Ties That Bind: Madrid's 2011 Protest Camp as a Transversal Community

• Autores: Julia Ramírez Blanco
• Localización: The Routledge Hispanic studies companion to twentieth and twenty-first century Spain: ideas, practices, imaginings / coord. por Eduardo Ledesma, Luisa Elena Delgado, 2025, ISBN 978-1-032-96468-3, págs. 625-633
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • On May 15, 2011, a demonstration was called in various Spanish cities under the slogan “no somos mercancía en manos de politicos y banqueros” (“we are not merchandise in the hands of politicians and bankers”). When the Madrid march ended, some forty people decided to stay overnight in the Puerta del Sol, one of the city’s main squares, thereby creating a community that would give rise to a complex camp in the following days. The movement around what came to be called the “Acampadasol” (“Sol camp”) took the name “15M” (for May 15). With the initial support of approximately 80% of the general population, the 15M movement had a transversal demography, bringing together people of different ages, social classes and ideologies. Echoing this initiative, other activist camps emerged throughout the main Spanish cities: All of them were characterized by a feeling of community and an acceptance toward diversity. It is important to recall that there were no national flags on display and that political parties were forbidden from participating.This chapter analyzes the spaces of the 15M movement as experiments of unity within difference. It also focuses on its structures of care work, where childcare, healthcare and food were provided free of charge, in what can be seen as a symbolic reconstruction of the Spanish welfare state which at that moment was starting to feel the effects of dramatic budget cuts. The characteristics and driving forces of the camps allow us to understand some of the values shared by Spanish society, beyond its divisions and factions, showing what brings us together.