Between the bank, the house and the PAH: A view of quotidian life in crisis through the struggle of those affected in bonavista (Barcelona)

Abstract

The Great Recession of 2008 was a singular event in the recent history of Spain. The burst of the real-estate bubble and the massive destruction of jobs it provoked revealed a deep crisis in Spanish capitalism. In Bonavista, unemployment and the resulting inability of working people to pay their mortgages exerted intense pressure on the financial sector to reshape the quotidian life of those affected, resulting in: the subordination of social relations, the labour required to maintain these and their reproduction to the logic of wealth expropriation. In this context, the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, PAH) arises as a refuge, where afflicted persons reclaim the primacy of their life projects against the attempted hegemony of the banks.