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Debunking Spontaneity: Spain's 15-M/Indignados as Autonomous MovementCristina Flesher Fominayaab

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To cite this article: Cristina Flesher Fominaya (2014): Debunking Spontaneity: Spain's 15-M/Indignados as Autonomous Movement, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural andPolitical Protest, DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2014.945075

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Debunking Spontaneity: Spain’s 15-M/Indignados as Autonomous Movement

CRISTINA FLESHER FOMINAYA**University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK; National University Ireland Maynooth, Maynooth, Ireland

ABSTRACT The Spanish 15-M/Indignados have drawn global attention for the strength andlongevity of their anti-austerity mobilizations. Two features have been highlighted as particularlynoteworthy: (1) Their refusal to allow institutional left actors to participate in or represent themovement, framed as a movement of ‘ordinary citizens’ and (2) their insistence on the use ofdeliberative democratic practices in large public assemblies as a central organizing principle.As with many emergent cycles of protest, many scholars, observers and participants attribute themobilizations with spontaneity and ‘newness’. I argue that the ability of the 15-M/ Indignados tosustain mobilization based on deliberative democratic practices is not spontaneous, but the result ofthe evolution of an autonomous collective identity predicated on deliberative movement culture inSpain since the early 1980s. My discussion contributes to the literature on social movementcontinuity and highlights the need for historically grounded analyses that pay close attention to themaintenance and evolution of collective identities and movement cultures in periods of latency orabeyance in order to better understand the rapid mobilization of networks in new episodes ofcontention.

KEY WORDS: Anti-austerity protests, global justice movement, Indignados/15-M, Spain,deliberative democracy, collective identity, autonomous movements, spontaneity, movementcontinuity, movement culture, genealogy

The 15-M/Indignados movement of Spain gained world-wide attention when it burst into

mass mobilization in 2011, filling Madrid’s Puerta del Sol with thousands of people

declaring ‘We are not merchandise in the hands of bankers and politicians!’, demanding

‘Real Democracy Now!’, and protesting austerity measures and bank bailouts in the

aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Episodes of intense visible protest are often characterized by observers, journalists,

scholars and even participants as spontaneous, unprecedented and unexpected. This is

more likely when the protesters are not readily identifiable as belonging to established

political or social organizations, as is the case with autonomous social movements. While

the three characteristics are often grouped together they are in fact very different.

Spontaneity arguments were plentiful in characterizing the ‘colour’ revolutions in Eastern

Europe and post-Soviet republics in the 1990s and 2000s which were deemed to have

sprung up overnight (see O Beachain & Polese, 2010). The political flash mob of 13-M

q 2014 Taylor & Francis

Correspondence Address: Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen,

Aberdeen AB24 3QY, UK. Fax: þ 44 (0) 1224 272 552; Tel: þ 44 (0) 1224 273 490; Email: c.flesher@abdn.ac.

uk

Social Movement Studies, 2014

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2014.945075

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(13 March) following the 2004 Madrid train bombings provides another example:

Blakeley (2006, p. 342) wrote, ‘evidence suggests that they were entirely spontaneous and

were organised through mobile phones.’ 13-M was ‘spontaneous’ in the sense that once

underway many people originally unconnected to the instigators joined in. Yet, the protest

itself was called for by a small group of seasoned activists who drew on extensive

networks developed in previous mobilizations to respond rapidly in a crisis (Flesher

Fominaya, 2011; Sampedro, 2005).

Arab Spring too was seen to have sprung out of nowhere, and much emphasis placed on

the novel use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), as if all that was

needed for revolution was access to Facebook or Twitter. While new media played a

critical role, clearly social and activist networks pre-existed the uprisings (Flesher

Fominaya, 2014b). These types of argument make it seem that these protests spring from

the ether, without the intervention of social movement actors and in the absence of

organizing structures.

Polletta’s (1998) work on student sit-ins in the USA in the 1960s demonstrates how

prevalent spontaneity narratives were in characterizing these actions despite their

planning, coordination and ties to previous sit-ins and pre-existing networks. Although

spontaneity theses can serve important strategic benefits for movements (Polletta, 1998),

they also unwittingly (or not) deny agency to social movement networks and actors

(Flesher Fominaya, 2011). Apart from being problematic from a scholarly point of view

(in that they are rarely sustainable empirically), they also play into the hands of extremist

groups such as Greece’s Golden Dawn, who present their actions as the ‘spontaneous’

actions of outraged citizens, masking their links to Greek formal state apparatuses like the

police (Dalakoglou, 2012). Spontanteity theses also enable arguments of movements being

orchestrated by outside organizations easier to promote (Polletta, 1998).

If spontaneity theses are so problematic, why are they so common? In the case of

mobilizations organized by autonomous actors, they are partly understandable because

autonomous movements (discussed below) often have no visible or recognizable

organizational framework. One of the particular features of autonomous movements is

what I have termed ‘the paradox of anti-identitarian collective identity’ (Flesher Fominaya,

in press) whereby autonomous movements ‘auto-invisibilize’ their activism as a result of

their refusal to label or identify their groups by recognizable names (see also Flesher

Fominaya, 2007a). Paradoxically, the better the logic of autonomous movement practice

works, the more difficult it becomes to ‘see’ the unidentitified assemblies behind

autonomous collective action. Yet despite this ‘invisibility’, the autonomous collective

identities and networks persist in submerged networks, even in latent phases of

mobilization.

Spontaneity theses are also strategically deployed by social movement actors and help

present grievances and claims as the popular will of the people. They also serve to

effectively integrate new members. As Polletta (1998, p. 138) argues, ‘spontaneity’ was

central to student activist narratives of their participation in sit-ins as a means of denoting

‘independence from adult leadership, urgency, local initiative, and action by moral

imperative rather than bureaucratic planning.’ Polletta argues that these sit-in stories were

crucial mechanisms of motivating action precisely due to their failure to specify the

mechanics of mobilization, and that their ambiguity about agents and agency is precisely

what successfully engaged audiences. Spontaneity arguments were not only central to the

narratives produced for outsiders but also to the narratives activists told themselves and

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each other in less public settings. In other words, although such narratives serve strategic

purposes, they are not always consciously strategic. I will return to the benefits of

spontaneity narratives for 15-M in the conclusion.

The other characteristic frequently attributed to intense mobilizations is novelty. In the

case of the Spanish Indignados or 15-M movement,1 many claims for its unprecedented

nature have been made. One such claim for novelty is the refusal of banners from political

parties or unions or organizations of any type at protest events – in other words, the

insistence on autonomy (see, for example Baiocchi & Ganuza, 2012). Far from being

novel, this has been a hallmark and mainstay of Spanish autonomous movements since at

least the 1980s (Flesher Fominaya, 2005, 2007a, 2014b). Nez (2012) likewise argues that

three characteristics distinguish 15-M from previous mobilizations are: participation as

individuals, the absence of programs and leaders, and the central role of deliberation. None

of these characteristics is in fact new (with relation to Spain alone, see Botella Ordinas,

2011; Flesher Fominaya, 2007a, 2010, 2014b; Juris, 2008; Lorenzo & Martinez Lopez,

2001). The reasons for an emphasis on novelty are also easily explained. One reason is

what I term ‘strategic amnesia’, whereby activists (even those who were involved in

previous mobilizations) emphasize the noteworthiness of the protests and distinguish them

from previous cycles of mobilization. This serves to distance themselves from past

protests, which may carry associations of stigma, failure or outmodedness, as well as to

refresh or reinvent their own activist biographies.

