Abstract

The radical conquest of public space and its transformation into political space have introduced major alterations of the Spanish public sphere after the outbreak of the 15-M movement. Such modifications refer also to a topic of symbolical interest, which is the conception and configuration of urban space – a space that in the course of neoliberal urban production has been characterized as a residual category and a place of controlled and profit-oriented activities. By analysing key practices of the protest movement, the article brings together debates from critical urban geography and political theory. In a first step, it develops a conceptual perspective towards the multiple logics of neoliberal urbanism and the transformation of public space. Subsequently, counter-hegemonic spatial politics and urban demands are discussed through the conceptualization of protest as acts of citizenship, proclaiming the construction of the public sphere and public space via strategic disobedience and the transgression of rules and laws. Protest camps, public political assemblies and recent squatting can be analysed as newly created spaces of citizenship that consolidate spatial politics that reconstruct the meaning of public space and of a political and politicised public sphere, claiming different ways of policy making.

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