieve both (global) environmental and (national) economic sustainability, wind farms pose challenges to the social and economic viability of the areas where they are placed. This paper analyzes this process in one such area, Southern Catalonia, an impoverished agricultural area where the opposition to wind farm development has been articulated through the notion of dignity. The peripheral position of Southern Catalonia is connected to the fact that it has historically been a main area of energy production: hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, and more recently wind farms, scattered throughout the territory, are witness to the changes in the political economy of energy production in Spain during the last 50 years. Thus, while wind farms may in a future bring the dismantling of other forms of energy production such as nuclear power plants, the presence of wind farms in Southern Catalonia responds to the presence of nuclear power plants, not to their displacement, and local residents fear they may contribute to further peripheralize the area and threaten their livelihoods.
There is a tendency to think of displacements in terms of movement. This paper proposes to extend... more There is a tendency to think of displacements in terms of movement. This paper proposes to extend this mobility-centered understanding in two directions. First, by arguing that dis-placements occur not only through the movement of people, capital and ideas but also through the production of space, and more specifically through the production of peripheral, subordinated places; and second, by contending that the oft-repeated right to move should be complemented with attention to the right to stay put. The paper elaborates on these ideas by drawing on an ethnographic and historical analysis of the energy sector in Spain. The strong development of renewable energy in the last years suggests that we may be witnessing a transition to a sustainable energy model. A deeper analysis, however, shows that this development is built upon, and in many ways represents a continuation of, former modes of energy development based on securing resource access to rentier capitals through the ongoing peripheralization of rural territories and the formal or real displacement of their populations.
G Richards (ed) Cultural tourism: global and local perspectives, 2007
Paragraphs from pages 170 and 171 in lieu of an abstract: Social processes, often conflictive,... more Paragraphs from pages 170 and 171 in lieu of an abstract:
Social processes, often conflictive, contribute to the making of heritage products. In these processes, we have to consider a range of groups and social agents who have different political and economic interests and different cultural conceptions, stemming from their distinct positions in social space. Opposed to the discourses that see heritage as something natural and as a product of a consensus, often because of ingenuity as well as dishonest intentions, it is important to stress the dynamic, processual, and conflictive nature of heritage product-making, particularly when it concerns enormously sensitive questions such as identity or memory. That is, heritage-making is inseparable from questions of influence, politics, interests, and authority -in short, power.
On the other hand, this conflictive dimension becomes even worse when we move from heritage to heritage tourism, since the commercial exploitation implied by heritage tourism usually arouses resentment. It is not only the fact that commercial exploitalion may be viewed by certain groups as illegitimate when applied to heritage objects of a sacred or inalienable nature, but also the fact that commercial exploitation entails complex political and economic decisions. These issues include lhe kind of public for which the product is designed (which often does not match with the owners of the ascribed meanings), and the fact that the urban speculation that usually accompanies heritage tourism can lead to a rise in the price of land, to processes of use replacement, gentrification, etc. In fact, these latter issues become especially relevant since heritage tourism is mainly a kind of urban tourism and focuses on the historic centers of cities, which become, as a whole, public spaces made heritage (and therefore not only the meanings become problematic, but also spatial practices and uses of space). This is hardly surprising since historic city centers, besides offering a high concentration of heritage referents, usually characterize themselves by their function of centrality and their symbolic contents, particularly their role in representing the city as a whole. Nevertheless. "touristification/heritagization" is still problematic, and it is in these spaces that most of the conflicts regarding heritage and tourism become visible. These conflicts create social discomfort, hence negatively influencing the political success and the economic viability of heritage tourism: consequently, it seems there is a need to develop common criteria for assessment of the complex factors affecting heritage.
M Kousis, T Selwyn and E Clark (eds) Contested Mediterranean spaces., 2011
First paragraphs of the second section in lieu of an abstract: The New Global.Economy (Sassen ... more First paragraphs of the second section in lieu of an abstract:
The New Global.Economy (Sassen 2000) obliges cities to compete and precipitates the urban order to adapt or accommodate the diverse urban policies to the specificities dictated by economic pressures, and to find in the perennial projection of urban development the attraction and accumulation of the capital that is necessary for competition (Swyngedouw, Moulaert and Rodriguez 2002). A clear indicator of this accommodation we refer to is the move from local government towards local governance (that is to say. The incorporation of business agents and of the 'third sector' in public governability). Signalling the neoliberalization of urban space (Geddes 2006). This implies what Harvey (1989) calls the 'entrepreneurial turn': a shift in the very same public governability that pushes the city to behave as an enterprise, the main aim of which is to promote economic success. This not only implies the maximisation of the public environment by the private initiative but also the constant speculation of development and its phases ofdesign, execution and projection. This shift. thus, involves a new emphasis on the production of place to the detriment of those policies of a redistributive kind, based on the territory. We understand that this emphasis on place is defined by the expectation for surplus value that ideally generates from the subordination of the use value to the. exchange value (what Lefebvre 2000 (1974) calls 'abstract space').