Another reason is that framing 15-M as a movement of ‘ordinary citizens’ rather than

activists was (and is) an effective strategy of integration of new participants (Tejerina &

Perugorrıa, 2012), and in fact continues a trend present in the global justice movement

(GJM) for some autonomous activists to consciously reject the use of the activist label as a

means of distinguishing ‘activists’ from the rest of the population and reaching out to the

local community (see below). Scholars likewise are prone to present arguments as new and

different, which is rewarded within academia.

Another explanation for the focus on novelty is the influx of new activists in each protest

cycle, many of whom are unaware of previous movement history and who believe that

what they are participating is ‘new’ because it is new to them. This can extend to scholars

new to activism and/or the study of social movements. As I will argue, the 15-M

movement does demonstrate some novel features for the Spanish landscape. However,

many of the claims for ‘novelty’, particularly those that in fact describe established

features of autonomous social movements, overlook the history of social movements in

Spain and Europe, and can be better understood as a continuation and evolution of

autonomous political practice in Spain.

If intense sustained mobilizations are rarely spontaneous and rarely unprecedented, they

are often unpredictable. As Tocqueville (1955) famously stated in Ancien Regime,

No great historical event is better calculated than the French Revolution to teach

political writers and statesmen to be cautious in their speculations; for never was any

such event, stemming from factors so far back in the past, so inevitable yet so

completely unforeseen. (p. 1)

Which protest events will shift from a nucleus of protesters to encompass broader

segments of the public is indeed a mystery and one that no models seem able to predict

with any certainty (Goodwin, 2011). But unpredictable is not the same as spontaneous or

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unprecedented. The search for the ‘new’ can turn our gaze from the history and agency

of political actors and downplays the importance of movement culture in shaping

collective action.

15-M as Autonomous Movement

Autonomous social movement actors have played a key role in the genesis and definition

of the 15-M movement. Autonomous movements can be understood as movements

organized in horizontal networks, underlain by principles of self-organization, direct/

participatory democracy, autonomy, diversity and direct action. Historically, there have

been many forms of autonomous movement, specific to the particular local and national

contexts in which they develop. Autonomous actors distinguish themselves from the

practices of the institutional left, rejecting representative democracy and majority rule

and instead defending more participatory models, based on direct democracy and self-

governance, horizontal (non-hierarchical) structures, decision-making through consensus

(if possible and necessary), in the forum of an assembly (usually open), and rarely with

permanent delegations of responsibility. Autonomy refers not only to internal organizing

principles and structures but also crucially to independence from established political

parties and trade unions, and autonomous movements distinguish themselves from the

more vertical institutional left model of representative politics. This is manifested in the

refusal to allow acronyms or party or union banners and flags at protest events (and

sometimes heated altercations can break out around this issue). The logic of autonomy

(Flesher Fominaya, 2005) is not restricted to small or large spaces or to closed or open

spaces, although prior to 15-M it was not often practiced in Spain in assembly settings of

more than a couple hundred people. The distinction between autonomous and

institutional left logics of collective action is often shorthanded as a difference between

‘horizontals and verticals’. The distinctions I draw are more historically grounded and

encompass more characteristics than decision-making practices or organizational

structure.

The autonomous/institutional left distinction is critical because it defines a central

cleavage structure in the European social movement landscape and illuminates who is

likely to share social movement spaces willingly within given networks (Flesher

Fominaya, 2007a). Therefore, I use the term autonomous movement to distinguish this

logic of political collective action from that of the institutional left,2 but it is not a term

movement groups or actors necessarily apply to themselves, although some do, such as

Autonomia in Italy or the Autonomen in Germany (see Katsiaficas, 2006). While this

cleavage is central, in reality actors from both sides of this divide do come together on

specific campaigns, and the phenomenon of multiple militancy means some actors move

between the two types of spaces although different rules of engagement apply in different

settings (see Flesher Fominaya, 2007a). This is true in 15-M as well as in the GJM

(Table 1).

The refusal of participation of institutional left actors (as representatives of

organizations, not as individuals) in 15-M movement assemblies is well documented

(Martınez & Garcıa, 2011; Romanos, 2013; see also DRY, 2011; JSF, 2011). Autonomous

movements in Spain have long rejected the participation of political parties and trade

unions in their autonomous spaces (and refused also to participate in many so-called

‘unitary’ spaces dominated by institutional left actors), but this trend has evolved over

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time and become more marked as it has become a more widespread feature of Madrid’s

and Spain’s social movement culture. Indeed, tension between institutional left and

autonomous actors was a key feature of the GJM more broadly, especially but not only in

Europe (Flesher Fominaya, 2014b, see also Juris, 2008). The lack of formal organizational

and institutional infrastructures means that collective identity processes are crucial in

maintaining internal coherence in these movements and it is this collective identity,

sustained and developed in movement subcultures such as urban and rural social centres,

university student political groups and other movement-related ‘scenes’, that enables rapid

Table 1. Ideal-typical differences between the autonomous and institutional left political models

Institutional left Autonomous

Political model Representative ParticipatoryOrganizationalstructure

Vertical with clear division of labourand authority

Horizontal, rarely permanentdelegations of responsibility

Decision-making Votes, negotiations betweenrepresentatives

Consensus, assembly is sovereign

Subject Unitary or primary identity (worker/citizen)

Multiple cross-cutting identities, oftenreject primary identities as basis ofcollective action

Ideological base Unitary/explicit Heterogeneous/often left implicitLegitimatepolitical actor

Collective/party/union Individual acting collectively

Use of acronyms Important identifier, symbol ofpolitical stance and responsibility

Reject acronyms

Political arena Public/government Public (streets, public spaces) andprivate (personal relations, daily life)

Typical repertoireof contention

Manifestos, protest marches, strikesand legal reforms

Protest demonstrations, direct action,civil disobedience, alternative self-managed collective projects (e.g.social centres), counter culturallifestyle politics, cyberactivism

Means/ends Variable Inseparable, means are ends inthemselves if directed at socialtransformation

Socialtransformationcomes primarilythrough

Institutions Creating alternatives, culturalresistance

Organization is Permanent Contingent, open to continual criticalreflection and dissolution

Stance onanonymity

Reject Variable: Use of masks, anonymoushacking, sabotage without riskingarrest, key tactics of some activists;contested as a legitimate strategy byothers

Resources (Varied) Access to institutionalresources, funding, office space,formal access to mainstream media,legal support

Minimal, limited, contingent, ad hocand/or rare

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mobilization in new contexts (rather than the mobilization of formally organized

membership structures).

