The Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH)

The PAH has been one of the strongest social movements in Spain since 2011, fighting for fair access to housing and social rents through a politics of networked mutual aid and campaigning. 

This entry focuses on the specific campaigns and organizational ways in which the PAH works, and briefly outlines the complex entwinings of different levels of crisis (housing, financial, sovereign debt, ...) in Spain as well as the legal situation surrounding mortgages (which involves host of old and new laws and many ongoing levels of contestation and reform). For now a summary description of the PAH from 15MPedia:

The Platform of People affected by mortgages / the subprime mortgage crisis, or PAH, is a social movement and platform struggling for decent housing, which emerged in Barcelona in February 2009 and now extends across the Spanish territory. It surged in response to the real estate crisis of 2008 that triggered the bursting of the Spanish housing bubble and became a strong part of the movements that later emerged in response to the sovereign debt crisis and austerity politics. It's part of the 15M movement, which kicked off in 2011.

The PAH brings together people who find it difficult to pay back their mortgages or find themselves in a process of eviction due to unpaid mortgages, and people in solidarity with this problem. It defines itself as 'a group of people who, unaffiliated with any party, recognizes that […] the current legal framework is designed to guarantee that banks cash in on debt, while at the same time the law gives no protection to the people with mortgages who are unable to cover their payments due to reasons such as unemployment or rising fees/interests'. It's a horizontal, non-violent and assembly-based movement unaffiliated with political parties.The PAH meets in assemblies that go through the different cases of people affected by the mortgage crisis and laws, to offer advice and mutual aid in order to give both practical and emotional support.In January 2013, the PAH was awarded the national prize for human rights. [i]

We are very interested in the organizational and everyday dimensions of the PAH, not just because struggling around housing is to struggle around a key dimension of social reproduction, but also because this is a movement that brings together collective care and popular support in a political practice that is both situated and widely networked.

Video-introduction to the PAH’s work (2013 [es/en

Einkuechenhaeuser (One-kitchen-buildings): a 20th century architectural-social experiment

The term Einküchenhaus translates into English as one-kitchen-building. It describes a building typology that was used to experiment with concepts of communal living and housing in the beginning of the 20th century. Multi-unit residential buildings or housing complexes facilitated by one central kitchen were emerging in many industrializing cities in North America, Western Europe and Russia questioning and reorganizing reproductive labor. They were realized in varying forms and for different reasons – as tools for emancipation for the early women's movement, as reformist, socialist or communist experiments, but also out of a mere capitalist interest in economic profit.

This brief outline follows the history of the Einküchenhaus along several examples as to show not only the continuities and developments but also conflicts and contradictions (e.g. class conflicts) persisting throughout the typology's history. There are of course many more examples that cannot be all included in a brief introduction like this – some of them have become classic examples of the history of modern architecture like the Narkomfin building, a test project for state organized communal living built in 1932 in Moscow, or the Heimhof Einküchenhaus in Vienna, which was incorporated into the building activities of Red Vienna.

OCCUPY SANDY: A SKYPE CALL

In our first collective meeting, we called Susana who has been involved in Occupy Sandy in New York, to hear and ask about her experience of this mobilization, its effects on the wider Occupy movement, its organizational dynamics and further perspectives.

The transatlantic connection was shaky but we really enjoyed the converstation!

Discussion notes - Questions asked and answered in common by the participants

• This resonated with Black Panther Party in many ways...
• But I found that exactly when it came to asking the question 'how is this political' there isn't really an answer – like mutual aid in itsel is something that christian aid or migrant communities do all the time, but it doesn't change political structures in any way...
• But I also have to say i'm not quite sure what these terms mean, I can only guess what the difference between mutual aid and charity might be defined...

• In terms of where it comes out of, the mutual aid discourse comes from the anarchist tradition, and charity comes from the church..
• I think charity is also something top-down, you give to someone but it doesn't have the mutualness to it
• But then when she was describing these suspicions that they experience every now and then, maybe that's not top-down but seemingly there are also hierarchies, or class issues, or whatever you want to call it then..
• I guess it's also that mutual aid is very community based, and that when you come into a community that you're not a part of, they say 'why do you want to be mutual with us? We don't know you, why should we trust you, etc..?' And then they have to say 'well actually we do it cause we have some political ideas or ideals'... this would have been interesting to talk about a bit more; how they talk about Occupy, whether they say they wanna change american society, or curb the power of Wall street, or how do they representat that to communties – because they have to explain why they're there, without being a charity