Common culture

This chapter presents an analysis of Podemos as, first of all, an outcome of the shrinking space of privilege in post-crisis Spain and the social mobilizations that followed, and, second, a potential producer of a more democratic or “common” political culture through its different performative actions in institutional spaces. Drawing on theorizings of space as a structured and (re)structuring force that regulates broader social relations (Lefebvre 1991), I first discuss the intrinsic relation between Indignad@s’ particular uses of space, the development of a common social position for this social movement, and the emergence of Podemos as a political project. Then, I focus on Podemos’ ability to overcome the fixing trap of place, or the attaching of certain meanings to only a particular location, which was possible thanks to a further spatial “reterritorialization” (Deleuze and Guattari 1988) beyond the plaza, and the “streets” more generally. I argue that, through different performances of politics geared toward the reappropriation of institutional spaces such as Congress or Parliament, Podemos tried to challenge the dominant, unmarked—but equally performative—accepted practices that constitute these spaces through exclusion. Overall, although still in need of being further integrated as part of Podemos’ hybrid project, these powerful performances of politics can be seen as manifestations of cultural (re)production and potential political transformation.

The formation of the social values and the transformation of these values into consept of culture, which is used as a symbol of human behaviors and to convey it, determines the nature of the society materially and spiritually. By the industrialization, the concept of culture has rapidly changed and gained a new identity, compared to the previous eras great changes emerged in the society. people have been almost totally reshaped. With the effect of the rapidly develpoed technology, the courses of conduct peculiar to a society could easily reach to others and are accepted and embraced in a faster way. With the spread of technologic developments and become more effective, economically and ideologically new courses of consumption emerged. Consumption is started to be used as a tool that determines the status of people in a society rather than fulfilling the basic vital needs. In the new social structure in which the individuals are identified as consumers, they are alienated from their essence and they tend to keep up with the majority and industrialization, globallization, mass production to the everyday life, a standardized culture is formed and besides the effect on the social structure, the subject of design is also discussed. The consumption-oriented global-cultural common design language. With the production, consumption and culture concepts, the new design furniture and design understanding will be discussed by taking fast production-consumption courses-which is relied on common culture, easy to reach and fast into consideration.