Space Invaders in Barcelona: Political Society and Institutional Invention Beyond Representation

In the contemporary neoliberal urban dynamics, those agencies that are on

the margin of society constantly disrupt the boundaries of civil representation and forge

new institutional relations within the dynamics of urban governance. I explore how this

process was enacted at the turn of the century in Barcelona, looking at two coeval social

mobilisations: the lock-in of undocumented migrants in the Iglesia del Pi (2001), and the

project of las agencias at the Museum of Contemporary Arts (1999–2003), both of which

unfolded in the central neighbourhood of Raval. The invasion of the boundaries of civil

society emerges here as a double phenomenon—one that develops both within society

and in relation to institutions, instituting new modes of urban politics.