Beyond participation: the refurbishment process of Barcelona’s Rambla
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56247/qua.536Keywords:
Urban anthropology, political anthropology, public administration, citizen participation, postneoliberalism, governmentalityAbstract
During the years of government of the Barcelona en Comú coalition (2015-2023), a new area of citizen participation called Decidim was developed in Barcelona, in what was presented as a new governance strategy and a radical change in representative democracy within urban planning. This article analyses one of the most prominent participatory processes of this period, one aimed at redesigning the 2011 refurbishment plan for Barcelona’s Rambla. Dividing the process into two phases, that of the ‘participatory ritual’ and the subsequent one, in which the City Council manages the cooperatively ‘decided’ project, this article examines specifically the second phase, which allows us to note the impact of citizen participation in municipal governance. Thus, it addresses the operation of the supervisory body called Comunitat Rambla, its composition and its weight when it comes to supervising the implementation of the refurbishment. Ultimately, the aim of the article is to reflect on the legitimising function that the State, in its municipal expression, grants to the discourse of participation in order to achieve political and citizen consensus with respect to urban planning operations, with the addition that the latter must not only accept them but also become part of them.
Downloads
Global Statistics ℹ️
|
63
Views
|
36
Downloads
|
|
99
Total
|
|
References
Acosta, R. i Zamora, E. (2009). Antropología y participación pública. El caso de la masa de agua subterránea Osuna-Lantejuela. Anduli. Revista Andaluza de Ciencias Sociales, 8, 47-66. https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/anduli/article/view/3688
Aguirre-Núñez, G. (2025). Legitimar i ordenar: la participació ciutadana i la cultura institucional a la reforma de la Rambla de Barcelona (Tesi doctoral no publicada). Universitat de Barcelona.
Alonso, P., González-Álvarez, D. i Roura-Expósito, J. (2018). ParticiPat: Exploring the Impact of Participatory Governance in the Heritage Field. PoLar: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 41(2), 306-318. https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12263 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12263
Ajuntament de Barcelona. (2011). Mesura de Govern Pla Cor: Projecte d’intervenció integral de la Rambla. Recuperat 12 desembre 2023, de http://hdl.handle.net/11703/86214
Amics de la Rambla. (2024). Presentació de l’Observatori Rambla. Recuperat 31 octubre 2024, de https://www.amicsdelarambla.cat/cat/activitat/presentacio-delobservatori-rambla
Ajuntament de Barcelona (2023). Projecte Rambla. Projecte executiu de reurbanització. Recuperat 20 gener 2025, de https://bcnroc.ajuntament.barcelona.cat/jspui/handle/11703/132976
Betevé. (2023, juliol 4). Amics de la Rambla retira el comptador que denunciava el retard de la reforma del passeig. Recuperat 1 juny 2025, de https://beteve.cat/societat/amics-rambla-retira-comptador-retard-obres-passeig/
Cernadas, A., Chao, L. i Pineda, C. (2017). Participación ciudadana: de la participación en la gestión a la gestión de la participación. Política y Sociedad, 54 (1), 163-189. https://doi.org/10.5209/POSO.49980 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/POSO.49980
Cernea, M. (Ed.). (1991). Putting people first: sociological variables in rural development. Oxford University Press.
Cohen, J. i Uphoff, N. (1980). Participation’s place in rural development: Seeking clarity through specificity. World Development, 8 (3), 213-235. https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(80)90011-X DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0305-750X(80)90011-X
Decidim. Barcelona. (2024). Les Rambles: Projecte cooperatiu per la millora de la Rambla de Barcelona. Recuperat 30 gener 2024, de: https://www.decidim.barcelona/processes/lesrambles
Cortés-Vázquez, J., Jiménez-Esquinas, G. i Sánchez-Carretero, C. (2017). Heritage and participatory governance: An analysis of political strategies and social fractures in Spain. Anthropology Today, 33, 15-18. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12324 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8322.12324
Ferguson, J., i Gupta, A. (2002). Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography
of Neoliberal Governmentality. American Ethnologist, 29(4), 981–1002. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3805165
Garnier, J.P. (2006). Contra los territorios del poder: por un espacio público de debates y… de combates. Virus Editorial.
Gray, N. (2018). Neither Shoreditch nor Manhattan: Post-politics, “soft austerity urbanism” and real abstraction in Glasgow North. Area, 50(1), 15-23. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12299 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12299
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1987). Antropología estructural. Paidós.
Maza, G. (2002). ¿Participantes o participados? Por favor, no me representes. Dins Idensitat. Proyectos de intervención crítica e intervención social en el espacio público (pp. 223-228). Editorial Instituto de la Juventud.
McNulty, S.L. i Wampler, B. (2015). Participatory Governance. Dins R.A. Scott i S.M. Kosslyn (Eds.), Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (pp. 1-14). John Wiley & Sons. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118900772.etrds0248
Pares, M. (2009). Participación y calidad democrática: Evaluando las nuevas formas de democracia participativa. Ariel.
Roura-Expósito, J., González-Álvarez, D. i Alonso, P. (2019). Els efectes dels dispositius participatius en la gestió patrimonial del medi rural asturià. Revista d’Etnologia de Catalunya, 44, 46-64. https://raco.cat/index.php/RevistaEtnologia/article/view/370114
Roura-Expósito, J. (2023). “¿Ya has tenido suficiente participación?” Un análisis crítico de los dispositivos participativos en el régimen patrimonial. (Tesi doctoral, Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea). https://addi.ehu.es/handle/10810/66919
Roura-Expósito, J. i Alonso, P. (2018). Too little democracy in all the right places: a comment on Kelty 2017. Current Anthropology, 59 (3), 332-333. https://doi.org/10.1086/697962 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/697962
Ruano, J.M. (2010). Contra la participación: discurso y realidad de las experiencias de participación ciudadana. Política y Sociedad, 47 (3), 93-108. https://revistas.ucm.es/index.php/POSO/article/view/POSO1010330093A
Swyngedouw, E. (2005). Governance Innovation and the Citizen: The Janus Face of Governancebeyond- the-State. Urban Studies, 42(11), 1991-2006. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43197219 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980500279869
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Quaderns de l'Institut Català d'Antropologia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Use and Distribution License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
