Chile 2017–2019

Abstract

Like the prodigal sons and daughters of 1960s and 1970s protests, in Chile, on 18 October 18, 2019, the University of Chile campus and public space—the site of discourse and the site as studio—were, in Habermas’ words, re-appropriated in “a contemptuous disregard for democratic institutions and processes”, the opposite to the idea of pluralism, thus of education. The mythical role of the Situationist International in the May ‘68 student uprising defined the event as a central concept of interventions. Interventions in Public Space (IPS) is a transdisciplinary undergraduate course for students of architecture, geography, and design that broadens and questions the intervention as an event through student’s critical reading, debate, and physical IPS. In practice and by location, ongoing university student protests have intersected the university campus, public space, and pedagogy. The Estallido Social (urban insurrection), begun in October 2019, distinguished itself by the unprecedented protester violence and destruction of urban infrastructure, architecture, and built heritage. The key sites of study, analysis, and intervention for IPS coincided with those that became the epicenter of the five-month Chilean October urban insurrection (18.O). In this chapter, the authors analyze the IPS student journals (2017–2019) that interpret and record the course activities as compared to the urban reality and the daily reality of the urban insurrection. In conclusion, we identify issues connecting and impacting upon the pedagogy of IPS.