Constructing Critical Perspectives the Renegotiation of Citizenship Visualised in the Performative Arts During the Aftermath of the Economic Crisis in Valencia
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Constructing critical perspectives The renegotiation of citizenship visualised in the performative arts during the aftermath of the economic crisis in Valencia Caroline van Kooten s4517687 Radboud University Nijmegen Master program in Human Geography Specialisation: Conflict, Territories and Identities Year 2015 - 2016 Year of graduation 2017 Supervisor: Mathijs van Leeuwen Second readers: Olivier Kramsch and Kolar Aparna Constructing critical perspectives1 The renegotiation of citizenship visualised in the performative arts during the aftermath of the economic crisis in Valencia Caroline van Kooten s4517687 Radboud University Nijmegen Master program in Human Geography Specialisation: Conflict, Territories and Identities Year 2015 - 2016 Year of graduation 2017 Supervisor: Mathijs van Leeuwen Second readers: Olivier Kramsch and Kolar Aparna Source of picture on the cover page: https://horta.noblogs.org/arxiu-audiovisual/imatges/ i TABLE OF CONTENT Chapter 1: Introduction!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 Chapter 2: Theoretical framework!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 8 ! § 2.1 Negotiating citizenship: crisis and social change!! ! ! ! 8 !!§ 2.1.1 Liberal and republican notions of citizenship!! ! ! 9 !!§ 2.1.2 Neoliberal notion of citizenship: Active citizenship!! ! ! 10 !!§ 2.1.3 Critical notion of citizenship: Activist citizenship!! ! ! 11 ! § 2.2 Event Theory !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 14 !!§ 2.2.1 Theory of Change Alain Badiou !! ! ! ! ! 15 !!§ 2.2.2. Two examples of historical events: the alternative is possible !! 19 ! § 2.3 Performing arts as a way of knowing !! ! ! ! ! 21 !!§ 2.3.1 Approaches to Human Geography: values and consequences !! 21 !!of positivists and constructivists !! ! !!§ 2.3.2 Knowledge in theatre: theatre as a discourse to be analysed!! 22 ! § 2.4 Research questions and operationalisation!! ! ! ! ! 26 Chapter 3: The Struggle for political space and the recent economic crisis in Spain ! and Valencia!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 29 ! § 3.1 The dictatorship of Franco and the transition to democracy !! ! ! 30 ! § 3.2 The economic crisis in Spain!! ! ! ! ! ! ! 31 !!§ 3.2.1 The collapse of Spain and severe austerity measures as a solution! 33 !!§ 3.2.2 Social mobilisations and protests: PAH and 15M!! ! ! 35 !!§ 3.2.3 Analysing the aftermath: re-neoliberalisation versus the new political !!landscape !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 39 ! § 3.3 Valencia in Crisis!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 43 !!§ 3.3.1 Valencia"s Social and Political landscape!! ! ! ! 44 !!§ 3.3.2 Social movement in the barrio: the case of el Cabanyal !! ! 47 !!§ 3.3.2 Valencia post- 2015: the curtains open!! ! ! ! 49 ! § 3.4 Conclusion Chapter 4: The renegotiation of citizenship and the economic crisis in Valencian Theatre! 52 ! § 4.1 Local agency!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 53 ! § 4.2 Civic outrage and political consciousness in the neighbourhood!! ! 57 ! § 4.3 Change perspective from macro to micro !! ! ! ! ! 61 ii ! § 4.4 The verdict is: “The system” has failed !! ! ! ! ! 65 ! § 4.5 Generational rupture: dystopia!! ! ! ! ! ! ! 69 ! § 4.6 The malleable moment!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 72 ! § 4.7 What does theatre show about activist citizenship and change?!! ! 75 Chapter 5: Final conclusion, constructing critical perspectives!! ! ! ! 79 ! § 5.1 Theatre about citizenship !! ! ! ! ! ! ! 80 ! § 5.2 Theatre as a research tool !! ! ! ! ! ! ! 82 ! § 5.3 Reflection on the research !! ! ! ! ! ! ! 83 List of references!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 86 List of references interviewees !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 94 Appendix 1: List of theatre plays !! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 95 Appendix 2: Profiles of interviewees and playwrights !! ! ! ! ! 97 Appendix 3: Translations of long citations !! ! ! ! ! ! ! 103 Executive summary!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 113 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Summer 2017 As I am writing these words of gratitude I feel like leafing through an important year of my life. It was not always an easy ride and the result of this adventure would not have been the same without the cooperation and support of so many! To start with: Mathijs van Leeuwen. Thank you for your excitement about this topic and for discussing the details of it with so much spirit, sometimes even in the fresh air of park Brakkenstein. For this research I wanted to hunt positive experiences and initiatives in the midst of social struggles. My fieldwork in Valencia was a delight in this sense and inspired me even back in Nijmegen. Who gets to see night after night theatre performances while writing his/her thesis? I want to thank my internship supervisor of the University of Valencia, Carme Melo Escrihuela, who accompanied me more than once to a theatre play. You not only helped me find my way in and outside the university but also inspired me with you work and our conversations about Valencia, the incipient social movements and politics. Thank you, t'agraeixo! Next I