Movement Continuity: A Genealogical Approach

The maintenance of collective identity and movement culture (including deliberative

practices, master frames, etc.) through movement networks in periods of relative latency

(or in periods of abeyance) is still a relatively understudied aspect of mobilization that is

crucial to explaining the continuity and evolution of movement culture (or conversely its

rupture) from one cycle of contention to the next. Despite important work by Taylor

(1989) and Poletta (1998, 2002) on movement continuity, the same tendency to emphasize

ruptures rather than continuity that Taylor noted in 1989 is still present in the literature

today. Taylor argued that in the case of American women’s movement, a series of

abeyance structures provided continuity between different cycles of contention over time.

In this article, I trace social movement continuity in autonomous movements in Madrid,

demonstrating the survival of activist networks, a repertoire of goals and tactics and a

continued sense of collective identity that Taylor (1989) discusses in her seminal article,

highlighting some differences in continuity processes from those in institutionalized

movements in the conclusion.

Much has been made of the ability of Spanish 15-M activists to manage deliberative

consensus-based assemblies of up to 5000 participants. Research on movement learning

processes (Doerr, 2009; Polletta, 2002; Romanos, 2013) demonstrates that these abilities

cannot be convincingly explained by commitment to principles or by transnational

diffusion processes leading to the wholesale ‘adoption’ of practices (Wood, 2010). In fact,

the effective management of large deliberative assemblies has been a key challenge of

social movements in Spain over the past two decades, and the adoption of deliberative

techniques has been slow and arduous, not least because of resistance from institutional

left actors and the strong influence of institutional left actors on social movement cultural

practices (Flesher Fominaya, 2005, 2007a, 2010). The development of movement

practices over time within autonomous social movement spaces and the deliberate

definition of 15-M assemblies as autonomous spaces in which institutional left groups or

organizations were not welcome, therefore, are key factors behind the ‘spontaneous’

ability of these assemblies to work effectively.

Polletta (2002, p. 191) suggests a similar evolution for the development of deliberate

practices through a range of movements in the USA. With respect to GJM activists highly

skilled in facilitation, she writes

their experience suggests that models for egalitarian forms and deliberative styles

are simply available to activists today in a way that they were not for 1960s activists.

In some segments of the movement field, participatory democracy has become close

to being institutionalized.

Polletta (2002, p.190) notes that the evolution of deliberative and participatory practices

have been accompanied by ‘procedural paraphernalia’ including ‘formal roles’ (e.g.

timekeeper, facilitator, vibes watcher) and ‘sophisticated hand signals’

In the same way, previous experiences in autonomous movements in Spain have

nourished today’s movement cultures. 15-M deliberative practices need to be understood

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in relation to their historical evolution in Madrid (and Spain more broadly) and to the

development of an autonomous collective identity over time. While the historical roots of

the development of participatory practices in contemporary Spain can be traced back at

least to the early 1980s, the more recent predecessor is inarguably the experience of

activists in and around the GJM. I draw primarily on ethnographic fieldwork from 2002 to

2005 in autonomous networks in Madrid active in the GJM; analysis of web-pages, texts

(manifestos, guides) and documentaries of the 15-M movement (as cited), and secondary

and archival sources. The fieldwork focused on the challenges and possibilities of non-

hierarchical deliberative practices in autonomous groups and encompassed a wide range of

activities, including participant observation in the weekly assemblies in a number of

autonomous social movement groups, direct actions, protest events and interviews.

Additional 15-M data come from ongoing fieldwork in Madrid on the 15-M movement

which commenced in September 2014 and includes interviews, participant observation of

protest events and assemblies, email subscription to email lists (No Somos Delito,

AGSOL) and consultation of assembly minutes.

The genealogical approach I take here stands in contrast to more structural social

movement approaches such as the political process model, which focuses primarily on

cycles of visiblemobilization, pays greater attention to formally organized socialmovement

organizations (SMOs) and perceives social movements primarily as political actors looking

at political institutions from the outside in, attempting to achieve gains and recognition from

the state (McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1998). Such approaches stress structural factors outside

social movement control, with social movement actors responding to political opportunities

and depending on internal resources to mobilize (Goodwin & Jasper, 1999). In the ideal

typical model of cycles of contention, movements appear in response to political

opportunities, consolidate resources that they mobilize on behalf of their constituents,

undergo transformations through the process of contention and then disappear after

mobilization. Tilly and Tarrow (2006, p. 132), for example, recognize multiple forms of

‘exit’ for social movement actors including institutionalization, interest groups and other

pursuits that keep the movement base alive during periods of abatement, but they still

conceive of movements as essentially suspended or non-existent between periods of active

mobilization:

by joining self-help groups, working for women service organizations, and paying

dues to public interest groups, women activists from the 1960s and 1970s kept up

their contacts with old comrades, remained available for mobilization at times of

stress or opportunity [ . . . ] And kept the flame of activism alive to fight another day.

Melucci (1994, p. 107) argued that such approaches suffer from

a myopia of the visible that concentrates exclusively on the measurable features of

collective action – that is, their relationships with political systems and their effects

on policies – while it neglects or undervalues all those aspects of the action of

movements that consist in the production of cultural codes [ . . . ]. In fact, when a

movement publicly confronts the political apparatus on specific issues, it does so in

the name of new cultural models created at a less noisy and less easily measurable

level of hidden action.

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In contrast, a genealogical approach adopts the perspective of social movements from the

inside out, playing close attention to their latent activity during periods of abeyance or less

visible mobilization, and recognizing processes of movement continuity between peaks of

visible mobilization. While movements undeniably pass through cycles of highly visible

mobilization and sometimes disappear afterward, more often the periods between the

cycles of contention are not marked by disappearance but by ongoing social movement

activity in a variety of environments.

In addition, for anti-authoritarian autonomous movements, such as important sectors of

the GJM and the 15-M movement, recognition or gains for the movements by state

authorities are not the primary goals. Unlike specific NGOs, for example, that might seek a

particular outcome for their issue or constituency (for example, a ban or prohibition on a

particular social or corporate practice or a new law permitting or prohibiting certain

practices), autonomous movements tend to mobilize around more ‘universal’ goals and

values (e.g. greater democratic participation of citizens, transformation of patriarchy or

capitalism) in addition to specific issues. Although (as I will discuss below) the 15-M

movement re-engages with state institutions and actors in important ways (and in this

represents an important shift from the GJM), in general, autonomous movements are not

state oriented but rather seek the dismantling of structures of economic and political power

(Flesher Fominaya, 2007a, 2010, 2014b; Holloway, 2002; Katsiaficas, 2006). These

movements do not seek the appropriation of state power but rather oppose centralized

power and instead foster the strengthening of autonomous spaces for collective decision-

making and social transformation.

