 After three years of work, a study on the organization and training of social groups has revealed that humor is one of the key pieces in the process of creating and maintaining groups ‘anti’. The analysis, unique in Spain, has been developed by the researcher with the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Cristina Flesher Fominaya.
The methodology used to prepare the study was based on the participation-observation system by which, the research conducted over thirty interviews at various levels to obtain reliable conclusions about it. Specifically, Flesher study focused on three anti-globalization groups in Madrid: European Social Consulta, Horizontal Space Against the War and the Laboratory of Disobedience, which showed a link between mood and cohesion of the group itself. The work is the result of the development of the doctoral thesis of Cristina Flesher between 2002 and 2005.
The so-called social control groups tend to reject direct links with political institutions, even leftist, basing their organization in a system of principles of horizontality, diversity, self-organizing, democratic participation and direct action. According to researcher UC3MCristina Flesher, “social groups with few resources, both financial and institutional, can use humor as a tool of political struggle.”
Humor as a form of cohesion
The work explains the role of humor while facing social group cohesion, such as how they use this tool anticapitalist groups themselves facing the institutions. The explicit use of humor as a political tool is something that still is not accepted by certain sectors of social movements in Madrid, and they think they can ignore the seriousness of their demands and criticisms. However, “the subversive humor has enough power” and “anti-humor little can be done,” says the researcher. On the very cohesion of social control groups, the study highlights that in such heterogeneous environments, humor also plays a role in the formation of collective identity. This is manifested in different areas as the creation of myths, jokes in common, charismatic leadership, membership and integration in the political arena.
Internet has changed the type and organization of anti-establishment groups, although not yet known whether positively or negatively. For Flesher, “The Web has increased the power of convocation and the ability to disseminate information, but also had some negative effects on group cohesion. Work is the only one that relates the humor and anti groups produced in Spain, and is located in a very concrete, the city of Madrid.
The article, entitled “The role of humor in the process of collective identity formation in autonomous social movement groups in contemporary Madrid” (The role of humor in the process of collective identity formation of groups of autonomous social movements in contemporary Madrid ) has been published in a special issue of the journal International review of social history engaged in social struggle and humor.
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 A team of researchers from different universities, with participation of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), made a scientific study that analyzes the functional disability of persons aged 65 years and their relationship with age, gender and education , among other parameters. The results indicate that in Spain, women and people with low education tend to have greater disability and functional limitations.
According to the authors of the study, education and education level are factors closely related to the dependency of the elderly. “Older people who had low levels of education have had more hardships throughout his life, being more exposed to social and economic adversity and have less access to resources such as good nutrition and good housing,” explains one of the study’s authors, Victoria Zunzunegui, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal (Canada). “These exhibitions – adds increased risk of chronic disorders and disability in old age.” Moreover, there are factors that increase the risk of certain chronic conditions in the female gender. “Due to stratification by gender, women have less education, worse jobs, lower income and fewer social and economic resources throughout their lives, so they tend to have greater functional disability in old age,” says Zunzunegui.
To do this research took advantage of data from a study that began in 1993 and was entitled “Aging in Leganes” which evaluates the support and the role of social networks in maintaining health and functionality of the Spanish elderly population. This will be tracked 1,540 older people in this town on the Community of Madrid between 1993 and 1999. “The sample size is large enough to provide interesting results, but what matters is not just size,” explains Maria Durban, a researcher on the project, the Department of Statistics UC3M. “According to national health survey of the year when the study began – more – The distribution by sex, marital status and education Leganés elderly population was similar to that of Spain as a whole, thus we can assume that this sample is representative of the Spanish elderly population, “he concludes.
Another conclusion that can be extracted from the article, published in the journal Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, is that the age at which disability has been shown delayed in Spain, where an aging population is important. “In 1999 the probability of disability in everyday activities at age 80 was about 20 percent, while in 1993 was 28 percent,” says Maria Durban. Thus, by delaying the age at which disability occurs and lengthen life expectancy, will see a new group of elderly people, mostly women, who concentrate high levels of disability and need assistance to remain at home. “The goal is to die more and without disabilities – precisely Zunzunegui -. The question is whether we have a class of centenarians with a poor quality of life that will consume many resources with high concentrations of disability. “
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 Dr. Miguel Angel Martinez Lopez, professor of Sociology at the Complutense University, has conducted over the past few years a study on the motion ‘squat’ in which it is concluded that this social phenomenon is much more open than you think and has exerted a substantial influence on the formation of anti-globalization movements.
The movement ‘squatter’ exists in Spain for over 20 years. “Beyond the protests of activists and the arrests and demonstrations that we see through the media, the truth is that he has accumulated extensive experience in the study of local political struggle,” says Miguel Angel Martinez Lopez, a sociology professor at UCM and the author of this latest study.
The counter element associated with squatting is not an exclusive feature of Spanish culture, but a common feature in Europe. In America the movement of squatters was promoted from various organizations assisting the homeless. Anyway, what is observed is that the resistance of every social group to oppressive living conditions generates a particular culture that includes specific forms of speech, dress, rules on value and loyalty to the group, identities and values, as well as friends and romantic partners.
