The Spatial Politics of Far-right Populism: VOX, Anti-fascism and Neighbourhood Solidarity in Madrid City

Abstract

This article explores the spatial politics of the Spanish far-right party VOX, deepening discussions around the spaces of xenophobic populism and anti-fascist politics. The paper foregrounds the need of moving beyond the nation-centred, institutional and descriptive approaches that characterise the literature on far-right politics, to focus on the quotidian grounds of far-right mobilisations. Through an analysis of VOX’s politics of hate at the neighbourhood level, I explore the co-constitutive relationship between ‘institutional politics’ and the ‘politics of the street’. Focusing in Hortaleza – a Madrilenian district targeted by VOX’s mobilisation – I analyse the ways the party attempts to exploit situated inequalities linked to the urbanisation of border regimes and how neighbourhood movements are challenging VOX through constructing alternative anti-racist politics of belonging. The paper argues that the centrality of the neighbourhood as the lived space of political socialisation makes it a key scale of articulation of anti-fascist politics and grassroots solidarities.