About Llúcia Ramis

Journalist

Outraged citizens, creative citizens

Times of crisis spawn a fresh awareness that seeks to change the system through people, in an attempt to win the city back for its inhabitants. New support and protest networks are created, habits and customs change, as do consumption preferences, and means of solidarity, critique and social condemnation are promoted.

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Society changes perpetually. In times of prosperity and abundance, it does so slowly but surely, in a transformation that is barely noticeable. The idea of success goes hand in hand with purchasing power: those who have the most make the most, and people only think of themselves.

When a situation ceases to be comfortable a way out must be found. After an initial phase of confusion, solutions are sought. Things start to happen quickly, and the perception that this evolution is possible generates an optimism that accelerates it even further.

Times of crisis spawn a fresh awareness that seeks to change the system through people, in an attempt to win the city back for its inhabitants. New support and protest networks are created, habits and customs change, as do consumption preferences, and means of solidarity, critique and social condemnation are promoted.

Consolidation comes from self-management, objecting to situations that displease us, giving way to a much more active, engaged and emancipated citizen, who is less trusting than before. This is according to a study drawn up by a specialised consultancy office in social psychology, commissioned by the City Council of Barcelona. These are the consequences of the advent of a new personal and collective awareness, which seeks to change the system beginning with its people and to win the city back for its inhabitants.

Crisis engenders a change in values

In etymological terms, crisis means “rupture”, critique is the analysis needed to make a judgement, and criterion means “adequate reasoning”. The crisis has sparked an awareness that in turn can translate into new values and proposals.

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The Encants Vells flea market in its new location in Plaça de les Glòries.

Any normal Saturday you might be awakened by the whistle of the knife-sharpener under your window. Or if it’s later, it might be the clanging of the butane gas seller beating his cylinder. These sounds were also familiar to our parents and our grandparents. You make yourself a cup of tea. You bought the tea online from a company based in Empordà that sells innovative products that are locally sourced and healthy; high quality herbal drinks with environmental values under the registered trademark Tegust, according to their website. With each purchase you’re contributing to expanding its farming area, supporting rural employment and participating in sustainable management. What is more, a tertiary-sector company packages the tea bags, so you’re also contributing to a social cause. Its creators have drawn up formulas to accomplish exclusive and highly Catalan flavours, such as non-alcoholic Ratafia or Aromes de Montserrat infusions.

You head out to the market. It’s pricier than the supermarket, but you like the atmosphere, the liveliness, and the fish is the best around. Well, except for the local fishmonger’s, but that’s not on your route today. The dairy products you buy are made by La Fageda, a cooperative that also sells jam products to match them, and is among the 25 leading companies with the best digital reputation.

Then you go to buy some steak at Casa Ametller, a once-humble stall in the weekly market in Vilafranca del Penedès now running 14 shops in Barcelona, which has become, as the owners proclaim, “your 21st century farmhouse”. An urban farmhouse, or one for urbanites, you say to yourself. Its objective is to offer healthy and balanced food while recovering the essence of its roots. Its fresh produce comes straight from the countryside, and its slogan, “We’ve closed the circle – we produce for you”, defines a philosophy driven by the values of honesty and commitment to customers, workers, suppliers and the environment.

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Aixada de Gràcia Cooperative, which promotes responsible local consumption.

Feeling good about yourself

You load your shopping into a wicker basket, because plastic bags have turned our oceans into an endless dump, and just the other day you saw a news piece about a dead whale whose innards spewed some 25 kg of plastic. You’re content in the knowledge that you’re doing your bit to save the environment, good deeds come easy, small gestures suffice, and they make you feel like a good person.

You go for a pre-lunch drink. Those truly authentic old wine bars that smell of wood, frequented not so long ago solely by the locals with toothpicks embedded in their teeth, are now the latest rage, always teeming with young late-thirty-somethings. This pre-lunch aperitif model with its anchovies, canned food and well-pulled draught beer inspired the creation of Morro Fi, a revamped take on its forerunner, which now runs three bars, has its own premises in the L’illa Diagonal shopping mall and markets its products in places such as La Central bookstore. Yes, one must admit that this pre-lunch drinks thing smacks of posing. But even so, this posing upholds tradition, recovering age-old customs. Customs that are part of our identity.

