Faculty Publication: Assistant Professor of Spanish Ignasi Gozalo-Salellas
Author: Gozalo-Salellas, Ignasi
Source: Boundary 2: An International Journal of Literature and Culture, Volume 48, Issue 3, Pages 191-213, DOI: 10.1215/01903659-9155803, August 2021
Publication Type: Journal Article
Abstract: This essay analyzes what I call processes of destitution as a result of the various social movements that took place in Spain throughout the 2010s. I argue that the exhaustion of the Regime of 鈥78 meant an epistemological turn away from hegemonic concepts such as consensus, truth, and historical agreement toward those central to a new destituent process: dissent, divergence, and plurality, among others. Over the course of this essay, I carry out a genealogical review of the two intersecting social movements of the period which drove that change: first, the anti-austerity movement鈥攂etter known as the indignados, or 15M, movement and its political derivatives, such as municipal platforms, the 鈥渕areas,鈥 and Podemos鈥攁nd second, the Catalan pro-independence movement. Finally, based on Carl Schmitt's political theology, I study the Spanish State's reaction beginning in 2017 as the creation of a state of exception based on the intensification of 鈥渢he political鈥 and on a shift in the 鈥渇riend/enemy鈥 paradigm, from a relationship between nation-states to an intranational relationship between the Spanish State and the Catalan pro-independence movement.