The GJM and the Shift to the Local Level

The GJM developed in the latter half of the 1990s to contest the nexus between global

economic and global political elites in fostering capitalist globalization and the negative

effects of these processes on communities around the world and the environment. The

movement, also known as ‘the movement of movements’, was characterized by its

heterogeneity, its global reach and its diverse repertoires of contention, which included

large counter summit mobilizations to protest the meetings of world economic and

political leaders (such as the WTO IMF, WB, G8 or the G20) and to call attention to the

lack of transparency and accountability of these organisms, as well as the devastating

effects of the decisions they took (Della Porta, 2007; Flesher Fominaya, 2014b; Juris,

2008). By 2007, the large counter summits of the GJM had pretty much wound down,

prompted by a combination of the effects of repression and the search for a more effective

model of fighting against neoliberal capitalism, one that would not simply be a response to

the timings and agendas set by global economic institution meetings, but driven more by

activists and movements themselves. By 2003, a constant refrain in autonomous

movement circles in Madrid was ‘the need to work on the local level’ and to reach out to

local communities. Although this was influenced in part by the larger movement debates

around the need for more local initiatives, in fact relatively few Madrid activists had direct

experience of transnational activism, and there is a long-standing and important tradition

of neighbourhood association organizing (Castells, 1983), as well as a small but

established network of social centres whose primary focus has always been the local. The

shift to the local, therefore, was arguably earlier and more marked in Madrid than in some

other cities. Autonomous activists who did have experience with the European Social

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Forum (ESF) processes were quickly disillusioned with this form of organizing after the

2003 ESF in Paris, which many felt was hijacked by institutional left parties and their

associated organizations.3

It was therefore a logical progression for social movement groups in the Madrid

network to shift increasingly back towards the ‘local’, even while continuing to find

inspiration in the global movement and identifying with it. This shift took place notably

within the social centres and associated networks that later developed from them, such as

the ODS or Oficinas de Derechos Sociales (Offices of Social Rights), a collection of

autonomous but loosely affiliated groups born out of the squatted social centre scene in

Spain that is currently active on issues relating to labour, precariousness and migrant

rights. This shift to the local encompassed a desire to break out of the activist ghetto and

reach out to ordinary citizens – a desire reflected in the explicit and active framing of 15-

M as an ordinary citizens’ movement. This is illustrated in the opening lines of the DRY

manifesto written by the first activists who occupied the Puerta del Sol: ‘We are ordinary

people just like you.’ The global financial crisis and its immediate effect on ‘ordinary

citizens’ meant that by 2011, activists found a receptive public for their engagement.

Tracing Movement Culture Continuity

In parallel with this ‘local’ work was the development of an autonomous collective

identity predicated largely on a commitment to deliberative practices (and direct action).

The development of this collective identity was a highly contested and active process, one

that was born out of struggles between autonomous actors and the institutional left

(Flesher Fominaya, 2007a) and marked by key events in national and local social

movement history during the GJM.

Some scholars, such as Maecklebergh (2012), correctly point out that there is a line of

continuity between deliberative practices during the period of the GJM and the Indignados

mobilizations. However, writing about Barcelona, Maecklebergh argues that it were the

practices learned during transnational encounters of the GJM that have enabled Spanish

activists to moderate large assemblies.4 While this may be true (in part) for Barcelona,

where there seems to have been greater participation and mobility transnationally (Juris,

2008), the same cannot be said for Madrid where 15-M originated. There were some key

points of connection between Madrid activists and transnational GJM events, notably the

PGA European meetings (e.g. Leiden), the European Zapatista Encuentros (one of which

was in Spain), strong connections with the Italian Disobbedienti (between groups such as

Los Invisibles, la Universidad Nomada and other groups such as the MRG)5 and

participation in the ESFs and counter summits, particularly Genoa. But not only did few

activists in Madrid have direct encounters with transnational deliberative forums, such

encounters did not result in the enthusiastic adoption of different deliberative practices. On

the contrary, autonomous activists were highly resistant to change. Indeed, the resistance

to change of standard practices of the local institutional left during autonomous assemblies

despite a clear explicit ideological commitment to autonomous deliberative practices and

consensus was striking (Flesher Fominaya, 2005). The practices of turno de palabra (order

of intervention) and orden del dıa (pre-arranged agenda) (more on this below) were

rigorously adhered to in most spaces and little reflexion was given to altering

methodological practice to improve deliberation (Flesher Fominaya, 2005, 2010). The

processes of transnational movement culture diffusion are much less immediate or

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spontaneous than many accounts would suggest. Research shows that new practices must

be adapted to local and national cultural repertoires through processes of cultural

translation (Doerr, 2009) and are by no means always successful (Wood, 2010).

Activists built on a tradition of deliberative practices developed in anti-militarist,

feminist, environmental and the Okupa (squatters) movement to slowly shift their

asamblearia practice towards a more deliberative model. Maecklebergh (2012, p. 223)

also cites an activist asserting that there is ‘no facilitation culture at all in Spain’. This is

simply untrue.6 While there may not be a developed deliberative culture that is identical to

those developed elsewhere, the asamblearia tradition has a long trajectory, from a diverse

range of social movements since (at least)7 the late 1970s, including the conscientious

objectors, free radio, squatted social centres, ecologist, feminist and anti-capitalist

movements, among others (Flesher Fominaya, 2007a, 2010; Juris, 2008; Martınez &

Garcıa, 2014).

The continued influence of local deliberative practices (albeit based on autonomous

principles of consensus) is also clear in the document written on 31 May 2011 designed to

facilitate large assemblies (Acampada Sol, 2011a). Two key elements of the guide involve

the two constant aspects of Spanish asamblearismo: the turno de palabra (or order of

speaker intervention) and the orden del dıa (or meeting agenda). As I have shown

elsewhere (Flesher Fominaya, 2005), these assembly practices were resistant to alteration

and very gradually modified over time to correspond to more inclusive deliberative

practices. One key modification, which was slowly adopted in some autonomous

deliberative spaces, was the alteration of the turno de palabra to favour those who had not

spoken previously. Previously, common practice was that the turno de palabra was

followed by strict order of petition, with the same people able to intervene as many times

as they raised their hands regardless of how many times they had spoken before.8

Key actors transforming the deliberative practices in autonomous spaces in Madrid

came from groups such as AA/MOC (Alternativa Antimilitarista/Movimiento de Objecion

de Conciencia Antimilitarist Conscientious Objectors Movement), active since 1989, and

Women in Black (feminist pacifist organization). Activists from both groups were very

active in two influential nodes of GJM-related militancy in Madrid, the Consulta Social

Europea (CSE) and the Espacio Horizontal Contra la Guerra (EHCG) and introduced new

forms of deliberation and consensus decision-making, such as the fishbowl method

introduced to the CSE national assembly in Ciudad Real (2003).9 The ability to reach

consensus in large assemblies was a key problem for the CSE, and activists were not well

versed in alternative deliberative practices, instead trying to graft consensus ideals onto

the rituals that they knew from experiences in institutional left-dominated assemblies (see

Flesher Fominaya, 2005, 2014a). The transformation of deliberative practices, therefore,

was a long, contested and arduous process.

