Queering Spanish Social Protests: “Body Coalitions” in Neoliberal Times

This paper focuses on how queer people are resisting neoliberal crisis and austerity measures in Spain together with other protest groups and mobilizations such as the already known as the “Spanish revolution”, the 15-M. In the presentation, I will try to show the radical feminist and queer genealogies of these “body coalitions”, to use Judith Butler´s expression, and its use of the injury and the performance in public spaces and on the streets as - a very powerful and quite effective- political strategy. I will also analyze its impact, arguing that the 15M, an heterogeneous and powerful protest movement which is fighting on the streets against social cuts in health, education and social services, among many other things, could not be totally understood without previous queer activisms and without the work that queer people are doing within it. As a matter of fact, the 15M has sometimes been criticized by leftist groups as not very assertive or strong enough in their strategies and tactics (meaning “masculine”, as we know) and as not very hard and forceful in these neoliberal and rough times… (meaning “queer”).