Afterwards, as you order some mussels and watch your friends arrive, some of them pushing baby-chairs with smiling toddlers, you get to thinking: are people rejecting that version of Barcelona – the one that’s like a tourist shop window beaming the BCN brand  and thinking that it’s the best boutique in the world –, in favour of a return to the authentic Barcelona?

Society changes perpetually. In times of prosperity and abundance, when most people are getting by fairly well, it does so slowly but surely, in a transformation that is barely noticeable. The idea of success goes hand in hand with purchasing power: those who have the most make the most, and people do little more than contemplate their own navel, are oblivious to how much they spend or what they spend it on, and splash out on the occasional whim because they feel they have earned it. This keeps the system going.

A crisis is a separation, a rupture. When a situation ceases to be comfortable a way out must be found, and the sooner the better. The initial phase of confusion may generate anxiety in the face of an uncertain future, but it is followed by another in which solutions are sought. Things suddenly start to happen quickly, and the perception that this evolution is possible generates a constructive optimism and yet more acceleration. Changes become visible.

The latest recession, linked to corruption, cutbacks in social and educational policies and in individual rights, the eviction of underprivileged families, demonstrators being treated as criminals, and a high unemployment rate – injustice in a nutshell – has led society to lose its trust in the institutions and to distance themselves from them. It has disavowed the leaders who, instead of running the country, seem to be bent on pursuing their own interests and ordering others around, full stop. A new awareness is afoot, one that seeks to change the system through people, attempting to win back the city for its inhabitants. New support and protest networks are being created.

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Gra de Gràcia, shop selling food products in bulk.

In a report commissioned by the Barcelona City Council, brand strategy consultants Labrand, who specialise in the study of social behaviour, states that one of the consequences of this shift in values is that people have begun to take to the streets to claim back public spaces for the community. Consolidation comes from self-management, objecting to situations that displease us, a different form of consumption and new financing options, giving a much more active and engaged, fully emancipated citizen, who is less trusting than before. The people have lost their innocence.

From outrage to reflection

The outrage that characterised the first stage of the crisis has morphed into reflection. Indeed, in etymological terms, crisis means “rupture”, critique is the analysis needed to make a judgement, and criterion means “adequate reasoning”. Therefore, the crisis has spawned an awareness that can translate into different aspects.

Despite the fact that universal values such as friendship or the family persist, other values are taking hold, ones that never used to be considered for marketing strategies, perhaps because they were taken for granted, and were superfluous, or perhaps because they did not have the meaning they have now. Currently, these values need to be reclaimed, and they are also a rallying call. Look back to the young food companies mentioned above, near the start: honesty, roots, tradition, sustainability, local-sourcing, health, commitment, solidarity, ecology.

A more direct relationship has been established between companies and consumers; the latter no longer just purchase, but rather have the impression that they are interacting with the environment in a responsible fashion. The produce of the land, clothes recycled at festivals such as Handmade or customisation workshops, craft methods for making beer and sweets, local pride, cooperatives and association-forming are becoming the city’s appellation d’origine.

This self-management might remind us of how medieval villages or towns used to operate: people made their own products and sold them to their fellow townsfolk. This created a world far removed from the federal lord to whom, naturally enough, tithes and tribute also had to be paid. “The great difference now is that we have come to realise that each and every one of us helps to build an active ‘whole’ so that every individual can change things through the community,” says Sergio Prieto, brand strategy expert and a member of the Labrand team.

Labrand’s conclusions are drawn from the observation of budding forms of expression that start off in a minority but are embraced by the general public shortly afterwards. Thus, analysis of the micro allows us to deduce how the macro will be affected.

Image of 2012 Prospe Beach, a beach volleyball tournament organised by La Prosperitat neighbourhood.