The Long March of Autonomous Collective Identity and Practice

If it is true that autonomous activists in Madrid were very inspired by the transnational

GJM, it is also true that the global imaginary did not have an immediate and strong

influence on deliberative practices, which continued to be shaped by local and national

repertoires of asamblearismo. These in turn were transmitted via a long progression of

autonomous social movement groups in Spain since the 1980s. If in 2005 the institutional

left still held more sway organizationally but autonomous groups were gaining discursive

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legitimacy – thanks in great measure to the legitimacy conferred on autonomous politics

by the GJM – with both actors active in various GJM initiatives and mobilizations

(Flesher Fominaya, 2005, 2007a), it is clear that in the 15-M movement, the autonomous

approach to politics has gained the upper hand, with little involvement of institutional left

groups [with the exception of Izquierda Unida (IU)] and a now widespread and clear cut

rejection of formal party or union participation in the movement.10 In 2012, when a

member of national federation party IU implied in a press conference that Juventud sin

Futuro (JSF) members were seeking to participate in IU directive organs, JSF immediately

put a statement on their webpage asserting that:

While we are glad that (IU) is still interested in the opinions of the people on the

street and have reached consensus in their X assembly to strengthen ties with social

movements [ . . . we . . . ] categorically deny that we have ever approached IU in the

terms expressed by (Mr. Garzon) to participate in the directive bodies (of IU) or any

other party. (JSF, 2012)

This ‘dance’ between institutional left parties such as IU and autonomous groups, where

the parties or unions try to integrate, co-opt or claim credit for mobilizations and the

groups behind it in periods of visible mass protest, and autonomous groups refuse to be co-

opted and claim their ‘autonomy’, is a well-worn feature of the Spanish political

landscape. Tensions between institutional left and autonomous actors came to a head in

November 2001, in Zaragoza, at one of the largest social movement assembly encounters

in Spain. There were fierce debates between institutional left actors who insisted on

structure based on a platform with clearly defined groups, competencies and spokespeople

and the (mostly) anarchists and autonomous actors who insisted on function through a

campaign with decentralized autonomous components. The latter argued that the former

were indebted to political institutions and that there was no reason to suppose that they

would be able to work together.

However, the need for active boundary work between the institutional left and

autonomous groups (such as the case of the JSF above) if anything is less marked than it

was in the recent past when autonomous groups could still be dismissed as ‘swarms of

mosquitoes’ lacking in political experience and legitimacy, as was claimed by some

institutional left actors during the GJM. Meanwhile, many activists in autonomous spaces

rejected collaborating with institutional left groups after the 2001 Zaragoza State

Assembly and boycotted their events (Flesher Fominaya, forthcoming).

Over time, autonomous practices made increasing headway in anti-capitalist GJM

spaces in Madrid, slowly displacing the grip institutional left influences had on

asamblearia practices (Flesher Fominaya, 2005). Romanos (2013) describes how the use

of humour, which was once a contested practice that met with strong resistance from

institutional left actors and even some autonomous activists (Flesher Fominaya, 2007b),

has become a widely accepted central strategic and cultural practice in the 15-M Madrid

networks, further underscoring the development and continuity of autonomous movement

culture over time.

Yet, this line of continuity can be drawn farther back than the GJM experiences as well.

An autonomous anti-capitalist Okupa (squatters) movement flourished in Madrid from

1985–1999, as did the Free Radio movement, facing strong police repression, reaching

internal crises and decline before morphing into various movement organizations (from

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ecological to anti-militarist to rural communal occupations) and projects with the

resurgence of activism in the GJM. During this period, the local groups that were

coordinated within the Autonoma struggle were highly reflexive and engaged in

deliberative practices (Lucha Autonoma, 1998) while at the same time being some of

earliest to mobilize against precarious labour (or ‘precarity’ as it is now known) (see

Casanova, 1999).

In The City and the Grassroots, Castells (1983) documents the thriving neighbourhood

association movement in Madrid in the late 1970s. Castells’ discussion of ‘Madrid’s

Citizen Movement’ can be seen as laying important groundwork for demands for citizen

participation in local government and political decision-making processes through citizen

representation. These neighbourhood associations were geographically organized and

originally fought for very localized issues, extending over time to a wide range of issues

and a federation structure (FRAVM, Federacion Regional de Asociaciones de Vecinos de

Madrid). The FRAVM and its youth wing, Jovenes de la FRAVM, continue to be an

important forum for grassroots political participation and many youth members were also

active in various collectives in Madrid’s GJM network. Although the FRAVM falls clearly

on the institutional left divide of the autonomous/institutional left cleavage, it forms part of

a grassroots participatory political culture in Madrid with roots back (at least) to the end of

the dictatorship.

The Democratic Turn: Continuity and Evolution in Autonomous Practice

On the fifth day of protest we appeared in the Stock Exchange. At 12 in the morning

more than 100 people had managed to enter the opulent building (Plaza de la

Lealtad) and interrupt the session while we shouted slogans against precarity and

social exclusion. Outside 20 mothers dressed in black supported the action holding

up a placard against precarity and distributing pamphlets.

While this may read like an account of a direct action from the 15-M movement, it is in

fact from 1999. It comes from the series of direct actions taken in the annual ‘Rompamos el

Silencio’ (Let’s Break the Silence) campaign carried out in Madrid by activists in diverse

groups in the anti-capitalist autonomous movement network, organized within the CSOA

El Laboratorio (later known as Labo 01). Clearly, the critiques of the anti-capitalist

movements, also active during the GJM, have carried over into the current wave of protest,

and many of the frames and slogans are the same. Nevertheless, having stressed the line of

continuity in issues, certain tactics and movement practices, it is also true that the recent

15-M protests have some new emphases that represent an important shift in the demand for

increased democracy, although this demand itself is not new:

What do we mean when we say that the social networks and the citizens need to

enter the decision making process? What are we really based on, what do we want?

We believe in a participatory, deliberative democracy. That’s the real nexus between

all these different groups. People want to participate, not just be passive receptors of

decisions, we want to create tools to be active political subjects [ . . . ]. We need to

ask ourselves: what is this new political culture that we in the social movements are

trying to develop? [ . . . ] How do we want to intervene and what mechanisms can we

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develop so that [state] powers can be limited by the public and so that the public can

really intervene in [ . . . ] legislation [ . . . ]?

As with the example above, this quote could have come from a 15-M activist, yet it comes

from an activist in the Madrid GJM network in 2002.11 While a critique of political and

economic elites has been at the heart of anti-capitalist and autonomous protest for decades,

there has been a turn to a much more sustained, profound and engaged critique of the

democratic institutions put in place during the Spanish transition to democracy and of

specific mechanisms that facilitate political corruption, lack of transparency and lack of

‘real’ democracy. This ‘democratic turn’, with its emphasis on democratic reform and

renewal and a reclaiming of the constitution, with its guarantees of basic social rights

(housing, education), as opposed to an out of hand rejection of the state and the political

class in previous waves is very notable. If autonomous democratic demands during the

GJM often centred around a rejection of the state as fundamentally illegitimate and a

practice that involved primarily the creation of alternative democratic spaces, in the 15-M

there is an evolution (both strategic and perhaps ideological) which combines pre-

figurative practices of radical democracy within social movement spaces with a highly

organized attack on the illegitimacy of representative democratic institutions, using the

courts (both national and international) and the law to hold politicians and officials

accountable for their actions within the legal frameworks of the state itself.

Far from representing ‘anti-politics’ as some observers have claimed, if anything, one of

the key differences from the GJM is a re-engagementwith the state and the direct appeal to

state institutions and laws as the basis of claims and demands (as opposed to abstract

principles or ideologies) (Flesher Fominaya, 2014b). Holding the political classes

accountable to their own laws is a different strategy than arguing that the laws themselves

or the rules of the game are illegitimate. This does not mean that individual laws are not

contested as illegitimate (the current electoral laws that favour the large parties, the laws

that favour economic elites over ordinary citizens, the criminalization of protest, etc.), but

not the legal framework of the state as a whole.

