The mobilising memory of the 15-M movement: recollections and sediments in Spanish protest culture

ABSTRACT

The 15-M movement, which emerged in 2011 amidst the Great Recession in Spain, has achieved the status of transformative protest event. Social movement research using this concept has mostly focused on meso-level legacies: event memories shape later organisational dynamics within social movements and among activists. Collective memories can, however, transcend the activists’ milieu, acting as a sediment in the political culture of broader social sectors. Along this line of inquiry, this article examines the memory of the 15-M movement among ordinary demonstrators in two recent mobilisations (International Women’s Day and the pensioners’ protests). Based on forty-four in-depth interviews, we show not only a widespread recollection of 15-M eight years later, but also that memories include mobilising components, influencing the perceptions of protest as an efficacious political tool, or extending protest repertoires that are now considered familiar and legitimate. Recollections of 15-M are also associated with changes in the critical understanding of the political system and the advancement of a new political subject, which envisages an active role in politics for ordinary citizens. Significantly, these mobilising memories are discernible even among those who did not participate at the time, showing that cultural legacies may have transcended the first-instance protagonists. In short, protest action, subjects, critical mentalities and repertoires gained an enduring legitimacy, which is consistent with the extension of alternative horizontal logics of politics and more active understandings of citizenship.

KEYWORDS:

• Transformative protest event
• movement cultural legacies
• collective memory
• mobilising memories
• political culture
• 15-M movement

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Acknowledgments

We thanks to anonymous reviewers of Social Movement Studies for their valuable feedback on previous versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Great Recession was the acute economic crisis experienced worldwide starting in 2009, whose effects were felt for several years. In Spain, the economic crisis and the austerity measures adopted led to an unprecedented wave of protests between 2011 and 2013 and to a deep political crisis (see, Portos, 2021).

2. In 2011, the scope of the audience for the 15-M movement was much broader than that of the anti-globalisation mobilisations the previous decade, which barely exceeded 50% knowledge (CIS, study number 2574). In addition, among those who knew about the 15-M movement, three out of four sympathised with the protests (compared to scarcely 50% among those who had heard of the anti-globalisation movement in 2004).

3. Yayoflautas are groups of senior activists involved in 15-M and anti-austerity mobilisations. They are connected to the Marea Pensionista and the pensioners’ mobilisations in 2018 (Jiménez-Sánchez et al., 2021).

4. Profiles of interviewees are detailed in the Table A1 in the Appendix.

5. The initial aim was to conduct a total of forty interviews. A theoretical sample was defined to ensure a similar number of interviews per event (WM and PM), the three territories selected, gender and education (with and without university degree). Suitable candidates were initially contacted on the bases of the date they filled out the online form, giving priority to candidates with low protest experience.

6. Interviews were conducted in accordance with an ethical protocol approved by the Ethical Research Committee of the Autonomous Government of Andalusia (code 1581-N-18). Prior to the interviews, participants were provided with an information sheet and signed a consent document.

7. No clear pattern emerges between recollection intensity and education: more detailed memories do not necessarily correspond to higher educational levels (whereas they are connected with exposure to 15-M). Nor are differences detected in relation to the event (WM or PM), gender, or age

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovaci?n y Universidades [CSO2017-84861-P].

Notes on contributors

Manuel Jiménez-Sánchez

Manuel Jiménez-Sánchez is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla, Spain. He holds a PhD in political science (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) and is a member of the Juan March Institute (Madrid). His research interests focus on political participation, social movements and environmental politics. He is currently principal researcher on the project PROTEiCA “Protest, learning and political change: https://www.upo.es/investiga/ptyp/es/project/proteica/

Patricia García-Espín

Patricia García-Espín is Lecturer in the University of Granada. She is PhD in Political Science by the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Her research focuses on political participation and the effects, problems, and the public opinion about participatory democracy and active political engagement. She works with different qualitative methods (case-studies, focus groups and ethnography). Recently she has published articles in Democratization, Qualitative Sociology, Revista de Estudios Políticos, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, Journal of Public Deliberation and Administration and Society.