The emphasis on place rather than on territory is linked to the adoption of the neighbourhood scale, and as we will see, it goes hand in hand with a new political discourse that stresses cultural questions and the idea of participation and citizen involvement. In addition to this, the emphasis on place often reshapes places into landscapes, which - no matter what the 'escape' - are anchored in the 'raw material' (in this case, the neighbourhood) they are built upon. Nevertheless, as we will later show, this raw material that is the neighbourhood is indeed extremely prolific in so far as it is precisely able to produce, reproduce and market landscapes. It is under this focus that we understand the insistence of the entrepreneurial turn in 'localizing' memory (Nora 1997 [1992]) and/or in theming it (Lowenthal2002; Delgado 2006). Taking into account how this landscaping logic works within the urban system, we argue that the public environments that have been most subject to landscape modelling are the neighbourhoods, and that this is so because of the 'cosy' familiar and romanticized scale they represent.
Likewise, the neighbourhood scale is innovatively exploited. at a multiscale level by the 'entrepreneurial tum'. Indeed, it implies the governance of the urban space through the command of 'the organisation and the production of space in order to be able to exercise a major degree of control both in the friction of distance and in the way in which space is appropriated' (Harvey 1989 [1985]: 264). This frontier field of actions between domination and appropriation that the neighbourhood scale represents, is where the organization and production of scale takes place - and where the several public powers find the urban countenance of their economic policies, since all administrative powers (not only the local and state powers but also the EU itself) seem to need to tailor a scale that is 'nearer' to the average citizen. We herein find that the neighbourhood scale, precisely because of its uneven and 'easy to find' conditions, plays an important role in the idealization of place.
Journal of Mediterranean Studies 15.2, 2005
This chapter describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat de Mall... more This chapter describes a case of urban reform in an area of the Historic Centre of Ciutat de Mallorca / Palma (Spain). The case study is framed within a global movement for recentralizing, embellishing, commodifying and calming the historic centres of many cities, in a process of re-direction of flows that can be observed both at metropolitan and global levels (competition between cities). This case is composed of three reform planning schemes (Sa Calatrava, Sa Gerreria and El Temple) legally independent but that are part or phases of a single large-scale execution unit with shared aims (fundamentally the creation of added value) and which becomes obvious in its promotion as a single heritage tourism product. Nevertheless, the different planning schemes seem to coincide with a specific functional specialization of two differentiated sectors: Sa Calatrava becomes a luxurious and calmed residential area without neighbourhood or outdoor life; Sa Gerreria is to be upgraded both as a central and a corridor area.
The chapter shows an interest in the way in which the actors re-signify and appropriate this reforming action, re-creating from this ideas and social relations. Within this axiomatic approach, we have focused on two ethnographic examples that show a parallel logic of appropriation of discourse and action of reform, a logic that reads its arguments in a zealous manner and therefore uncovers resources, which we call deviations.
Ciutat: Patrimoni de centres i marges, 2005
Primer paràgraf en comptes de resum: Aquesta publicació recull els materials de l'exposició du... more Primer paràgraf en comptes de resum:
Aquesta publicació recull els materials de l'exposició duta a terme sota el mateix nom en el Centre Social Flassaders entre el13 i 18 de juny i l'1 i el15 de setembre de 2005. L'exposició, del qual aquest catàleg és testimoni, s'emmarca en la feina desenvolupada per un equip d'antropòlegs socials de la Universitat de les Illes Balears sota el paraigües del projecte Veus mediterrànies: Historia oral i pràctica cultural a ciutats mediterrànies -Med-Voices- del programa Euromed Heritage l/ i financiat per la Unió Europea.
Tribuna de la Mediterrània (Suplement de: El Mundo / El Día de Baleares), Jun 15, 2003
Línia destacada: La cultura no existeix en abstracte sinó només gràcies al fet que hi ha persones... more Línia destacada: La cultura no existeix en abstracte sinó només gràcies al fet que hi ha persones que en fan ús
Proceedings of the ATLAS Cultural Tourism Group meeting in Barcelona, June 2003.