Epistemologies of the South and Local Elections in Spain: Towards Politics Based on the Commons?

Historia Actual Online, 40 (2), 2016: 95-111 ISSN: 1696-2060 EPISTEMOLOGIES OF THE SOUTH AND LOCAL ELECTIONS IN SPAIN: TOWARDS POLITICS BASED ON THE COMMONS? Antoni Aguiló Bonet* Jesús Sabariego* * Universidade de Coimbra. Email: [email protected] * Universidade de Coimbra. Email: [email protected] Recibido: 1 diciembre 2015 / Revisado: 25 enero 2016 / Aceptado: 12 mayo 2016 / Publicado: 15 junio 2016 Resumen: Este artículo explora en qué medida titutional trigger of counter-hegemonic y bajo qué condiciones los nuevos municipalis- processes, able to generate new manners of mos ciudadanos que iniciaron la fase de “asalto production and management of social and institucional” con las elecciones locales del 24 political issues, proposing elements of de mayo de 2015 están contribuyendo a crear discussion to analyse and comprehend its una praxis instituyente de lo común como challenges, implications and limits. principio articulador y horizonte de sentido de una política de emancipación democrática Keywords: Epistemology of the common, new alternativa a la hegemonía del neoliberalismo. municipalism, democracy, citizenship, social En este sentido, se establecen las coordenadas transformation. epistemológicas y políticas desde las que estas candidaturas movilizan la cuestión de lo común INTRODUCTION como disparador institucional de procesos contrahegemónicos capaces de generar nuevas “Thus it is that democracy, if it is to formas de producción y gestión de lo social y lo survive the shrinking of the world and the político, proponiendo algunas elementos de assaults of a hostile modernity, will have discusión para el análisis y comprensión de sus to rediscover its multiple voices and give retos, implicaciones y limitaciones. to citizens once again the power to Palabras clave: epistemología de lo común, nuevos municipalismos, democracia, This publication was made possible through the ciudadanía, transformación social. financial support of the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through its public call for the allocation of Doctoral and Postdoctoral Abstract: This work explores the limits and research grants in 2014, with shared budget funds of extents of the Spanish new citizenship the Ministry Education and Science (Portugal) and municipalities, that initiated the phase of the European Social Fund. It also draws on the “institutional assault” in the Spanish local reflections developed in the framework of project elections on 24 May 2015, in order to build an “ALICE - Strange Mirror, Unsuspected Lessons: institutive praxis of the commons as a horizon Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World of sense and an articulation principle of Experiences” (alice.ces.uc.pt), coordinated by democratic politics of emancipation, alternative Boaventura de Sousa Santos at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra. The project is to the hegemony of the neoliberalism. In this funded by the European Research Council under the sense, the text establishes the political and Seventh Framework Programme of the European epistemological coordinates from where this Union (FP/2007-2013)/ ERC Grant Agreement No. candidacies mobilize the Commons as an ins- 269807. © Historia Actual Online, 40 (2), 2016: 95-111 95 Antoni Aguiló y Jesús Sabariego Epistemologías del sur y elecciones municipales speak, to decide, and to act; for in the Equo and other leftist forces), while at local end human freedom will be found not in scope, the protest cycle has crystallised in the caverns of private solitude but in the formation of citizen municipal candidatures noisy assemblies where women and men which in the municipal election of 24 May 2015 meet daily as citizens and discover in have obtained notable achievements in the each other's talk the consolation of a medium and largest cities as Barcelona, Madrid, common humanity”.1 Málaga, Cádiz, Zaragoza, Santiago de Compostela and A Coruña among others. he privatisation processes imposed by neoliberalism against the context of the Taking these premises into account, we want to T capitalism global crisis generated in 2008, present some reflections – although have caused the emergence of resistance provisional– that may help to draw a clearer collective demonstrations inscribed in a new idea about the contributions of current cycle of protests and mobilisations2 in the municipalist processes to build the strained, global scale. In every case, from Tunisia to fragile and dynamic politics of the Commons. United States of America, Turkey to Brazil, We regard it from the perspective of the Greece, Portugal or Spain, among other sociology of emergencies with which we can geographies, collective action in public space identify “signals, tracks, latencies, possibilities has been