Cooperate, create and recreate

According to Labrand’s last study on behavioural changes, we have moved from the human factor, which last year characterised the reaction of society to the economic jolt, to a new stage, which besides being cooperative is also creative and recreational. Slogans such as “We decide”, “It can be done”, or “The street belongs to everyone”, bear out this participation-based ethos, which now and to an ever increasing degree is expressed in original ways and with a positive attitude.

For example, if the City Council decides not to invest in Nou Barris and refuses to lay sand on Prospe Beach, which for 20 years now has been hosting local activities and beach-ball volleyball Championships in Prosperitat, no problem: the associations take it in their good-natured stride, inventing “Concrete Prospe”, launching the Nou Barris cabrejada (Nou Barris Is Pissed Off) blog and setting up a beach in Sant Jaume square, where they protest with beach balls and placards. They good-humouredly contribute their own grain of sand.

The Hortet del Forat was created in 2005 in the so-called Forat de la Vergonya (Hole of Shame) in the Ribera neighbourhood. When the neighbours learnt that the 1999 city development plan intended to turn land rated as a green area into a car park they took to the streets, and in December 2001 symbolically planted a Christmas tree. New plantations were gradually added until that empty area became a common recreation and rest area. In 2008 they were even given a municipal subsidy for its upkeep.

Our neighbourhood: for you, for everyone

Barcelona, which was set to become the design capital, now pays tribute to its roots and traditions. People also want to make Barcelona a place for everyone, and supportive, critical and social protest initiatives are spreading.

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Portraits of neighbours from Poblenou exhibited on the street as part of the Now Poblenou project, which denounces the gentrification of the neighbourhood.

Parallel to the notion that, together, citizens can achieve feats that were once unthinkable, the neighbourhood sense of belonging is also growing. The balconies in the Barceloneta neighbourhood are festooned with flags commemorating its birth, to offset the image projected in recent years in the wake of what has been dubbed drunken tourism. Complaints have been replaced by a shared sense of pride.

Routes to discover Sant Andreu, the faces of Poblenou locals transformed into graffiti on the metal shutters of their stores, “The Water Trail” in Horta Guinardó, the Green Map of Sarrià, tapes routes, tee-shirts and shops that bear the Gràcia or Eixample brand, crowdfunding to save historic sites; together these all encourage residents to join a city-centred project. The city that they want.

And to give all this an identity, memories must be exhumed. Each place’s uniqueness is determined by its past. The defence of emblematic buildings or the photos of a Barcelona that no longer exists seek to rebuild it from its historic foundations. Its Roman legacy is resurging, as is the Bohemian epoch in which the middle-class and the rough parts of Barri Xino once hobnobbed on Avinguda Paral·lel, at the dawn of the 20th century. On crowdfunding site Verkami, the project to publish the book Un barri fet a cops de cooperació. El cooperativisme obrer al Poblenou  [A neighbourhood knocked together cooperatively. Worker cooperativism in Poblenou] has already raised almost 1,500 euros. It is the second volume of the Memòria Cooperativa de la Ciutat Invisible collection.

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Many residents of la Barceloneta proudly display the neighbourhood flag on their balconies.

The Núria bar in Canaletes and the old Niza cinema by the Sagrada Família are being given facelifts. The residents in the Badal neighbourhood convinced their town council to commit to recovering the air raid shelter. The cheap housing in Bon Pastor or the six thousand years of history of the Raval, inhabited by cattle-raisers and future farmers as far back as the Neolithic era, are the foundations of the city’s structure. People are also interested in discovering the hidden or more bizarre Barcelonas: the History of Gràcia workshop, for example, schedules a night-time walkabout to delve into the district’s darker history. Manel Gausa published Somorrostro, crònica visual d’un barri oblidat [Somorrostro, visual chronicle of a forgotten neighbourhood]. Strolls through cemeteries or moonlight walks, an underground sports race, a scientific route, sidecar tours, the smartest areas of the Born district with the help of a mobile app, or fishing-tourism are but some of the proposals that show us a city in hitherto unseen ways.

