Chile's Poor in the Struggle for Democracy

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

In response to the drastic socioeconomic transformations executed by the military regime over the last decade, new forms of social resistance have appeared in Chile. As a result, the shantytown has eclipsed the factory and neighborhood organizations have displaced trade unions as the locus of action. Along with similar social movements unfolding in South Africa and more recently in Haiti, the mass struggles of Chile's unemployed and urban poor raise important questions about the nature of class conflict and the forms of social organization most relevant for understanding social transformation. As social and activity becomes increasingly rooted in the place of residence (thereby bridging the distance between family and political life), a new dramatis personae-shantytown women and youth-have taken center stage in the social struggles now taking place in Chile. Both as organizers and participants in the social mobilizations of the poor, shantytown women and youth are breathing a new life into social movements and, in the process, are profoundly affecting the direction of contemporary struggles in Chile. Through their ability to develop new types of organizations, actions, and mobilizations, the chronically unemployed and urban poorwomen, men and youth-have been at the forefront of the popular struggle challenging authoritarian rule, transforming themselves from victims to protagonists, from social outcasts to social actors. Given their specific weight in the overall social mobilizations against military rule, the actions of the urban poor and the unemployed are emerging as an important factor shaping the conditions under which the military dictatorship will come to an end.