Squatting, the 15-M Movement, and Struggles for Housing in the Context of the Spanish Social Crisis

Abstract

The last few decades have seen the rise to predominance of social movements emphasizing ideological aspects of mobilisation. This new tendency invites a re-evaluation of the material aspects of social mobilisation. Since the onset of the last economic crisis, the housing issue, and mobilizations around it, have assumed increasing significance. Occupations of vacant housing in Spain by people in need have escalated rapidly. This research describes the housing movement in Spain, and occupation as a solution. Before the economic crisis, occupation was fundamentally linked with the squatting movement. Now it is linked more with struggles against eviction. This article examines the specific cases of Seville, and the Corralas movement.

Space and the desire for democracy in the 15M

“…Asambleas barriales have a very proud history in Spain, particularly in Madrid, where they thrived throughout the 1970s, even under the dictatorship of Franco (Castells, 1983; Díaz‐Parra & Mena, 2015). In that decade, the asambleas struggled to improve conditions in working‐class neighbourhoods: better housing, transportation, schools, hospitals, parks, and social life.…”

“…But one of the main results of this initiative was to intertwine the asamblea initiatives with the ongoing movement for affordable housing, also concerned primarily with the everyday lives of urban inhabitants in neighbourhoods, and give both more strength. In many poorer neighbourhoods, newly energised asambleas worked closely with affordable housing activists, the most prominent of which is the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), to address neighbourhood problems like housing affordability, evictions, and mortgage debt (Díaz‐Parra & Mena, 2015; Elola, 2019; Hughes, 2011, p. 411).…”

“…2115–2116). Real estate investment during this period produced mostly expensive housing and spaces to attract tourists, rendering city centres unaffordable for almost all residents (Díaz‐Parra & Mena, 2015; Lois‐González & Piñeira‐Mantiñán, 2015, pp. 128–129; Martí‐Costa & Tomàs, 2017, p. 2115) 14 .…”

“…The indignados identified this project, and they vigorously opposed it. Before the 15M, radical groups in Spain like Okupa had been analysing and critiquing these urban processes, using squatting and social‐centre techniques to construct a radically democratic alternative (Díaz‐Parra & Mena, 2015, p. 45; Martínez & Bernardos, 2015, p. 168; Vilaseca, 2014, p. 120). Okupa knew through their activism quite a lot about how the hegemony of exchange value corrodes most people’ ability to live in the city and use it in a way that meets their needs.…”

“…During the course of the 15M, however, Okupa’s analysis and methods came to be seen as an increasingly reasonable response to the urban situation in Spain (Jiménez & Estalella, 2011, p. 20; Martínez & Bernardos, 2015, p. 173). And so after the acampadas were disbanded, there was a wave of spontaneous squatting among poor people (Díaz‐Parra & Mena, 2015, p. 40). The most well‐known example of this was the “Hotel Madrid,” a building very close to Sol that was occupied by activists in October 2011 and supported by both radicals and more moderate groups in the 15M (Martínez & Bernardos, 2015, p. 175; Gonick, 2016, p. 836).…”