The 'indignados' in Space & Time: Transnational Networks & Historical Roots

This paper analyses one of the most interesting movements that arose in Spain since the end of oppositional movements to Franco's dictatorship in the late seventies. My approach to this social movement in Spain, the May 15th Movement, focuses on frame analysis and its collective identity, and emphasizes its social reflexivity, its transversal character and its internationalization (Laraña & Díez, 2012).

The first aim of the paper is to tackle the internationalization of the Spanish 15M, focusing my interests on the role played by transnational networks of ‘indignados’ (or ‘occupiers’) in the spread and resonance of their calls and messages. With the aim of contributing to a wider understanding of this phenomenon I emphasize the usefulness of considering democracy as an open and dynamic process constantly threatened by oligarchical tendencies.

Secondly, I emphasize the relationship of continuity between the 15M and the American New Left of the 1960s, with whom the ‘indignados’ share some goals and common traits, such as its non-violent character and its demand of a ‘participatory democracy’ (ibid.). 

The international scope and global resonance of this movement also illustrates its transversal character, given that its calls, messages, demands and forms of action went beyond the four cardinal points, as expressed one of the most chanted slogans in the Spanish mobilizations: “From the North to the South / from the East to the West / the struggle continues / whatever it takes”. But its transversal character, not only cuts across different territories, cultures and socioeconomics contexts, but across different ideologies, activists traditions and NSM.