Room 5318
ABSTRACT:
The May 15 Indignados movement begun with the spontaneous occupation of the main Madrid public space and quickly established a huge laboratory of commons where a web of assembles and task-groups produced new protocols for collective, horizontal and inclusive, decision making and action. Its extension to the neighbors and to several “mareas” (waves) in defense of specific welfare services won a broad support in all sectors of society, but only few partial successes, and none substantial policy change. In spite of that, the 15M opened a new political cycle not only because it showed the power (and limitations) of mass mobilization but also because its contribution to people’s self-confidence and to certify the inability of the old political actors. The assessment of this situation as an opportunity to challenge the political arrangements set up after Franco Regime led to diverse municipalist initiatives and, finally, to Podemos party. We will discuss the new opportunities, the challenges and also the risks that the rising of Podemos poses to political and social change in Spain under the light of the achievements at European, regional and local elections.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Hector Grad is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Social Anthropology of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He received PhD in Social Psychology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1999), after BA and MA studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He is engaged in interdisciplinary national and international research studying how the coloniality and the “civic” and “ethnic” constructions of nationalism affect the relation between the national and other geopolitical (regional, supranational) identities and inter-ethnic relations in metropolitan societies.
He is also involved in the study of resistances to gentrification, and in participatory urban design – where anthropological, and action-research field methods bring community voices and empowerment into the architectural, creative-technical, process of urban planning and design.
Hector has participated in Madrid 15M-Occupy and in the defense of public universities against neo-liberal policies. He is currently involved in the building of Podemos party, the main political development of these movements, in the areas of Higher Education and of International policy.
