From M-15 to #acampadasol: Topologies for an Urban Political Experiment
Place: Medialab-Prado. Plaza de las Letras, C/ Alameda, 15 · Madrid
Empiria Digital is a space for the discussion on empirical studies dedicated to researching the social dimensions of the Internet and digital technologies.
This month´s session will include presentations by Víctor Sampedro, Alberto Corsín (CSIC), José Manuel Sánchez Duarte (URJC) and María Luz Congosto (UC3M) discussing the 15-M movement and public political action forms.
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- Virtual Worlds and Digital Interfaces, Contemporary Ways of Living
- Activismo político en Red: del Movimiento por la Vivienda Digna al 15M
- Digital Humanities and Cultural Complexity: Research, Concepts, Practices
- Making Visible the Invisible
From M15 to #acampadasol (or From theInternet to the Square): Topologies for an Urban Political Experiment
In the last weeks, Madrid´s Puerta del Sol as well as dozens of squares in Spain, have become a place for political experimentation through the occupation of public spaces and assembly practice. These two practices raise the discussion on the public sphere and its involvement in public squares.This event is associated to the May 15 demonstrations, whose call had been created months before by various online initiatives. Both events arise a series of questions on the different types of political actions, which mobilize practices with diverse genealogies (Internet and squatting movements) that reformulate public space in squares.
This seminar aims to ponder on this topic by exploring some of the many questions raised and, specially, to formulate other questions still not imagined such as Which repertoires of specific practices are organized in the M15 call and acampadasol? What is the relationship between both of these events? How is the urban topology transformed by extending the Sol campsite to neighborhoods and cities? What is the relationship between Sol´s campsite and other conventional squatting movements?
Seminar participants are Alberto Corsín Jiménez (Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales – CSIC), Víctor F. Sampedro Blanco, José Manuel Sánchez Duarte (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos) and María Luz Congosto (Universidad Carlos III).
All of them have performed an analysis or preliminary reports on what has occurred these weeks. (References below). A second topic to discuss in this seminar is the timing in academic analysis: How to manage the tension between the urgency of analysis demands and the long space of time inherent in social analysis? How to manage the space of time between these social events and the academic context? Is it possible to keep this time distance? Is it necessary?
References:
· La red era la plaza, Víctor F. Sampedro Blanco and José Manuel Sánchez Duarte [download pdf]
· #spanishrevolution, Alberto Corsín Jiménez and Adolfo Estalella [+info]
· Del 15-M a la acampada de Sol, María Luz Congosto [+info]
· Evolución de la propagación del 15M en la plaza de Twitter, María Luz Congosto [+info]