Evictions, Petitions and Escraches: Contentious Housing in Austerity Spain

Spatial Analysis of Clustering of Foreclosures in the Poorest-Quality Housing Urban Areas: Evidence from Catalan Cities

“…In the Spanish context, the growing literature on the mortgage crisis and foreclosures has explored various related topics that include the economic, financial, and political dimensions of the problem [39,40]; the political and historical roots that explain the extension of foreclosures and evictions [41]; some diagnoses of the resulting social impacts [13]; the emergence of social movements, activism, and political participation in response to the problem [42][43][44][45][46]; and the impact of these phenomena on public health [14,47]. At present, there is a relatively small, although growing, corpus of academic literature that analyses the Spanish mortgage crisis from a geographic perspective.…”

Activist and Citizen Political Repertoire in Spain: A Reflection Based on Civil Society Theory and Different Logics of Political Participation

“…PAH is an organisation involved in the movement against evictions and to reform the Spanish law on mortgages. This network, which today has chapters in 145 cities, emerged in 2009 as a part of a broader social movement that has been campaigning for access to decent housing since 2003 (Romanos, 2014). PAH has not only been able to raise awareness among citizens about abusive clauses in many bank mortgages and the need for dation in payment, but has also managed to stop 1,135 evictions.…”

“…Among the plural groups linked to the 15M movement, PAH has developed the most relevant and heterogeneous political actions so far (Romanos, 2014). The following analyse some of these actions.…”

Intersections. Eejsp_vol2_no1

“…Barcelona's urban politics and architecture challenge and change the life of its inhabitants at a high speed, often being called a space invaded or endangered by mass tourism. Scholars and politicians debate the notions of residential area, right to housing, property rights, public urban space, both proudly considering as political acts the associations of neighbours or squatted places (i Ventayol, 2010;Vallhonrat et al, 2011;García-Vaquero, 2012;Romanos, 2014). Following the urban anthropology and historical literature of Barcelona, I evoke here some moments of political urbanization.…”

“…Besides, the spatial marginalization is connected to the identity and (mis)recognition of Roma within an 'oppressive social and cultural construction of the space' (Chiesa and Rossi, 2013: 2) or within institutional racism, an expression of long preserved ethnic inequalities. In particular, the housing policies for Roma have been criticized throughout countries like Italy (Beluschi-Fabeni, 2015), France (Nacu, 2013;Legros, 2011;Legros and Olivera, 2014;Fassin, 2014), Romania (Rughiniș, 2004;Berescu, 2011;Racles, 2013) and scholars have paid attention to evictions and forced mobility detected despite the right to decent housing or freedom of movement (Cames, 2013;Parker and López Catalan, 2014;Romanos, 2014;Armillei, 2015).…”