Paper short abstract:

Even in times of crisis, households make their best to keep up their mortgage payments. Losing one’s home is not only undesirable, but also unthinkable, as mortgage debtors are stigmatized and tend to remain invisible. But is collective action counteracting this trend in present-day Spain?

Paper long abstract:

In a country of homeowners (or homeowners-to-be) like present-day Spain, it is commonplace to assume that, in times of economic hardship, households make their best in order to keep up their mortgage payments. This is seen as the crucial effort that secures a home, the material concretion of a family's wellbeing and stability. Failing to repay the mortgage is one of the most undesirable circumstances a household can face.

Indeed, the prospect of losing one's home does not only entail the inability to keep a shelter, but it threatens the home's broadest function as the spatial attachment of people's social inclusion (Kemeny 1992) and the main location of social reproduction (Carrier and Heyman 1997). This explains why, far beyond its undesirability, such situation is also constructed as something unthinkable. If it comes true, feelings of helplessness are aggravated by the stigmatization of mortgage debtors as losers in life.

Nevertheless, in front of the current wave of foreclosures, some voices are starting to be heard against their generalization among the weakest sectors of society. A vigorous social movement has arisen: the so-called Plataformas de Afectados por la Hipoteca are calling for mobilizations to prevent evictions, while they are suggesting a legal modification that would free already evicted households from their debts.

Drawing on the preliminary results of a research project on this matter, this paper considers the potentiality of collective action in order to render the inability to pay mortgages as a visible and, as a result, a 'thinkable' social problem.