Building revolutionary subjectivity: creative tensions in the Plataforma de Afectados por La Hipoteca

ABSTRACT

The paper assesses the Spanish housing activists Plataforma de Afectados por La Hipoteca (PAH, Platform for the Mortgage-Affected) as an example of left-wing convergence. From the perspective of the horizontal democratic practices and civil disobedience tactics they adopt, the paper acknowledges the anarchist, Marxist and reformist influences in PAH and reveals how the creative tension between activists of different persuasions has aided the movement’s relative success. In harnessing and transforming the revolutionary subjectivity of the movement of the squares in 2011, PAH has in turn led to a broader urban radical politics. This new revolutionary subjectivity captures PAH’s legacy and positioning within broader anti-austerity politics.

KEYWORDS:

• PAH
• anarchism
• Marxism
• social movements
• civil disobedience

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Eric Herring and Columba Peoples for comments on earlier drafts, the anonymous reviewers for excellent comments and Alex Prichard and Owen Worth for organizing the special issue and helping me improve the argument and contribution. Thanks also to those who attended and commented on the presentation of the paper at the 2017 International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy conference in Berlin, as well as to Nathan Eisenstadt for useful advice.

Disclosure statement

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

ORCID

Oscar Berglund http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0068-8194

Notes

1 Thanks to Alex Prichard for suggesting this formulation.

 

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council under Grant ES/J50015X/1.

Notes on contributors

Oscar Berglund

Oscar Berglund is a Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy at the University of Bristol. He researches International Political Economy and particularly Critical Political Economy. His research looks at political contestation of the processes of neoliberalization and austerity, including both non-violent contestation by social movements and parliamentary forms of contestation. He has recently published articles in New Political Economy and Historical Materialism.