Authenticity is bound up with tradition. This city, which was supposed to become the design capital – pure aesthetics –, now pays tribute to the depth of its roots and traditions, such as pétanque, quintos (20 cl bottles of beer), meatballs, absinthe or mare’s milk.

Consumption and solidarity

Maybe you are one of those people who have your hair razor-cut at the barber’s. Maybe you are also a customer of the Les 1001 Dents clinic because you have the satisfaction of knowing that 13% of what you pay goes to funding healthcare for the needy. Knowing that you have contributed to a good cause makes that spectacular smile even more sincere and broader.

But let us not kid ourselves. Reality is still grim, but solidarity has helped it to put on a more festive face, not unlike your public-spirited smile. “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” said Mahatma Gandhi. The people of Barcelona no longer adapt to the city or meekly accept it; they are now learning how to manage it. And by making the city their own, by seeing that they can transform it, their enthusiasm is catching, and they try to help one another.

Several initiatives reveal an unseen, forgotten or hidden Barcelona. Here, the protest documentary Ciutat morta [Dead city].

Indeed, there are different initiatives ongoing to help you get to know the people around you better. SOS Racisme started up “Meals with the family next door” for residents from different cultural backgrounds to share meals. They thus start to break the ice while talking about independence, football and the recipe of what they are eating. In Barcelona, people of more than 150 different nationalities coexist, and shops and stores purvey ethnic products adapted to the new demands; the variety of purchasers is growing, as is that of the establishments’ owners.

In Sant Adrià de Besòs, in the section of the C-31 motorway that traverses the city, there is a photographic exhibition put on by the residents that clearly reflects this diversity. The youth group Taula Jove del Raval, together with organisations that fight social exclusion, started up a league between football teams to promote values such as teamwork, tolerance, respect and problem-solving among adolescents. The management team of the Fundació Arrels features two members with first-hand experience of being down and out. The Terrasseta restaurant in Gràcia doubles as a home-made fare eatery and soup kitchen. This city, devoid of architectural barriers, offers people with eyesight problems a home-loan book reading service and also transports medicine to the homes of people with mobility difficulties using WhatsApp, part of a trend to make sure that nobody feels invisible.

For some years now, the district of Ciutat Meridiana has been known as Evictionville. It is Barcelona’s poorest district, with the highest concentration of mortgage foreclosures in Spain. Its residents’ association is the main promoter of demonstrations to thwart evictions in the area, assisted by the Plataforma d’Afectats per la Hipoteca [Mortgage Victim Platform]. At its assemblies, where the people affected can have their say, “fraternity” is an oft-heard word.

Brotherhood as a value is gaining currency, as are the “occupational happiness recipes” cooked up by the IBO Foundation, the League of Pragmatic Optimists, or the BarcelonaActua solidarity social network. A university social responsibility entity has been created, and the organisations that look after people who live in the street have also promoted Hatento, an observatory that monitors hate crimes against the homeless.

There is a willingness to help to make Barcelona a city for everyone, and to do so with good vibes. Tell-all documentaries such as Ciutat Morta [Dead City] or Bye Bye Barcelona opened the public’s eyes and vitalised them. After using their right to protest with varying degrees of fortune they decided to take a different tack. Perhaps this attitude is somewhat naive, but the system works because it is attractive and pleasant; it does not scare off the more cautious people who also want to get involved. Everyone feels affected, and therefore involved as well. Slowly but surely it is yielding its fruits.

Individuals, couples and families

If capitalism created new mass needs and depersonalised consumers, now it is the consumer who looks for, selects and is willing to pay for a good idea; they want something different. We now do things to suit other people and their tastes.

© Dani Codina
An activity designed for families: Brunch Electrònik, in Poble Espanyol last April.

The scientists of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine filmed a music video in which they dance to attract sponsors to fund their research into cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes. One of the video signs reads: “Together we can make the difference”. This “together” is all about individuality (not individualism). Or in other words, the ensemble of individualities that make up the whole. We have gone from do it yourself to making things to suit other people and their tastes. For others.

