ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the process of social rupture that accompanied the Spanish real estate crisis in the context of the global financial crisis, which began in 2007. It identifies the emergent organizations of social resistance to the economic adjustments and cuts made by the Spanish government. The chapter narrates the process by which electoral alternatives were constituted by these new social movements, including the appearance of popular parties like Podemos, with a language and political imaginary of its own, and the new municipalism that swept major centers such as Madrid and Barcelona. It considers the future of the social movements that have been resisting the neoliberal project in Spain over the course of the last decade. The financial crisis of 2010 ignited a retroactive re-signification of Spain’s history, its understanding of democracy and its relationship to dictatorship and its authoritarian past.
