Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Mapping the Neoliberal City: Pobladores Resisting Social Fragmentation in Chile

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Resisting Neoliberal Capitalism in Chile

Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ((MAENMA))

  • 360 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the pobladores movement’s practices of social critique and contestation to neoliberal housing policies in Chile. Rodríguez explores how the pobladores mapped the neoliberal city in Chile from their territories and how, in so doing, they redefined the city and themselves. The chapter shows the extent to which the discourse of contemporary pobladores successfully articulates a critical diagnosis of neoliberal housing policies in particular and of neoliberalism and capitalism in general through practices of self-management and self-education. The chapter concludes considering the utopian dimension of the pobladores’ practices of social critique, emphasising the role that the población, the community and the city play in the prefiguration of an anti-neoliberal project.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The smallest administrative subdivision in Chile.

  2. 2.

    UKAMAU stands for the expression ‘This is what we are’ in Aymara language.

  3. 3.

    The origin and definition of this entity is described by MPL as follows: ‘The New Housing Policy launched in July 2006 proposes a mediator between the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (MINVU), the Housing and Urbanism Service (SERVIU) and the beneficiaries of the housing subsidy, a role assumed by a private organisation, the Entity of Social Real Estate Management (EGIS). The EGIS are natural or legal persons, profit-oriented or not, that have been authorised by the respective Seremi (Regional Ministerial Secretary) to advise families in all the necessary aspects (technical and social) that allow them to access and apply a housing subsidy. The main tasks of the EGIS are to provide advice and take the necessary actions so that the families to whom they provide technical assistance can access and apply a housing subsidy. The EGIS must sign agreements with the respective Seremi de Vivienda y Urbanismo to submit projects to the Solidarity Fund for Housing and Urban Development, and receive a fee paid for these tasks’ (Renna 2011).

References

  • Angelcos, N. S. (2016). Movimento de pobladores. Lucha social y política en el Chile Contemporáneo. Educação em Perspectiva, 7(2). Available at: https://periodicos.ufv.br/ojs/educacaoemperspectiva/article/view/6892.

  • Angelcos, N., & Pérez, M. (2017). De la “desaparición” a la reemergencia: continuidades y rupturas del movimiento de pobladores en Chile. Latin American Research Review, 52(1), 94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arriagada, E. (2013). Clientelismo político y participación local: El rol de los dirigentes sociales en la articulación entre autoridades y ciudadanos en Santiago de Chile. Polis (Santiago), 12(36), 15–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boltanski, L. (2011). On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (2006). On Justification: Economies of Worth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruey, A. J. (2012). Limitless Land and the Redefinition of Rights: Popular Mobilisation and the Limits of Neoliberalism in Chile, 1973–1985. Journal of Latin American Studies, 44(3), 523–552.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castillo Couve, M. J. (2014). Competencias de los pobladores: potencial de innovación para la política habitacional chilena. Revista INVI, 29(81), 79–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cortés Morales, A. (2013). A Struggle Larger Than a House: Pobladores and Favelados in Latin American Social Theory. Latin American Perspectives, 40(2), 168–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dubet, F., Tironi, E., Espinoza, V., & Valenzuela, E. (2016). Pobladores: Luchas sociales y democracia en Chile. Santiago: Ed. Universidad Alberto Hurtado.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garcés, M. (2002). Tomando su sitio: El movimiento de pobladores de Santiago, 1957–1970. Santiago: LOM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garretón, M. A. (1988). Popular Mobilization and the Military Regime in Chile: The Complexities of the Invisible Transition. University of Notre Dame, The Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guanca, L., & Renna, H. (2010). El Momento de los Movimientos, Los Nuevos Tiempos de Igualdad. ¿Qué se abre con el Bicentenario?, Notas de Pensamiento Poblacional N º 2. Santiago de Chile: Unidad de Pensamiento Poblacional Movimiento de Pobladores en Lucha.

