The Production of Punishment on Social Mobilisation in the Neoliberal State. The Case of Catalan Pro-independence Movement

Abstract

This manuscript takes as its starting point the punitive extension of the neoliberal state over dissent and contentious political participation, questioning how the repertoires of judicial and police agencies lead to punitive actions, with material and symbolic violence. Starting from a legislative and political-media sphere of criminalisation of pro-independence activism, a dual strategy of punitive advancement against protest is identified. The first involves a resignification of the concept of violence projected onto collective action, together with an ideological interpretation by the courts, defined as judicial militancy. The second lies in an intensification of police violence as a tool for controlling political participation in the public sphere, derived from the activation of specific factors of the police subculture, such as the warmongering conception of protest, national defence linked to the illegitimacy of demands, a weak acceptance of legality and a habitus of male domination. This is an ethnographic study, with interviews with activists prosecuted in legal proceedings, lawyers and family members, a documentary analysis of legal and journalistic material on the cases, and participatory observation in protests within the period. A contextual study is carried out with the creation of a database of protests from 2017 to 2021 to identify their main features, such as police actions and those of the participants.