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The Aesthetics of Social Movements in Spain

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Street Art of Resistance

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture ((PASCC))

Abstract

Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière, the chapter explores how consensus on the surface is questioned through the introduction of conflict by a community (politics), who challenges the ways of doing, acting, saying, and feeling (aesthetics). Social movements in Spain, after the economic crisis, deploy aesthetic practices in urban spaces in order to make inequality visible and enhance a new sense of community. This is illustrated through three cases: Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), Invisibles, and “We Are Not Crime.” Three types of subjectivization are developed as a consequence of interrupting the dominant order in specific settings (i.e., the streets as public spaces): the part which has no justice, the part which has no visibility, and the part which has no voice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It must be emphasized that distribution has also been translated as “partition” since it consists of creating parts (for those included and excluded).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors of this volume for the invitation to contribute to it, Brady Wagoner and particularly Sarah H. Awad for her encouragement, interest, and patience. My thanks also to all the participants of the “Street Art and Resistance” seminar in Aalborg for the debate and interesting comments. Finally, I want to thank María González Amarillo, Santi Espinosa, Soledad Gálvez, Cristina Flesher, and Alberto Escudero for allowing me to use their pictures.

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Agustín, Ó.G. (2017). The Aesthetics of Social Movements in Spain. In: Awad, S., Wagoner, B. (eds) Street Art of Resistance. Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63330-5_14

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