ABSTRACT
The movement of the Indignados in Spain began on 15 May 2011 — hence the name ‘15M movement’ — following a demonstration organized by several collective bodies united under the Real Democracy Now platform. 1 Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in several Spanish cities to denounce the social consequences of the economic crisis and the way in which their government was managing that crisis. What also mobilized the Indignados into action was their indignation over the failures of the representative political system and of the capitalist economic model. At the end of the demonstration, a group of young people stayed and camped on the Puerta del Sol, a symbolic square in the center of Madrid (itself the center of Spain). The group stayed for almost one month as a self-managed encampment that organized public assemblies. The movement then branched out into other neighborhoods of Madrid, eventually expanding to a national scale with encampments multiplying on the squares of numerous city centers.