want to thank all the people I interviewed. The long warm hours I spend with you have provided me with so much insights. Gràcies, for you inspiration. I admire all of you and I hope that you will find this thesis insightful. During my time in Valencia I lived in an incredibly colourful and active neighbourhood: El Cabanyal. Where I shared a floor with Eduardo Carbonell Zamora. Eduardo, you have been an amazing flatmate. I laughed so much with you and I want to thank you that you the time, despite your full time job as an architect, to show me around in the neighbourhood. You towed me outside before I could even express a desire to leave my computer and my fan and made me accompany you for breakfast, a swim, a walk or just a cold beer. Gracias, amigo! Back in Nijmegen I had the virtue to spend my free time with Roeleke de Witte and Esther Gruppen who, after being away themselves to faraway places both relocated to Nijmegen and kept me sane when I felt this project was taking me over. Thank you girls, for all these years. Also, a big thanks to my flatmates in the Timorstraat whom I spend so much time with listening to music and sitting around the fire while discussing the finer points of life, dank jullie wel! To Arne Duijndam, my dear, !"#!$%&, for cycling all the way from Nijmegen to Valencia! Thank you for your critical questions and insightful comments along the way. And last but not least, my family, my sister Tanja and my parents Heidrun and Lex van Kooten, for their strong support during the last two years. Paz y Amor Caroline iv Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION Ever since I was young I have a fascination and interest for the staged stories. During and after primary school I have been part of all kinds of theatre groups and it always fascinated me how these performances provoked me in taking an unusual or new perspective towards the world around me. The world was the same, but I was not. Sometimes just for a moment – hours or days of fresh inspiration triggered by the performance – while other times something connected in my head: I had learned something! The latter learnings followed my teenage years that were more about “the moments”. Especially at the beginning of my post-high school adventures – when I spend long periods in Italy, India and later also in Spain and Mexico. I familiarised with political theatre, written by the actors-activists themselves and narrating socio-political topics highly accurate at the time. In Mexico, for example, I saw a play on gender inequality and the difficult realities of women in the country – suffering from the patriarchal oriented society. It awoke a reflection that is still ongoing, on my role, position and privileges in the world. As a matter of fact, the insights in different state of the art debates happened also while reading prose or listening to music. Art, for me, pilfers new ways of thinking and performing, like a knowledge facilitator. It is therefore the first source of inspiration of the thesis topic I am about to introduce to you. The second source of inspiration stems from only a couple of years ago, when I read the essay ‘Indignez-Vous!’ from Stéphane Hessel (2010). This essay-manifest voiced some of my personal concerns with today’s society. Hessel remembered us of the universality of human rights and called out to everyone, and especially to the younger generation, to get up and ‘get concerned’ about this world. A burning world, according to Hessel, where capitalist neoliberalism is augmenting the differences between rich and poor. Hessel writes that his generation had a clear fire they were fighting – poor human rights protection in the post-World War II situation of Europe - he invites people to a personal search for the modern fires in Europe (and the rest of the world). A search that, after being accomplished, would lead to an honest personal concern about the above stated increasing injustices. Hessel argues that this honest concern – the outcome of the personal search – is what Europe desperately needs (Hessel, 2010). Hence, identifying the fires of today can feed into the performance of a more social and human centred society. The connection of these two sources of inspiration, although not yet so obvious, will gain significance towards the end of the thesis. For now, they are merely two separate pillars on which I will start building this first introductory chapter. Giving social change a chance The search for the possibilities or desires of social change has been of interest to philosophers as well as to revolutionaries like Emilio Zapata, Che Guevara or Gandhi. More recently, the Moroccan 1 scholar Alain Badiou described the outburst of an “event” or crisis as an historical turning point in time after which the political and social landscapes are malleable again (Badiou in Bassett, 2008). Badiou is interested in how these reality-shattering shifts, – called “events” in his analysis - take place, and how they abruptly interrupt everything we took for granted. Leading for example, to transformations of the current political situation (Johnston, 2009: xxviii). The “event” can be seen as “the alternative” within a situation that is visualised by the happening of an event. The alternative stems from within a situation but is not part of it, in Badiou’s terminology this is the perspective of the “excluded part”, but that will be properly introduced in the next chapter.