Key indicators of this democratic turn include the first points of the 15-M manifesto,

which relate to electoral reform and constitutional reforms and guarantees12; the original

15-M campaign/slogan ‘Real Democracy Now!’; actions such as crowdfunding to indict

Rodrigo Rato (Bankia director and former managing director of the IMF) for fraud (20

Minutos 2012); the creation of wiki pages that list all politicians indicted or found guilty of

fraud or corruption13 and the strategic use of the courts as a form of contestation.

One of the most dynamic social movement actors within 15-M, the Platform for those

Affected by Mortgages (PAH), exemplifies this evolution. The PAH combines

decentralized, horizontal forms of organization, direct action and very sophisticated

legal challenges to contest abusive clauses in existing mortgage law, and to call for the

reform of housing law and policy (Flesher Fominaya & Montanes, 2014).

If direct action such as the interruption of the stock exchange above relied on symbolic

protest to raise consciousness, in crisis-ridden Spain more practical direct actions are being

taken. If activists in the GJM were primarily concerned with controlling the

multinationals, now they are concerned with controlling the politicians (who they see as

ultimately responsible for the current crisis) and reforming the democratic institutions

themselves, which also reflects the shift from more transnational to more national arenas

and targets of protest (Flesher Fominaya, 2014b).

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Also different is the shifting of assembly practice from more self-contained physical

spaces such as social centres and activist assemblies to public arenas, and the resulting

unprecedented intensity of direct engagement with ‘ordinary citizens’ (Romanos, 2011)

(but see Plataforma 0,7% below). However, the aspiration to do this is not new, but was at

the heart of the Consulta Social Europea (European Social) project, an earlier precursor

movement that aspired to radical participatory engagement with citizens as the ultimate

raison d’etre of its existence and which encompassed activists from a wide range of

collectives in Madrid in the early 2000s (see Flesher Fominaya, 2005, 2010). The

European Social Consulta aspired to holding public consultas (or popular referenda) on the

streets and plazas of Spain on issues of concern to them, and was itself inspired by the

success of the 1999 RCADE (Red Ciudadana por la Abolicion de la Deuda Externa)14

campaign which managed to gather more than a million signatures for third world debt

cancellation through consultas in over 500 Spanish cities and towns for the 2000 general

elections (Flesher Fominaya, 2005). Activists involved in that process are currently active

in 15-M, and the 2014 movement-organized referendum on the monarchy continues this

tradition.15

Although the occupation of public space in tents has also been called ‘new’ in Spain,

this is not the case. In 1994, the 0,7% campaign of solidarity with third world debt

(Plataforma 0,7) set up 30 tents on Madrid’s central Paseo del Prado. The tents grew to

over 500 and remained for a week, and over 100,000 people gathered to protest, including

holding a cacerolada (pot banging session) in front of the Popular Party headquarters.

Open-air meetings were held at night, and 300,000 signatures were gathered to present to

parliament in a Popular Legislative Initiative. The campaign brought together diverse

movement groups working in the 0,7% campaign, with such slogans as ‘We need to

change this social model that wastes and destroys’ (Frances, 1996; Plataforma07ymas,

undated).

The continuity from asamblearismo in Madrid from previous periods of mobilization

through to 15-M is readily apparent in a multitude of ways. In the documentary on the

origins of 15-M (Moran, 2012), one activist describes the original decision to stay in the

Puerta del Sol:

There were people that came from the anti-Bologna movement, there were people

who came from the movement for the right to housing [ . . . ] There were people from

active social movements and people with a tradition of asamblearismo [ . . . ] From

the first moment in the first assemblies you could see that there were people there

who knew how to handle those processes.

Botella Ordinas (2011) also makes a compelling case for the role of autonomous

movements in fostering and nurturing the asamblearia practices evident in the 15-M from

the beginning, arguing that these had been developed over time in squatted social centres

and related social movement spaces. Drawing on specific examples of assemblies and

actions within 15-M’s original Acampadasol, she traces the exact practices used for

decision-making and coordination to their roots in asamblearismo (see also Martınez &

Garcıa, 2011; Romanos, 2011). Tejerina and Perugorrıa (2012) draw on activists’ own

genealogical mapping and ‘narrative of becoming’ (Polletta, 1998) to recognize the past

influences of mobilizations, and the role of previously mobilized actors in strategies of

integration of new members into 15-M.

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The continuity between the GJM and 15-M is also very clear from key actors and

spokespeople/commentators within the movement. Examples include Carlos Taibo, a

long-term participant in social movements including the GJM who gave the speech after

the original 15-M protest, Ada Colau (highly visible spokesperson of PAH), Amador

Fernandez-Savater, Juan Carlos Monedero, Angel Calle, Guillermo Zapata, Miguel

Martınez and Pablo Iglesias Turrion. The latter, who was active in the GJM in such groups

as Los Invisibles (a Spanish version of the Disobeddienti), has sparked controversy within

the movement by deciding to run for the European parliament on a 15-M ‘ticket’,

‘Podemos’, causing many autonomous activists to openly denounce what they see as a

betrayal of movement principles (but which others see as a necessary evolution for the

movement) (see Flesher Fominaya, 2014c). As can be seen in the heated debates over

cooptation and capitalization of the movement for ‘political’ ends by these ‘grassroots’

parties, the central tensions between Institutional Left and autonomous approaches to

activism and politics also continue from the GJM through to 15-M.

In addition to these key figures, 15-M assemblies in Madrid have a strong presence of

experienced autonomous activists who were active in the GJM and other movement

mobilizations. Groups such as AA/MOC continue to prepare civil disobedience workshops

for 15-M activists as well as participating directly in the movement. On the eve of the mass

22M Marches of Dignity (22 March 2014, see Flesher Fominaya, 2014d), the 15-M

newspaper ‘madrid15m’ published an article by Asamblea Antimilitarista de Madrid

(March 2014, p. 7) reflecting on 25 years of civil disobedience, written by activists

involved in that 25-year trajectory (madrid15m 2014). They do not draw a direct line of

causality between the AA/MOC and 15-M, but argue that the non-violent civil

disobedience practiced in the conscientious objectors movement was adopted in many

other social movements and immediately assumed by the first assemblies of 15-M as a de

facto defining characteristic.16

Other lines of influence can be traced from autonomous movements into 15-M practice.

