Tactics of the Body: Activism and Resistance in the Crisis City

For contemporary activism, the body is the first territory for resistance. From a multi-sited ethnography conducted in Spain and other European countries from 2008 to 2012, analysis of its political uses will lead us from the "techniques of the body" (as studied by Mauss) to tactics of the body. Moreover, in an international context of political and socio-economic crisis, the city becomes not only the scene of the action but is itself at stake. The challenge is to understand the resistance of activism based on the interrelationships of the body and the city, in the knowledge that the further the latter spreads, the greater the significance acquired by the former. From anti-globalisation to recent movements like 15M, the body and the city are gaining a remarkable importance.