Lived environmental citizenship through intersectional lenses: The experience of female community leaders in rural Chile

Abstract

The 2019 social uprising in Chile revealed the widespread discontent the citizens of this country experience. In particular, rural areas were part of this social mobilization during which discontent around environmental issues were particularly salient. However, we still know little about the daily experiences of environmental suffering outside urban areas, and the different ways individuals and collectives confront it. To tackle these issues and contribute to the broader discussion about environmental citizenship and non-traditional forms of mobilization and activism, we build on the experience of the “School for Female Leaders on Socio-environmental and Territorial Issues”, a research-action joint-venture project that brought together women from different non-urban districts of the Metropolitan Region with a team of social and social scientists and practitioners. Sharing experiences about environmental suffering and the particular ways female leaders respond led us to propose the concept of lived environmental citizenship, which accounts for the incompleteness these women felt in relation to the promises of formal citizenship, and their personal, community and political work to address it. This concept and the findings of our research contribute to enhancing discussions on gendered rural and environmental politics.