Self-publishing and the right to the city: Three portable utopias (Madrid/Barcelona, ca. 1978)

Abstract

This paper addresses the uses of self-publishing as a utopian support within social movements for the right to the city. Using the notion of “experimental utopia”, proposed by Henri Lefebvre, as well as the tools of publishing studies, periodical studies, oral history and social history, the case of three amateur (non-professional) publications, which appeared in Madrid and Barcelona around 1978, will be addressed in order to trace some of their uses within these movements. The Spanish context, then marked by the transition from a dictatorship to a representative democracy, is a privileged observatory to measure contemporary urban transformations, as well as the role of neighborhood movements in them. Finally, the aim is to enhance the value of this printed matter as a tool for historical, aesthetic and political knowledge.