Collective mapping at ‘Comunes y crianza’ symposium in Poble Sec, Barcelona, autumn 2018. Photo taken by Manuela Zechner. ERC-COG-2016-724692 HETEROPOLITICS Refiguring the Common and the Political D3.6 Author: Dr. Manuela Zechner Host Institution: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Principal Investigator: Dr. A. Kioupkiolis ERC COG 2016 (implementation 2017-2020) July 2020 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 6 Methodological considerations: Situatedness, transversality, research militancy and resurgence ............................................................................................................... 9 Situated, transversal and militant research .............................................................. 9 The emergence and methods of Militant Research ................................................ 11 Militant research between institutional critique and feminist epistemologies ........ 14 Researching for resurgence: passing on common(ing) memory and culture........... 16 6. Case Studies in Spain……………………………………………………………....19 6.1. How commons came to figure in Spanish social movements: a genealogy . …..19 6.1.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………....19 6.1.2. Three key moments in the genealogy of ‘commons’ in Spain .................... 19 The 2000s: The Procomún as against and beyond copyright, authorship and the privatization of knowledge ...................................................................... 20 After the financial crisis of 2008: from the Procomún to institutions of the commons ...................................................................................................... 21 After the 15M movement: from institutions of the commons to candidatures of the commons ................................................................................................ 25 6.1.3. Previous and parallel developments in Latin American institutions ........... 27 6.2. Feminist subversions of community and the commons .................................... 29 6.2.1.Defining commons with children in mind................................................... 29 6.2.2. Neighborhood childcare commons after 15M: a brief genealogy………….31 The 15M, new feminisms and struggles for reproductive rights .................... 31 From reproductive autonomy to the politics of interdependence and childrearing ................................................................................................. 32 A new generation of self-run childcare projects ........................................... 34 6.2.3. The politics of social reproduction and care in the neighborhood……………………………………………………………………...35 Commons, reproduction and labor .............................................................. 35 Towards neighborhood-based childcare commons? .................................... 37 Women, migrants and the subversion of community .................................... 38 The political as located in reproductive commons ....................................... 40 6.2.4. Initial conclusions .................................................................................... 41 2 PART A ......................................................................................................................................... 42 6.3. Childcare commons in Poble Sec: Mothers’sympoieisis, neighborhood politics of care and municipal(ist) policy (2015-2020)……………………………………...42 6.3.1. Introduction…………………………………………………………….......42 Starting points, research questions and hypotheses ...................................... 42 6.3.2. Methodology .......................................................................................... 48 6.3.3. Why and how commons? ....................................................................... 49 6.3.4. Reproductive commons .......................................................................... 52 6.4. Situating ourselves: childcare and self-organization in Poble Sec (2017- 20)…………………………………………………………………………………53 6.4.1. Who looks after children in Poble Sec…………………………………...54 6.4.2. The PEPI platform of childcare groups…………………………………..56 6.4.3. Economic and real estate impact on childcare groups…………………....58 6.4.4. The community sustaining childcare commons: mothers’ networks in Poble Sec……………………………………………………………………….60 6.4.5. Self-organized childcare between empowerment and failure: an autoethnographic account ............................................................................... 66 6.5.Childcare Commons: definitions,| contexts, approaches ............................... 70 6.5.1. Childcare commons – between self-organization and a claim to universality .................................................................................................... 70 6.5.2. Feminist thought on care and commons................................................ 71 6.5.3. Reproductive commons and (child)care ................................................ 73 6.5.4. Needs in common: the relation between commons and community ...... 76 6.5.5. Feminisms that center around life, feminist spaces for childcare ........... 82 6.5.6 Some historical precedents in self-organized childcare .......................... 84 6.6. Tensions between commons and the state in childcare……………………..88 6.6.1. Limited models: barriers to inclusivity in self-organized and institutional childcare......................................................................................................... 91 6.6.2. Limits and ambivalences between public, commons and private daycare options ........................................................................................................... 94 6.6.3. Feminist analyses of childcare commoning .......................................... 99 6.6.4. Initial conclusions ...............................................................................100 6.7. Childcare commons in Barcelona en Comú’s municipalist policy ..............101 6.7.1. Municipal support for childcare commons initiatives?.........................101 3 6.7.2. On the right to play in the city: Barcelona en Comú and childcare commons .......................................................................................................104 6.8. More provisory conclusions: learning with and from the commons……………………………………………………………………….107 PART B. ................................................................................................................111 6.9.Micropolitics and the new Spanish municipalisms (2014-20) .....................111 6.9.1. Introduction…………………………………………………………....111 6.9.2. What is micropolitics?.................................................................. …….117 6.9.3. Why care about micropolitics? ...........................................................119 6.9.4. Research questions and hypotheses: municipalism and micropolitics ..120 6.10. Phases of municipalism and its micropolitics, Spain 2014-19 ..................124 6.10.1. Exponential emergence of social movements, 2010-13……………..124 6.10.2. Initial electoral experiments (EU elections), 2013-14 .......................125 6.10.3. Municipalist electoral campaigns, autumn 2014-May 2015 ..............125 6.10.4. Elections and coalition negotiations (municipal and beyond), May- December 2015 ...........................................................................................126 6.10.5. First phase of government/opposition work (2015-2017) ..................126 6.10.6. Second phase of government/opposition work (2017-19)..................132 6.10.7. Municipal electoral campaigns 2019.................................................138 6.10.8. The 2019 municipal elections ...........................................................140 6.11. Movements and institutions……………………………………………...142 6.11.1. Grappling with power and the state: Latin American referents .........142 6.11.2. Learning processes and phases, translocal network-building ............145 6.11.3. Inside/outside ..................................................................................148 6.11.4. Spaces of dialogue and critique between movements and institutions ...................................................................................................................149 Encounters and debates ......................................................................149 Beyond the struggles for autonomy .....................................................152 Permanent spaces of encounter ...........................................................153 6.11.5. Organizational and institutional vessels to communicate with movements .................................................................................................155 6.12. Collective intelligence, affect, embodiment and subjectivation………….157 6.12.1. Sozializing experience to make it meaningful ....................................157 4 6.12.2. Embodying vulnerability… ...............................................................159 6.12.3 …as a way of changing political culture .............................................159 6.12.4. Fear and the individualization of responsibility .................................160 6.12.5. Institutions without bodies? ...............................................................162 6.12.6. Finding new positionalities ................................................................164 6.13. Beyond participation: public-commons partnerships