The movement ‘squat’ in Spain has flexible boundaries and consists of different types of components such as fans, activists, residents and ‘users’ of social activities and cultural centers are organized into self-managed, which play a role social far more important than mere buildings used for residential purposes only.
Moreover, the movement ‘squatter’ Spanish, like what happens in other countries of the European environment tends to inbreeding and to protect the signs of their own identity. His claims do not focus on a single demand, scarcity and access to housing in Spain, but the movement includes critical to macroeconomic policy and administration of housing policy and cultural spaces by powers public.
The utopias of this movement have been historically limited to a particular social space. However, we can say that the movement has gradually opened up to participation in other types of social movements like the anti-globalization. Some people wonder if the squatting runs the risk of being subsumed within this “movement of movements” which for some it remains ephemeral. But the movement ‘squatter’ has its own identity issues, inspired by the slogans of the new social movements after 1968. The politicization of social spaces and experience in public affairs knowledge gained over the years, this movement has greatly inspired the anti-globalization movements.
Moreover, the ambiguous attitude of the judges on the legal challenges posed by the movement ‘squatters’ and the various social movements in our country in relation to access to housing confirm the importance of the social impact of the movement. Therefore, we can say that the practices and anti-utopian utopian movement have achieved a substantial part of social legitimacy, both locally and globally.
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 The activities of the Feminist Research Institute of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, developed the course ‘kinship systems and forms of family from a gender perspective’, directed by Dr. Rafael Diaz Maderuelo, Professor, Department of Social Anthropology UCM and a member of that Institute. The course proposes the establishment of a data recording method and the development of a model of comparative intercultural diversity categories.
This raises a critical reflection, from a gender perspective, the major anthropological theories that guide the analysis models of kinship, marriage and family. The central objective is to highlight some androcentric bias in mind, usually implicitly, in the ethnographic description and analysis of the various systems of kinship and family in traditional and modern societies.
From key texts in the history of the discipline in the field of anthropological study of kinship, we propose a method for recording data and the development of an intercultural model to try to compare aspects and categories of extraordinary diversity. It also reviews the different theories about the forms of marriage exchange and their relationship is not always possible to verify, with the terminology systems.
On another interpretation, there are formulas postnuptial residence, whose chances condition the formation of local groups that make up the affiliated units of each particular society they deserve a special analysis.
It is also necessary over the relations of domination social institutions in different societies, especially with regard to male control of women in the so-called patriarchal model.
Finally, the emergence of certain organizational forms emerging in contemporary urban-industrial societies, pulsed phenomena such as the incorporation of women into the labor market, globalization of the economy, multiculturalism and, on another level of meaning, by new biological methods of assisted reproduction have attracted the interest of scientists in studying this phenomenon.
All these issues are discussed in the course of extending its scope UCM academic fields such as law, economics or sociology and many professionals working in social integration problems or conflicts within the family.
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 A thesis notes that the proliferation of private Western security companies in poor countries is creating a new form of colonialism and postmodernism. The work reveals the roots of the legitimacy of these companies, to whom they are accountable and their impact on the sovereignty of the countries that use their services and security against the international system.
Since the early 90s have grown companies offering services in the field of security hitherto exclusive monopoly of states. These transnational firms providing services of police or military character profitable manner. The most recent and resounding is the Blackwater mercenary company hired by the U.S. government in Iraq and star of numerous scandals in his way forward.
The thesis, entitled Private security companies and postmodern colonialism in Africa: a view from the Philosophy of peace, Addresses the case of Angola and Sierra Leone, two African countries were among the first to make use of the services of a private security company (ESP). “The participation of the South African Executive Outcomes in the conflicts in these countries announced the arrival of the ESP as new actors in the international arena,” said Eric George, author of the study.
The investigation concluded that the ESP serve the strongest states in the international system, keeping under control to peripheral issues or resource rich. “The ESP offers an example of a new postmodern form of colonialism. One of its main features is the control of resources and power through non-state instruments,” said Eric George, author of the research.
The services offered by ESP are varied. Include writing safety reports, the protection of embassies, training armies, building military bases or the provision of combatants during conflict. In some countries the government has turned over the management of prisons, interrogation of prisoners, protection of oil infrastructure, recruitment and training of police forces.
Furthermore, the author points out that cases of Angola and Sierra Leone show the moral and intellectual necessity of considering how the attempts to link peace and security to business objectives influence how people perceive these concepts.
Thus, while postmodern colonialism illustrates the dangers of privatization of security, peace philosophy, which is part of this thesis, offers a vision of its possibilities. “It is true that privatization of security in Angola and Sierra Leone indicate a dangerous change, it is also true that it should be understood as an opportunity to subvert the concept of security and rebuilding the human skills to make peace. Perhaps the contribution most important of this work is that his study offers the possibility of change, “George Case.
The thesis has been conducted within the Doctoral Program of International Studies in Peace, Conflict and Development, by Professor of the Universitat Jaume I Vicent Martinez Guzman and Professor of United States International University in Nairobi (Kenya) Macharia Munene.
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