Debats UB analyses the risks of a fracture in Catalan society and present action lines

The vice-rector for Equal Opportunities and Social Action and Secretary-General, Maite Vilalta, opened the debate, the first to be carried out online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, Víctor Climent, head of the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Economics and Business and chairperson of the session, presented several questions for the speakers to participate.

Jaume Font, lecturer of Regional Geographical Analysis at the UB, defended that Catalonia is a diverse society and that “the problem lies in how to manage it”. In these lines, he noted that there is a series of politicians that see things differently from those we had in the Spanish transition period. He said the “Catalan discomfort is a reflection of the discomfort in the world” and contextualized the Catalan process in the so-called liquid modernity. From a geographer perspective, Font referred to how the study of the Catalan territory was planned in this discipline as well as the work of the geographers in the Toledo Group and the study “Re-thinking the State”. Font continued with an analysis of the electoral results in Catalonia to state there is a fracture, since urban and coastal areas vote differently than interior areas. He also talked about nation as a “human construct” and supported the ideas that need “to sew the country” and that “perhaps voting is not the solution, but we need to vote for a solution”.

Miquel Martínez, professor of Theory of Education at the UB, focused his speech from a pedagogical perspective. He noted that “the feature of plurality in Catalonia” has been “affected” and said that Catalan society is “eroded and disappointed”. Martínez focused part of his speech to present “proposals for an improvement and advance towards a plurality that identifies us, a loved plurality by young generations”. He supported a “an inclusive social system and school model”, in which we can “build something together” so everyone can be part of a project. He also defended a valued democratic education, in which the dialogue is seen as “a way of being in disagreement in a dignified and constructive way”. Moreover, he advocated the school as a place for “debate, participation and conversation”. Last, he refereed to other present fractures in society and concluded: “People need to feel equal and free so that can society can advance”.

Marina Subirats, emeritus professor of Sociology at UAB, approached her speech based on the principle that in every society there are “groups with several interests and tendency to confrontation” and that “the strongest tendency is always social class confrontation”. Regarding Catalonia, “itʼs been many years there are more risks due to the economic fracture”. “With democracy we reached a certain equalization, but after the year 2000, inequality started growing”, she said. In this context, the sociologist added that Catalonia has a working class coming from a non-Catalan origin and that “Catalan society is divided by approximately a 59% in favour or against of the procés”. Also, unlike in previous periods, “the Catalan bourgeoise that built the Noucentisme in Catalonia does not exist anymore due to globalization; we stepped into a transnational class”, she continued. Subirats considered the independent movement as a format for a middle class formed by high-level wage-earners, the old middle class affected by globalization and the non-urban Catalonia. After this analysis, the sociologist concluded that we need to abandon “frontist positions” and strengthen Catalonia to increase cohesion.