Combining science and experience: Alternative expertise in the housing rights movement in Catalonia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56247/qua.618Keywords:
Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca (PAH), housing movement, knowledge, counter-expertise, strategic positivismAbstract
Social movements produce a wide variety of knowledge. Although the literature tends to distinguish between “activist knowledge,” closely linked to subjective experience, and “techno-scientific knowledge,” based in objectivation, the cognitive practices of many movements tend to blend this dichotomy. To illustrate this claim, this article focuses on the counter-expertise practices of the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca, PAH), which consists of the production and treatment of quantitative and qualitative data on residential injustice. We argue that the PAH’s involvement in the development of this type of knowledge stems from its advocacy strategy aimed at influencing the content of legislative and policy reforms. We also argue that this type of knowledge is the product of work carried out by a network of diverse actors endowed with resources that make such work possible.
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