Success is no longer measured by purchasing power. In fact, in hard times, people look warily at the well-off. Now the person who triumphs is the one who takes risks and pursues what they want to. The reward is that their customer, either because they buy a picture frame, fruit they have grown themselves or repaired their shoes in Barcelona’s uptown Bonanova district, feels exclusive. Both of them are rewarded. The purchaser is happy in the knowledge that they have picked up a unique article and are treated in a personalised fashion; they want to have the impression that they are not part of an anonymous quick-deal production chain but rather party to an exchange between peers.

If capitalism created new mass needs and depersonalised consumers, now it is the consumer who looks for, selects and is willing to pay for a good idea; they want something different. Passeig de Gràcia is a showcase for brands that lure tourists, although many people from Barcelona prefer the neighbourhood shops where they can try on that jersey or necklace made by a designer at an affordable price. Second-hand and vintage furniture purchased at the Encants flea market and restored with good taste in places like Mueblé, are fast becoming an alternative to IKEA’s worn-out options. There is a shared language. A direct and close, almost intimate relationship is created between transmitter and receiver. “I like what you’ve made”, and “I’m happy you have what I made”.

Restaurateurs also target their customers and offer them added value to set them apart from the rest. On the one hand, increasingly more bars accept pets in a city in which 15% of the families own a cat or a dog. Bar Mudanzas, Bar Calders in Sant Antoni and Casa del Llibre bookstore accept animals. The journalist Micaela de la Maza has published a guide about this. There are also hairdressers for dogs that offer self-cleaning services, and tailors, spas and “doggie parks”, such as Barkcelona.

Moreover, the smoking prohibition in these kinds of premises has led them to be adapted to make room for baby-buggies. Parents with babies no longer meet only in the park; now they can socialise in teashops or even in bakeries that serve coffee. Some restaurants have started up campaigns to attract families with children, and some shops now have little tables, chairs and toys to keep the toddlers amused.

The point is that you do not have to be a stay-at-home just because you are a parent. There is an increasingly greater number of activities for all the family, such as The Family Run race, open to runners of all ages. Valkiria Hub Space is a co-working space with an annex where working mothers can leave their babies. Students from La Salle d’Horta school teach reading, writing and arithmetic to pensioners in the district. People of all ages coexist and mingle in their day-to-day life.

Kids rule at Sónar Kids, but the fact is that there are offers aplenty for them to learn art, music, science, the theatre or circus while having good fun. It is said that creativity is a talent that is available to everyone, and that it need only be nurtured for it to bloom. We are inspired by our environment.

City of eroticism

© Antonio Lajusticia
Photomosaic mural by photographer Joan Fontcuberta titled El mundo nace en cada beso [The world begins with every kiss], in Plaça d‘Isidre Nonell in the district of Ciutat Vella.

If Paris is known as the city of love, the city of eroticism had to be Barcelona at the beginning of the 20th century, and it may well be recovering that trend now.

Stable relationships are old hat and applications such as Tinder or Grindr are helpful for sporadic hook-ups, especially in what may be the West’s only city where people do not talk to each other in bars. Here and here alone, a woman can sit by herself or with a friend at the bar and nobody will chat her up, let alone look at her.

Barcelona is small. When all’s said and done, someone always knows someone else, and there’s a certain widespread fear of what people will say and of making a fool of oneself. Therefore, while it does have reputed swingers clubs, you’ve never been to one, because imagine if you ran into someone you’d rather not.

It is not about prudishness or shame. People take sex naturally here. BDSM has become popular, the Palosanto restaurant serves up porn-cuisine and Happ Barcelona has organised tuppersex debates with drinks. The Gestalt therapy centre in Gràcia puts on Tantra workshops for men and the Aprosex prostitutes’ group gives a course to teach their trade, since the profession is on the up. Perhaps the rise of this profession has been prompted by a certain type of tourism, which, to the mind of many Barcelonians, perverts the city, making it pornographic, like a money-grabbing funfair bereft of personality. Dealing in this kind of tourism might rake in the cash and promote business, but Barcelona’s veritable wealth is ultimately generated by the people who live in it and for it.