    Google Scholar 

  • Han, C. (2012). Life in Debt: Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile. Berkeley: University California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey, D. (2008). The Right to the City. The City Reader, 6, 23–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holston, J. (2008). Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Igualdad. Declaración de Principios. Retrieved from https://partidoigualdad.cl/declaracion-de-principios-de-igualdad

  • Igualdad. (2010). Acta de la Igualdad. Retrieved from http://partido-igualdad.blogspot.com/2010/02/acta-de-la-igualdad.html

  • Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • López-Morales, E. (2013). 10 Insurgency and Institutionalized Social Participation in Local-Level Urban Planning. Locating Right to the City in the Global South, 43, 221.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koppelman, C. M. (2016). Deepening Demobilization: The State’s Transformation of Civil Society in the Poblaciones of Santiago, Chile. Latin American Perspectives, 44(3), 46–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Massolo, A. (1988). Guillermo Campero. Entre la sobrevivencia y la acción política: las organizaciones de pobladores en Santiago. Santiago de Chile: Estudios ILET, 1987. 288 p. Estudios Sociológicos de El Colegio de México, 6(18), 635–641.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muñoz, C., & Cofré, R. (2016). Educación Popular Autogestionaria. Comunidad, Prácticas y Política Pedagógica desde el Movimiento de Pobladoras y Pobladores en Lucha. Santiago: Poblar Ediciones.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, E. (2015). For a Proper Home: Housing Rights in the Margins of Urban Chile, 1960–2010. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Oxhorn, P. (1994). Understanding Political Change After Authoritarian Rule: The Popular Sectors and Chile’s New Democratic Regime. Journal of Latin American Studies, 26(03), 737.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paley, J. (2001). Marketing Democracy: Power and Social Movements in Post‐Dictatorship Chile. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez, M. (2016). Becoming Political Subjects in the City’s Peripheries: Pobladores and Housing Struggles in Santiago, Chile. Berkeley: University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pérez, M. (2017). “A New Poblador Is Being Born”: Housing Struggles in a Gentrified Area of Santiago. Latin American Perspectives, 44(3), 28–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Renna, H. (Ed.). (2011). Siete y cuatro. El retorno de los pobladores. Lucha por la vivienda, autogestión habitacional y poder popular en Santiago de Chile. Santiago: Editorial Quimantú.

    Google Scholar 

  • Renna, H. (2013). Nunca nos sentimos derrotados. Interview with B. Loewe. http://archive.organizingupgrade.com/. Accessed Mar 2016.

  • Renna & Latorre. (2010). Movimiento de pobladores en lucha: Lucha, Autogestión y Educación Popular. Santiago de Chile: Unidad de Pensamiento Poblacional.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sabatini, F., & Wormald, G. (2004). La guerra de la basura de Santiago: desde el derecho a la vivienda al derecho a la ciudad. EURE (Santiago), 30(91), 67–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salazar, G. (2003). La historia desde abajo y desde dentro. Facultad de Artes, Universidad de Chile, Departamento de Teoría de las Artes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salcedo, R. (2010). The Last Slum: Moving from Illegal Settlements to Subsidized Home Ownership in Chile. Urban Affairs Review, 46(1), 90–118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salman, T. (1994). Challenging the City, Joining the City: The Chilean Pobladores Between Social Movement and Social Integration. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 13(1), 79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schneider, C. (1995). Shantytown Protest in Pinochet’s Chile. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Touraine, A. (1987). La centralidad de los marginales. PRO, 14, 214–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uitermark, J., et al. (2012). Cities and Social Movements: Theorizing Beyond the Right to the City. London: SAGE Publications Sage UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Unidad de Pensamiento Poblacional. (2010). Cuadernos de Pensamiento Poblacional, Nº 1, Implicancias de algunos programas de Sebastián Piñera. Sus impactos en el mundo popular. Santiago de Chile: UPP-MPL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valdés, T. (1987). El Movimiento de Pobladores 1973–1985. La Recomposición de las Solidaridades Sociales. In J. Borja et al. (Eds.), Descentralización del Estado. Movimiento Social y Gestión Local (pp. 263–319). Santiago: FLACSO.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Juan Pablo Rodríguez

Authors
  1. Juan Pablo Rodríguez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juan Pablo Rodríguez .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Rodríguez, J.P. (2020). Mapping the Neoliberal City: Pobladores Resisting Social Fragmentation in Chile. In: Resisting Neoliberal Capitalism in Chile. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32108-6_6

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation