The Free Culture and 15M Movements in Spain: Composition, Social Networks and Synergies. (original) (raw)
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Composition of 15M Mobilization in Spain: Free Culture Movement a layer of 15M ecosystem movement.
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This profile discusses the organization, goals and practices of the Spanish 15M movement. I argue that it developed as a complex, multi-layered ecosystem, mobilizing a new generation of citizens through the convergence of struggles over housing and the Free Culture and Digital Commons Movement (FCM), creating a common framework for action through social networks. Primarily in and through the actions in public squares, the 15M movement also constructed further layers of mobilization, incorporating the networks and skills of previous social movements (such as those mobilizing over inter alia education, health, alternative consumption) and connecting with previous generations who had mobilized over civil liberties in transition to democracy. Furthermore, I argue that links with the Free Culture Movement had a profound effect on the genealogy of 15M—in terms of its composition, agenda, framing and organizational logic. The methodology is based on case studies of both the FCM and 15M between December 2010 and December 2011 in Spain.
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This profile looks at the emergence of the 15M Movement in Spain. It analyses the role played by social networks in the movement's formation and identifies the grievances that mobilised a broad coalition of groups and individuals including dissatisfaction with the two-party political system, the venality of political and economic elites, widespread corruption, the economic crisis and the politics of austerity. The profile also looks at the action repertoire employed by the movement and its organisational structure. In terms of the former, it focuses attention on the role played by protest camps and assemblies in giving a voice to the excluded and building the bonds of solidarity necessary to sustain activists through protest. In terms of organisation, it describes a structure that is highly decentralised, has been influenced by protest movements in other parts of the world such as Latin America and has marked regional differences. It concludes with observations about what the 15M means for Spanish politics and the direction it might take in its struggle against the political and economic elites that have dominated Spain since the transition to democracy in the 1970s.
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The contemporary wave of protests and occupy-style mobilisations has been very influential in different parts of the world. Yet, though the economic accounts are available, not many studies have looked at the political factors behind the social movements. Analysing the case of 15M Movement in Spain, this paper aims to explain the emergence of protest movements from a political perspective by providing a party politics account. It contends that one of the central factors behind mass protests, if not the only one, has been the crisis of representation resulting not only from the lack of voter-party congruence, but also from the failure of political parties to meet the demands of responsiveness and responsibility-the core requisite of the party government model. After all what legitimizes the party government model has been governing party's ability to balance the demands of responsiveness and responsibility at the same time. As such, in accounting for the question of what factors brought about popular disaffection in Spain, it provides a rather neglected party politics perspective.
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Since May 15, 2011, the Indignados or 15M movement was the most significant social mobilisation against neo-liberal policies in Spain. Given the diversity of actions, campaigns, groups and messages involved in this movement, there is a great controversy about its consistence, duration and outcomes. However, it is widely recognised that a particular urban struggle, the one against the evictions of foreclosure houses (PAH), has exemplary represented the wave of uprisings unleashed by the 15M movement. In this paper I investigate to what extent this and other urban struggles have been developed within the 15M or due to the new context of mobilisation fueled by the 15M movement -mainly, the protest camps in public spaces, the occupations of houses, community gardens, the campaigns against the privatisation of hospitals and the protests against the cuts in the system of public education. What are the features of these urban movements? How do they face urban neoliberalism? In addition to provide a meaningful answer to these questions, I argue, first, that these urban movements have been crucial in the development of the 15M due to the specific ‘hybrid autonomy’ to which they have contributed. Secondly, I identify the various ways in which autonomous and institutional practices have been combined by these urban movements. Key words: urban movements, anti-neoliberalism, hybrid autonomy, Spain, 15M movement
Normalizing Activism and Marginalizing Radical Youth in Spain’s Post-15M Social Movements
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In this article I compare the different forms of participation of young anti-capitalists in two post-15M Spanish social movements in Lleida: White Tide and Platform of those Affected by Mortgages. The objective of the article is to analyze how biopolitical normalization processes work within social movements themselves. The article explains the normalization processes that adult activists exercise against young anti-capitalists, and the ways in which young people resist and seek to break with these processes in post-15M movements. All this allows us to understand how this normalization affects current social movements, establishing what is seen to be the ‘correct’ way to be an activist and creating processes of marginalization and censorship of those activists who occupy non-hegemonic social positions and who use other political forms.
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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, indi-vidualization, connection and multipresence keep unchanged collective action spaces, and can even reduce these spaces if they are not utilized properly.