Gracia Trujillo, a sociologist and feminist/queer activist involved in autonomous spaces in

Madrid since the 1990s and currently active in the 15-M Asamblea Transmaricabollo de

Sol, a feminist/queer space, traced her own trajectory through squatted autonomous

feminist projects in Madrid towards a queer activism that is currently lodged within a

broader 15-M struggle, bringing queer perspectives to anti-austerity and other 15-M

activism. The influence of feminist movements within 15-M is most strikingly illustrated

by the widespread use of the feminine plural (e.g. nosotras) by activists of all genders as a

political and didactic position. Trujillo also traces a clear line of continuity between

previous autonomous movements and 15-M, while recognizing evolution and change as

well in terms of openness and incorporation of new actors:

I don’t think that 15-M would have happened at all without a previous trajectory of

mobilization of organized people, and here the anti-globalization movement is

fundamental, certainly for Feminismos Sol and Transmaricabollo, and I would

actually say for 15-M in general. (Interview, Madrid, 14 February 2014)

Autonomous principles are reiterated constantly in 15-M assemblies – one constituent

meeting for a new coordinating space between assemblies in Madrid was held up for

almost 2 hours as activists refused to constitute the space unless it adhered to the principles

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of non-representation and horizontality, despite the fact that everyone seemed to be in

favour of that anyway (Fieldnotes, 2 February 2014).

In the state-wide 15-M coordinating meeting held on 23 March 2014, group after group

stressed the centrality of horizontality and non-representation as fundamental and defining

organizing principles (Acta Reunion Estatal, 23 March 2014, Madrid).

Finally, when activists left the square to go back to the neighbourhoods to ‘work on the

local level’, it was primarily to squatted and non-squatted social centres which are to this

day the most commonly used spaces for 15-M assembly meetings. The logic of

coordination between 15-M assemblies in Madrid is virtually indistinguishable from that

used in the GJM, apart from developments in the use of ICTs. The same logic of

networking within campaigns is followed, and the same rules of engagement are

reiterated: people act as bridges (enlaces or points of connection) between assemblies,

sharing information, but not representing, unless they come with an explicit consensus

from their assembly to represent the assembly (rare for autonomous assemblies, more

common for NGOs participating in campaigns with autonomous actors).

Precipitating and Intermediate Factors of 15-M

My emphasis on continuity is not intended to downplay the importance of precipitating

and intermediate factors in the emergence and strength of the mobilizations. While

detailed analysis of these lies outside the scope of this article, it is clear that factors

such as the failure of the established labour unions to resist the government’s proposals

for the social pact (via the General Strike 2010) and the increasing rates of

unemployment and housing evictions due to inability to pay mortgages have favoured

the emergence of extra-institutional collective action and a shift from support for more

institutional left organizations towards more autonomous ones. In addition, there are

number of recent precursor movements that have also played a role in the current

social movement landscape. The student mobilizations against the Bolonia university

reforms, notably on the Universidad Carlos III and Universidad Complutense

campuses, have played a key role in developing activist student network that were also

active in groups such as JSF and DRY (key mobilizers of 15-M). As two members of

JSF write:

Contrary to what it may seem many times, social movements do not come out of

nowhere, the contacts and routines that make the transformation of indignation into

an assembly possible are woven and mature thanks to already established practices.

For this reason, in order to start talking about Juventud Sin Futuro we need to go

back to the anti-Bolonia movement and even to the V for Vivienda movement (“H

for Housing” movement).17 (Raboso & Merino, 2011)

Other important precursor movements include the Movement for the Right to Housing

which began in 2003 and encompasses collectives such as V de Vivienda and the PAH.

Initially a platform that encompassed unions and political parties, by 2006 it was

mobilizing under the autonomous slogan of ‘no acronyms, no flags’ in reference to the

desire to have no parties or unions ‘advertising’ at their protests (Haro Barba & Sampedro,

2011). Also crucial were the ‘cyberactivist’ campaigns against the legal reform of Internet

freedom (Ley Sinde) which became Nolesvotes (a call to boycott political parties who

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supported the Ley Sinde), and later evolved further to boycott all parties involved in

corruption cases. These mobilizations combined three important elements of 15-M: high

youth involvement, the use of Internet activism to support street mobilizations and the

increasing focus on political corruption as a central mobilizing theme.

Transnational influences, such as Arab Spring and particularly the occupation of Tahrir

Square in Egypt, the Saucepan Revolution in Iceland, the anti-austerity protests in Greece

and the mass student protests in Europe against austerity cuts to education were also

important.

Conclusion

It is not possible to adequately analyse social movement dynamics and development

without considering the culture and history of the movements and how they are shaped by

local and national contexts. The maintenance of collective identity and movement culture

(including deliberative practices, master frames, slogans and repertoires of action) through

movement networks in periods of relative latency or in periods of abeyance is still a

relatively understudied aspect of mobilization that is crucial to explaining the continuity

and evolution of movement culture (or conversely its rupture) from one cycle of

contention to the next. My discussion highlights the need for historically grounded

analyses that pay close attention to movement cultures in understanding contemporary

anti-austerity mobilizations. Adopting such an approach might help explain variations in

the strength of anti-austerity mobilizations across different national contexts in addition to

the more commonly analysed shorter-term organizational, structural and political-

economic factors.

My analysis builds on previous work on abeyance and continuity, but the focus on

autonomous movements highlights some key differences from Taylor’s (1989) seminal

discussion of continuity in the US women’s movement, in which she focused on the

institutionalized wing of the movement (i.e. organizations with ‘personnel’ and

centralized organizational structures). Taylor depicts a holding process whereby

movements sustain themselves in non-receptive political climates between intense

periods of mobilization. In her case study, during periods of abeyance, committed activists

became increasingly marginalized and socially isolated. This was not the case in these

autonomous movements. Instead, activists continued to be actively integrated into groups

and assemblies, engaging in protest and activism within the ‘submerged’ networks and

laboratories around diverse issues, albeit with less intensity. As such, these movements

were not in abeyance so much as less visible and less active. Activism is integrated into the

day to day lives of those involved in movement subcultures, fuelling collective identity

processes. This suggests that continuity processes in pre-figurative, lifestyle or sub-

cultural movements such as autonomous movements may be quite different to those in

more institutionalized movements.

I am also building on earlier work by Taylor (1989) and Polletta (1998) that question

‘immaculate conception’ origin myths and spontaneity arguments to explain the

emergence of mass mobilization. As I have shown, the 15-M movement is not a

spontaneous collective response to precipitating events (Arab Spring, European anti-

austerity and student protests); or even the intermediate causes such as the global financial

crisis (which after all started in 2008 and did not trigger a highly visible mass response in

Spain until 2011) or the persistent failure of the labour unions to effectively stand up to the

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government during the social pact agreements, although both types of cause are crucial in

understanding the timing and strength of the mobilizations. Neither the precipitating nor

the intermediate causes on their own would have led to sustained mobilizations –

especially based on consensual asamblearia practice and public occupations – had it not

been for the long march of autonomous social movements over the past 30 years in Spain,

inspired, influenced and often legitimated by outside events and movements to be sure, but

forged on the local and national terrain.

To say 15-M was not spontaneous is not to say it was expected. No one could predict the

resonance and intensity of the mobilizations. To say 15-M was not spontaneous is also not

to say that many people who were previously not politically active did not join the

mobilizations once they were underway. The presence of large numbers of new people,

however, is not an argument against continuity or for ‘newness’. A notable feature of any

new intense protest cycle is the mobilization of new participants. The public occupation of

Madrid’s central plaza undoubtedly transformed and galvanized citizen grievances in a

profound way. The wide spread coloured marea (or tide) movements from all sectors of

society show how encompassing anti-austerity protest is in Spain today. I am also not

arguing that 15-M was the inevitable outcome of autonomous practice. Clearly structural

conditions are important, as are trigger events, and external influences and inspirations.

