Barcelona en Comù: Questions Facing a New Brand of Political Action

Abstract

International audience ; Our sociological inquiry emerged in the process of crossing the border between France and Catalonia in 2016. Our objective was to understand the political, social, and activist trajectories of certain individuals who were elected to the new Barcelona municipal government (and of their supporters) as closely as possible to their personal dimensions. Having won the elections, in May 2015, in what the European media considered to be quite a surprising victory, Ada Colau, a figure from the social movements that were fighting against housing evictions, became the mayor of Barcelona and was steadfastly determined to "deglobalize" the city. We decided to go meet this new political generation, which had been shaped by the "not in our name" intellectual and activist contexts of the early 2000s, and won over to the methods of empowerment and continuous deliberation, often learned in the framework of their professional experience in cooperation and development networks in Latin America.