Relating activist capital and power relations within social movements: ethnography of current social movements in Lleida (Spain)

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic study of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH; Platform of People Affected by Mortgages) social movement in Lleida (Spain), this article analyzes the role of activist capital within the movement. Detecting the forms that capital takes among the agents makes it possible to delimit the internal power positions occupied by the participants. Depending on who occupies these positions of power, different internal and external formats and strategies are adopted by the movement, which modifies its trajectory. Thus, depending on this variable, we can determine what position the social movement has occupied in each historical moment in the space of social movements. The article applies the theoretical tools of activist capital and the space of social movements to understand how movements function internally and what power relations are produced between activists, and in this way it analyzes and breaks down the formats that this activist capital adopts.