Abstract

The anti-eviction movement in Spain (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, PAH), among other movements, are at the forefront of the social response to the crisis and its effects. Generating a wide array of counter-hegemonic practices and conforming a new disruptive common sense that reflects the antagonist and irreconcilable interests between the elites and the popular classes. In the actual moment, with a convulse and volatile political scenario, and the appearance of anti-austerity forces in the institutions (from the local to the central level), the tension remains between attempts to consolidate and protect social rights and strategies to contain further attacks. This contrast is evidenced by the financial sector strategy to recompose itself around the housing sector, for the continuation of a economic model based on speculation around housing assets as a comodity; characterised by the entrance of international actors (i.e. investment funds) that deepen the emptying of political sovereignty of national institutions to enforce rights-based public policies. In that situation, tensions are arising between the new emerging political actors and social movements, through the defense and contestations of the later for the non-negotiable character of social rights (right to housing, as a central element). This duality of strategies, and multiple legitimacies – on the side of anti-austerity actors –, is currently opening up debates on roles, political purposes and on the eventual complementary/compatible character of those strategies. This article intends to briefly reflect on those political challenges to build effective social counter-powers that would be able, not only to contain, but to revert the democratic and social regressions suffered throughout the last years.

Spain; PAH; anti-eviction movement