intensified, giving rise to diverse that exist in the present but are signs of the forms of politicisation from below related to future, possibilities that are emerging but are shared social struggles and developed mainly in disqualified because they are embryos and are local and national scopes but linked globally not very visible things”3. Thus our intention is over the Internet. not to anylise the estate of the question nor to compile all the latest works that have been A specific question in the Spanish case is the published on the new municipalism and the displacement of an important part of this forms Spanish social movements but to investigate , of politicization to the electoral field, where the to what extent, in what sens and within what political cycle that begins with the emergence limits, in the context of the current economic, of 15M in May 2011 has permitted the aperture political and institutional crisis on-going since of a space for action out of the traditional bi- 2008, the new citizenry municipalisms are partisan system with the Partido Popular (PP) contributing to establish, beyond the discursive and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español field, an instituting praxis of the common as an (PSOE). These processes have propitiated the articulating principle and horizon of meaning of appearance of new political parties and a new policy of democratic emancipation. We electoral platforms at national scope as Partido asked ourselves about the practices and X, Podemos or Unidos Podemos (the electoral discourses of the above mentioned coalition between Podemos, Izquierda Unida, epistemology of the common that challenge the capitalist logic of privatization and commodification. Our aim is to offer a list of 1 Barber, B. R., Strong Democracy: Participatory thoughts and critical analyses which we think Politics for a New Age. Berkeley, University of should appear in the programme of California Press, 1984, 311. investigations. We wonder if this practice 2 Sidney Tarrow identifies five elements to explain promotes the institutionalization of the core of the concept of the cycle of protest: a phase of 4 intensified social conflicts, their geographical spread, “good sense” amalgamated in the popular triggering lobbying actions more or less spontaneous mind that provides the ability to critically read combined with forms of organized participation, the emergence of new organizations, symbols and frames of interpretation of the world and, finally, expanding the repertoire of collective action. From 3 Santos, B. S., Renovar la teoría crítica y reinventar our understanding, it seems reasonable to think that la emancipación social (encuentros en Buenos Aires). we have a process of this nature. Cf. Tarrow, Buenos Aires, 2006, CLACSO, 30. The translation is S., Power in Movement: Social Movements and ours. Contentious Politics. New York, Cambridge University 4 Gramsci, A., Selections from the Prison Notebooks Press, 2011. of Antonio Gramsci. London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1971, 323. 96 © Historia Actual Online, 40 (2), 2016: 95-111 Epistemologías del sur y elecciones municipales Antoni Aguiló y Jesús Sabariego reality and gives the work a transformative and listening, assembly and consensus behaviours, “conscious direction”5. as well as collective behaviours of socialisation in which people support, compenetrate and In order to foundament this thesis, the article is coordinate themselves daily in order to stop devided in three sections that complement evictions, to defend public health from each other. In the first part, based on some of privatisation, to denounce (escraches) banks Antonio Gramsci approaches on the common and politicians who are made responsible for sense in the dialogue with the epistemology of the crisis. the south by Boaventura de Sousa Santos we tackle the challenge of constructing a common Thus, although included, the Commons does sense of the common as a central strategy of a not refer here to goods under legal protection popular counter hegemony capable of against the accumulation and dispossession structuring another forme of society. In the capitalist logic described by Karl Marx, Rosa second one, we go over what provides a Luxemburg or David Harvey. Following Silvia context to the emergence and creation of new Federici7, common constitutes a social local candidacies in Spain, insisting in the association with political relevance; a space meaning of municipalism of the common as the where liaisons of reciprocity are created to key element of the establishment of another initiate counter-hegemonic processes against kind of politics and democracy. The third part the social and political dominant order; a shows some exemples which, from the contribution to alternative meanings, to the perspective

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