Untangling the radical imaginaries of the Indignados’ movement: commons, autonomy and ecologism

Figures & data

Figure 1. Ateneu La Base (LB)

Figure 2. Recreant Cruïlles (RC)

Figure 3. Can Batlló (CB).

Source: LaCol

Table 1. The case studies

	Start of the project	Location and space	Reason for activation/objectives	Organization	Participants	Activities organized
LB	Conceived in autumn 2012 by the Indignados’ assembly of Poble Sec neighbourhood, it was inaugurated in January 2014.	Housed in a collectively renovated rented building, located in Poble Sec, a working class neighbourhood undergoing gentrification.	It answered three needs: for a gathering/social space, for self-employment, and for the organization of political actions.	LB hosts 9 sub-projects sharing a common fund: a consumers’ cooperative; a bar; a communitarian canteen and a catering cooperative (both agroecological); a social support collective for female migrants; an IT collective; a library; a co-maternity nursing group; the ‘Crafts Ateneu’ (carpentry, blacksmith, construction, electrician). Decisions are taken in members´ meetings and the General assembly.	LB includes more than 150 members paying €10 monthly. Participants come from the squatting, student, environmental/political consumption, and autonomous movements.	In addition to the sub-projects, LB organizes many socio-cultural and political activities. It runs the first neighbourhood journal, and leads an anti-gentrification campaign against the new neighbourhood plan.
RC	Born within the Indignados assembly of Esquerra de l’Eixample neighbourhood, RC started its assemblies in October 2011, and following the space’s temporary use lease from the municipality, it began to self-manage the space in November 2013.	The Germanetes space is a previously vacant, 5500-m^2- public property (only 580 m^2 were ceded) located in the middle class neighbourhood of Esquerra de l’Eixample. The place includes a 100-m^2-permaculture garden.	Following the municipality’s failure to adhere to its 2006 commitments to build public facilities on the lot, RC aims to create a self-managed green public and cultural space, while pushing for both the swift construction of those facilities, and broader planning changes such as pedestrianization.	RC is organized in a General Assembly and the following autonomous committees: permaculture garden, public space and environment, activities, communication, economics, education, art, climbing wall, and infrastructure.	Indignados activists and neighbours. The project also involves the traditional Neighbours’ Association, civic associations and environmental organizations.	RC organizes cultural and educational events, permaculture gardening, climbing, and the monthly Market of agro-ecological Peasants.
CB	In 1976 a citizens’ campaign obtained commitments for the public use of CB in the General Urban Development Plan (GUDP), including construction of several public facilities and a green space. Given the failure to implement these plans, since 2009 the CB platform organized a mobilization campaign and, during the Indignados square occupation, obtained the use lease of the first industrial unit.	CB is located in a 14-ha-former factory situated in the working-class neighbourhood La Bordeta. CB expanded both to other blocks, through collective refurbishment and modifications of the GUDP, and at the project level. Includes a 150-m^2-community garden and a park.	CB’s core objective is ‘to get spaces for the neighbourhood’. On the one hand, it demands the construction of the promised public facilities. On the other hand, CB itself provides some of the facilities/services planned by the GUDP – the cultural/youth centre, social housing, and the park – together with new projects, with public support.	Organized in a general assembly and many autonomous committees, CB assumes expenses linked to ordinary management, but the building´s refurbishment and infrastructural costs are covered by the municipality.	CB includes more than 300 participants: neighbours, a group of (former) architecture students organized as LaCol cooperative, activists from the squatting, neighbourhood, autonomous, and Indignados movements.	Activities are organized within each project: a 15,000-book library; the Bar; the Auditorium and cultural, artistic and sport projects; crafts and construction workshops; a community garden; a food bank; an ecological brewery; a movements’ documentation centre; vehicles (self)repair; the ecological grant-of-use co-housing cooperative La Borda; the social economy incubator Coòpolis.

Table 2. Research methodology of the study

Research Method	Main characteristics and rationale
Participant observation
	Theory-driven participant observation with very limited active participation (Lichterman 2002), which requires that the researcher comes to a field site informed by a general theme, namely the movement´s vision and creation of alternatives. Participated in assemblies, main events, celebrations, and activities, as well as neighbourhood assemblies from which two of the projects stemmed. I kept ethnographic notes of everyday practices and discussions.
In-depth interviews and focus groups
[Interviewees]	29 in-depth interviews and 2 mini-focus groups (3–4 participants) with project participants, maintaining gender and age balance, as well as diversity in terms of type of activism. 8 interviews with LB participants, 13 interviews and two mini-focus group with CB participants, 9 interviews with RC participants. All interviews were anonymised.
[Content of interview]	I asked participants about the origins, motivation, goals and common visions, organizational structures and development of the projects, activities organized, relationship with the Indignados movement, how and why participants became involved. The two focus groups offered the opportunity to observe participants´ natural interaction, as well as deepen understanding of specific issues.
Thematic Analysis	Interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded and analysed through a thematic analysis methodology. Themes can be defined as a category identified by the analyst that links expressions found in texts, and relates them to the analyst’s research focus and (Ritchie and Lewis 2003). I analysed the transcribed interview texts by: identifying themes and subthemes; sorting the data so that themes are clustered into a manageable number and understanding relations among themes; identifying the radical imaginaries by examining the prevailing themes related to the radical imaginaries theoretical model.
Documents analysis
	Documents and literature produced by the three projects between May 2011 and May 2014 were analysed. Documents included: statutes; manifestos; minutes of meetings/assemblies; flyers; websites of the (sub)projects; mailing lists. Also analysed movement’s research outputs such as books, articles and journals of some collectives/projects.

Lichterman, P., 2002. Seeing structure happen: theory-driven participant. In: B. Klandermans and S. Staggenborg, eds. Methods of social movements research. London: University of Minnesota Press, 118–145.

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Ritchie, J. and Lewis, J., 2003. Qualitative research practice: a guide for social science students and researchers. London: Sage.

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