Strategies of Collective Action in the Neighbourhood Raval, Barcelona

Barcelona has recently been mentioned in the international press because of the large number of tourists visiting the city. While this also brings advantages for the city, such as many opportunities to find paid work, there is some resentment among the city's residents. In particular, the neighbourhoods that are largely frequented by tourists are continuously losing quality of life for their residents (e.g. The Guardian 2024).

The Raval is one of Barcelona's best-known neighbourhoods, home to the famous Rambla and the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona as well as other sights. The district is close to the harbour and is very popular due to its contrasting charm. For the largely poor residents, however, the large number of tourists has primarily meant rising rents due to the increasing conversion of living space into holiday flats and a lack of participatory infrastructure as vacant areas are used for new attractions rather than, for example, for a new kindergarten (Aisa/Vidal 2006).

Following the protest movement against austerity policies and their effects that emerged after 2007/08, neighbourhood trade unions have developed in some cities in recent years, which carry on the strategy of collectivising individual problems from the PAH as a platform against forced evictions at the local level. The sindicat d`habitage Raval is one such neighbourhood union. In my presentation, I will focus on this empirical example from my current research and show (1) how the activists manage to strategically connect to the successes of the movements after the financial crisis in Spain. In this way, the neighbourhood unions can (2) organise the activation of rebellious potentials at the local level, which are networked with each other in the neighbourhoods. To this end, (3) in particular, everyday needs for social participation are addressed and worked on together, thus very successfully generating self-efficacy.