Arguing against spontaneity and newness narratives in scholarship is not at odds with

recognizing the benefits these narratives can have for movements. Polletta (1998) has

argued that ‘spontaneity’ narratives serve important strategic purposes even when not

consciously deployed. Clearly, the spontaneity narrative serves important purposes for 15-

M too. It helps advance another related 15-M movement narrative, that of the movement

‘of ordinary citizens’ as opposed to activists. ‘Spontaneity’ also serves as an autonomous

identity marker that distinguishes assembly style deliberative practices from more

centrally organized collective action, in a way similar to how the US students Polletta

(1998) describes distinguished their activism from bureaucratically planned politics.

The deliberate obscuring of agency through ambiguous narratives that Polletta (1998)

describes can also be seen as important in the Spanish context, where deep-seated right–

left cleavages and distrust of activists appearing to belong ‘to the other side’ prevent the

inclusion of participants in citizen mobilizations. As in Polletta’s case, these narratives are

not just produced for outside audiences but form part of the stories participants tell

themselves and each other. They are also pre-figurative in the sense that they represent

what activists would like to see, and in part they are true in the sense that when hundreds of

thousands of people take to the streets, the mobilization clearly encompasses many

‘ordinary citizens’. Autonomous movements’ deliberate refusal of acronyms and flags

responds to an ideological positioning but also a strategic one that seeks greater inclusivity

and participation, a posture that is widespread in 15-M. Obscuring agency, however, can

be a double-edged sword in Spain, where people often want to know ‘who is behind’ a

project before joining it.

Spontaneity (and newness) narratives also make newcomers feel the movement belongs

to them and allow new participants to develop their own origin myths and distinguish

themselves from the past (e.g. generations; mobilizations; out-dated, corrupt and

illegitimate political formations).

Finally, although I have stressed the problems of ‘myopia of the visible’ and ‘myopia of

the present’ (Melucci, 1994), I am not arguing that there is nothing ‘new’ about these

recent mobilizations, nor that new features are not worthy of further exploration. As has

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been mentioned earlier, there has been a significant shift towards an emphasis on the

reform of the democratic institutions and structures themselves, a deep questioning of the

structures put in place during the transition to democracy, and a sustained attack on the

corruption of the political classes, which signal not only a significant development within

Spanish social movements but also points to a strong line of connection with waves of

contention elsewhere in Europe, the Americas and North Africa (Flesher Fominaya,

2014b). The scope and intensity of the engagement with citizens in public arenas is also

unprecedented and the use of ICTs has also evolved. As Melucci (1994) argued, the new

social significance of the movements should be recognized and explored. To claim

‘newness’ for the autonomous features of the Spanish 15-M movement, however, is to

overlook one of the central structuring cleavages of the European social movement

landscape and the history and evolution of social movements in Spain. Our search for the

‘new’, important as it is, should not come at the expense of erasing the history and agency

of the social movements and activists that have come before and paved the way for the

current contentious response to the global crisis, its architects and beneficiaries.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editor and anonymous reviewers of the journal for their constructive feedback.

Funding

Part of this research was funded by the German Marshall Foundation, The John L. Simpson Foundation and the

European Union Marie Sklodowska Curie Fellowship, for which the author is grateful.

Notes

1. Indignados is a term used by mass media and by which the movement is known outside Spain; activists refer

to themselves as 15-M, arguing both that ‘indignant’ does not even begin to describe their anger, and that it

overlooks other emotional responses, such as hope and solidarity. I therefore use Indignados initially as a

descriptor before reverting to 15-M.

2. Other characterizations of this cleavage in the political science literature have used the terms left-libertarian

versus left-authoritarian.

3. This disillusionment was widespread in European autonomous movements, leading to the creation of

alternative autonomous parrallel ESFs, again illustrating the autonomous/institutional left cleavage in the

European social movement landscape.

4. The focus of her argument rests on the strong similarities between the practices she witnessed in Barcelona

and those she experienced elsewhere. However, the peculiarities of local practices are downplayed although

they emerge in the narrative – the particular emphasis on the need for ‘consensus’ for example which has

long been a feature of movement culture but much less salient in Madrid than in some other contexts.

5. Movimiento de Resistencia Global or Movement of Global Resistance.

6. But is typical of activist narratives in the Spanish context which are often marked by a sense of inferiority

with respect to other contexts, stemming from the fact that Spain ‘missed’ many of the social movement

experiences of the 1960s and 1970s due to the dictatorship. It is true that this hampered the absorption of

deliberative practices that flourished elsewhere during this period, but only strengthens the importance of

local and national deliberative traditions in the Spanish context in the post-transition period.

7. Assembly practices can be traced farther back, to anarchist practices before Franco, for example although

continuity is harder to prove.

8. A 2001 book on methods of asamblearismo practice states that the turno de palabra can be modified to

favour those who either have not spoken or have not intervened in a long time, and to allow people to respond

if they have been ‘alluded to’ (Lorenzo Vila & Martinez Lopez, 2001, p. 57). Despite the availability of the

book at social movement events, its recommendations were not widely adopted at the time.

9. 20–21 December 2003 Ciudad Real (La Mancha).

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10. Autonomous assemblies are in principle open to all, but as individuals, not as members or representatives of

parties or unions.

11. Interview with ‘Txema’ in Madrid 2002.

12. The two first points of the manifesto produced by the (15-M/DRY) general assembly in the Puerta del Sol on

20 May 2011 were a change in the Electoral Law to open lists and a one person one vote system, and that the

fundamental rights stipulated in the Spanish Constitution be upheld: the right to a decent home, to universal

and free healthcare, to free circulation of people, and to a public and non-religious education. Acampada Sol

(2011b).

13. See 15-Mpedia http://wiki.15m.cc/wiki/Lista_de_pol%C3%ADticos_imputados for those charged; see

http://wiki.15m.cc/wiki/Lista_de_pol%C3%ADticos_condenados for those found guilty. 15-Mpedia is an

activist-run project with excellent sources.

14. Citizen network for the abolition of foreign debt.

15. The idea of a consulta with questions generated from the grassroots is also the basis of a recent 15-M project

called the autoconsulta: http://autoconsulta.org/mutaciones.php.

16. Indeed the chants of the 15-M crowd with their hands in the air of ‘These are our weapons’ (Estas son

nuestras armas) is a common one at mass protests in Spain, signifying non-violence.

17. Translation from Spanish by author.

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Cristina Flesher Fominaya has an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California,Berkeley, and a B.A. summa cum laude in International Relations from the University of Minnesota.She is senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. She has won numerous international awards,including the National Science Foundation Fellowship, the German Marshall Fellowship and theMarie Curie IEF Fellowship. She has been researching and participating in European socialmovements since the early 1990s. From September 2013 to 2015, she is Senior Marie Curie Fellow atthe National University of Ireland, Maynooth conducting a 2-year research project on anti-austeritymobilizations in Ireland and Spain. Her latest book is Social movements and globalization: Howprotests, occupations and uprisings are changing the world, available from Palgrave MacMillanhttp://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid¼513046.

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