Luis Sanmartín
PhD Researcher
anthropology, social movements, social media, framing, collective action
36 years old
Barcelona (08043) Spain
Employed
Open to opportunities
Actually, I am studying my PhD studies on the program Culture and Society, in the department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. My research focuses on the Spanish Mortgage Affected-Citizens Platform of Barcelona (PAH Barcelona), which is a social movement that has been fighting against the massive processes of evictions occurred in Spain since 2009.
I analyze how the Platform reframe discourses around debt, and how these discourses have been built and thought inside organizational commissions and different assemblies. My main objective is to show the relationship between these strategies and the impact that they have in the (re)definition of the mortgage debt as a social injustice and how these strategies have been adapted to new realities as the high increase of rents in Barcelona.
To achieve this goal, I focused the fieldwork to the observation of a state campaign, called Ley de Vivienda de la PAH - The Housing Law of PAH. This campaign aims to change de state laws towards mortgage debts, processes of evictions, the regulation of rent prices, the social use of empty houses of banks and the energy poverty. For this research, I combine theories of value and debt with analysis of collective action and the framing of events.
Ley de Vivienda de la PAH
http://las5delapah.com
I analyze how the Platform reframe discourses around debt, and how these discourses have been built and thought inside organizational commissions and different assemblies. My main objective is to show the relationship between these strategies and the impact that they have in the (re)definition of the mortgage debt as a social injustice and how these strategies have been adapted to new realities as the high increase of rents in Barcelona.
To achieve this goal, I focused the fieldwork to the observation of a state campaign, called Ley de Vivienda de la PAH - The Housing Law of PAH. This campaign aims to change de state laws towards mortgage debts, processes of evictions, the regulation of rent prices, the social use of empty houses of banks and the energy poverty. For this research, I combine theories of value and debt with analysis of collective action and the framing of events.
Ley de Vivienda de la PAH
http://las5delapah.com
European Masther on Cultural and Social Anthropology
Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM)
2012
to 2014
I participated in the European CREOLE program of international interchange between universities. In this sense, I realized 6 months of the program in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM), which has the best department of Anthropology in the country.
My master thesis "Engaged Protests: Frame Analysis of the social movement Mortgage Affected Citizens Platform in Barcelona", presented in 2014, analyzed how the assembly dynamics of the Mortgage Affected-Citizens Platform of Barcelona generates a collective identity by a process of adscription which was indistinguishable from the process of empowerment.
The main idea was that to overcome the initial stigma of being in a process of eviction required the recognition that the mass evictions were the consequence of a collective social injustice around the generation of virtual debt. In the moment that affected citizens overcome this stigma, they tend to mobilize in the campaigns of the Platform.
Media grade: 9.5 (1 to 10)
CREOLE program
https://creole.univie.ac.at
My master thesis "Engaged Protests: Frame Analysis of the social movement Mortgage Affected Citizens Platform in Barcelona", presented in 2014, analyzed how the assembly dynamics of the Mortgage Affected-Citizens Platform of Barcelona generates a collective identity by a process of adscription which was indistinguishable from the process of empowerment.
The main idea was that to overcome the initial stigma of being in a process of eviction required the recognition that the mass evictions were the consequence of a collective social injustice around the generation of virtual debt. In the moment that affected citizens overcome this stigma, they tend to mobilize in the campaigns of the Platform.
Media grade: 9.5 (1 to 10)
CREOLE program
https://creole.univie.ac.at
Through a scholarship, I have participated in an Erasmus European exchange program for one year in The University of Barcelona during my studies on philosophy.
Through a scholarship, I have participated in a Séneca national exchange program for one year in The University of Barcelona during my studies on philosophy.
PhD Researcher
University of Barcelona (UB)
Since 2016
- Through a PhD scholarship, I have worked as a member of the Anthropology Department of the University of Barcelona.
- I have coordinated and taught 36 hours of the subject of Political Anthropology, on themes about mechanisms of social control as the creation of debt, the financiarization, the panopticism in spatial structures and the immigration policies. In contraposition, I also introduced issues about sources of resistances as the origin of social movements, the dynamics of collective action, the use of technopolitical tools and the self-organization of groups against evictions.
- I have coordinated and taught 4 hours of the subject Ethnographic Workshop, on themes about the methodological challenges around the entrance to the fieldwork.
Head of Social Media
Observatori DESC
2015
to 2016
- I have worked as a released member of the Mortgage Affected-Citizens Platform of Barcelona (PAH Barcelona). The formal employer was the Observatori DESC - Observatory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: an NGO that grants juridical support and strategic resources to social groups committed to protect Human Rights. Observatori DESC has worked in the areas of the right to housing, to work, to education, to health, to food, to information, direct democracy and strategic litigation.
- The job implied managing the communication team of the Platform, to coordinate social networks, to participate in the design of plans of collective and political action and to deal with the press. This job facilitates a high level of trust from the member of the Platform, and facilitates the admission of my ethnographic observation towards organizational levels of the movement.
Observatori DESC
http://observatoridesc.org
Mortgage Affected-Citizens Platform of Barcelona
https://pahbarcelona.org
Video Translator
Freelance
2012
to 2013
- I have done several works of translation and subtitled videos as a freelance job.
Actor at the Chapao Theater Group
Chapao
2007
to 2008
- Member and actor of the Chapao Theater Group, performing a role in the plays La Corriente (The Current) and La Deuda (The Debt). Both plays treat the common life of inhabitants from peripheral neighborhoods, exposing issues such as the social reintegration and the experience of poverty.
Chapao Theater Group
https://teatrochapao.wordpress.com
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Teaching
Advanced
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Ethnographic Research
Advanced
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Project Management
Advanced
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Qualitative Analysis Programs
Good
- Social Networks
-
Office Programs
Advanced
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Press Communication
Advanced
- Press Communication
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Organizational tasks
Advanced
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Dynamization of Assemblyes
Advanced
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Communicative Coordination
Advanced
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Political Strategy
Good
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Negotiation and Mediation
Good
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Oratory
Good
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Theater
Intermediate
