Communicative action and immunity in the face of sexual abuse in the CREA academic cult: an anthropological analysis

Abstract

This article analyzes the communicative strategy developed by CREA, a research group founded and led by Ramón Flecha at the University of Barcelona, in relation to the accusations of sexual abuse, coercion, and sectarian practices leveled against its leader. Drawing on an examination of the group’s historical narrative, its discursive mechanisms, and its communicative deployment across mainstream media, social networks, and its own publications, the paper argues that CREA, under Flecha’s leadership, has constructed a sophisticated apparatus designed to secure his immunity from sexual abuse allegations. The analysis identifies a strategy based on the systematic dissolution of boundaries between the public and private spheres, the production of a unilineal and self-referential discourse, the recurrent appeal to supposed “scientific evidence” legitimized by a vague “International Scientific Community,” and the creation of foundational myths serving an immunizing function. It also examines the role of CREA’s own pseudo-media outlets and social networks in legitimizing the leader, including mechanisms for purging dissenting and critical voices. The article interprets these mechanisms through perspectives drawn from studies on coercive groups, highlighting the structuring dimension of communication within CREA. It concludes that the group’s communicative strategy does not respond to improvised dynamics of academic self-promotion, but rather constitutes a coherent project of power centralization and the creation of conditions for the normalization of Flecha’s sexual access to women within the organization.