Master Thesis: Integrated Natural Resources Management (M. Sc.) Dissecting “Feminizing politics”: the case of Barcelona en Comú Submitted by: Name: Jean François Donoso Registration number: 586041 Email: [email protected] 1st Examiner: Prof. Dr. phil. Christine Bauhardt 2nd Examiner: M.A. Meike Brückner Berlin, February 2020 Acknowledgements To my interview partners of BComú who opened their homes and offices, took their time and shared with me their thoughts and experiences. To my supervisors Christine Bauhardt and Meike Brückner who guided me through the research and gave me thoughtful ideas that facilitated what I researched. To my friends that accompanied me during the whole process of the master, especially Ruby, Chanaye, Charlotte, and Thúy. To my partner Nicole. Abstract The citizen platform Barcelona en Comú (BComú) started in 2014 as a response to the Spanish economic crisis and the anti-austerity policies from traditional political parties. The organization –which currently governs the Municipality of Barcelona– emerged in the Spanish political sphere with the concept of feminizing politics: a term understood not only as gender equality in institutions but also an open door that goes beyond politics-as-usual. It means inserting empathy into the core of political action (e.g., collaboration, dialogue, horizontality, etc.), questioning traditional understandings of strong leadership, learning how to distribute municipal power and services throughout society, and decentering the role of institutions towards a collective self-governance. Drawing on the theoretical framework of ecofeminism this research analyzes and contributes to the interpretation of feminizing politics by members of BComú and those academics who are closest to the organization, and shows how members are including the concept into daily practices at work. The findings indicated that the organization pursues to address male members on perspectives of care and seeks the transformation of roles that affects the organizational culture by a sustainable work load. It is further suggested that there is a need to go beyond feminizing politics, and rather to think in the discarded terms such as queering politics in order to build more power from the fluidity and diversity of voices, struggles, confluences and theories that BComú is involved. List of abbreviations BComú Barcelona en Comú PSOE Partido Socialista Obrero Español 15-M 15th of May Movement - Indignados UN United Nations EU European Union GDP Gross Domestic Product GHG Greenhouse gas emissions LGBTI Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexuals and Intersex PAH Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform of People Affected by the Mortgage) List of Tables Table 1. Measures for the assessment of parties’ women’s organizations P.19 List of Figures Figure 1. The socio-economic system as an iceberg P.30 Table of Contents List of figures List of tables List of acronyms 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction of the research………………………………………………………………..1 1.2 Problem formulation and research aims…………………………………………………..3 1.3 Research question…… .......................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Gender as a concept and key terminologies ........................................................................ 4 1.5 Outline of the paper ............................................................................................................... 8 2. Coming to an understanding .................................................................................... 10 2.1 Background of Spain………………………………………………………………………10 2.1.1 Regaining democracy until the 2008 crisis………………………………………………..10 2.1.2 Feminism and the 15-M movement ..................................................................................... 11 2.2 Multidimensional crisis ................................................................................................... 12 2.2.1 Economical and financial ................................................................................................... 13 2.2.2 Social and Welfare State ..................................................................................................... 14 2.2.3 Ecological and climatee ..................................................................................................... 15 2.2.4 Social reproduction and care work .................................................................................... 16 2.3 Feminizing Politics ........................................................................................................... 17 2.3.1 Enhancing representations ................................................................................................. 19 2.3.2 Shifting the baseline ............................................................................................................ 21 2.3.3 Putting the life at the centre ................................................................................................ 22 2.3.4 The urgency of confluences ................................................................................................ 24 3. Theory ........................................................................................................................ 26 3.1 Ecofeminism ..................................................................................................................... 27 3.1.1 The understandings ............................................................................................................. 28 3.1.2 The unpayments .................................................................................................................. 31 3.1.3 Perspectives on statistics and budgets ................................................................................ 34 3.1.4 The subversions .................................................................................................................. 36 4.Methodology ............................................................................................................... 40 4.1 Research design ................................................................................................................ 40 4.1.1 Building the Case Study ...................................................................................................... 40 4.1.2 Developing the research question ...................................................................................... 40 4.2 Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 41 4.2.1 Building settings ................................................................................................................. 42 4.2.2 In-depth interviews ............................................................................................................. 43 4.2.3 Observations ....................................................................................................................... 45 4.3 Ethical Considerations .................................................................................................... 46 4.3.1 Confidentiality and consent ................................................................................................ 46 4.3.2 Translation .......................................................................................................................... 46 4.4 Data analysis and coding ................................................................................................. 47 4.5 Reflections, challenges and limitations .......................................................................... 47 5. Presenting the case study: Dissecting "Feminizing politics": the case of Barcelona en Comú ....................................................................................................... 48 6. Findings ...................................................................................................................... 51 6.1 The process of theory building ....................................................................................... 51 6.1.1 The conceptions of feminizing politics ................................................................................ 52 6.1.2 Reinforcement of ecofeminist voices ................................................................................... 56 6.1.3 Fearless networking ............................................................................................................ 58 6.2 Daily practices .................................................................................................................. 60 6.2.1 The praxis for a new organizational culture ...................................................................... 61 6.2.2 Transforming the roles ....................................................................................................... 64 6.2.3 Searching for sustainable caring work ............................................................................... 68 7. Discussion ................................................................................................................... 71 7.1 The transformation of values .............................................................................................. 71 7.2 The potential of feminizing politics ...................................................................................