Moving Beyond Racism? Tensions Between Interculturalism and Conviviality in Chilean Schools from a Figurational Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT Efforts to overcome racism in Chilean school contexts have primarily been enacted through intercultural and conviviality policies. While indigenous people’s participation in schooling is much more equitable than in the past, we discuss some of the implicit tensions in staff members’ narratives about overcoming racism. We draw on a figurational perspective to underscore staff members’ perceptions of progress, the diminishing presence of racial discrimination toward indigenous students, and how this creates a sense of exceptionality. This, we argue, creates certain dangers of colour-blindness in these school environments. A figurational approach provides a long-durée perspective on racism as a social process that allows us to critique simplistic notions of progress and anti-discrimination, while also providing some countermeasures rooted in the concept of interdependency.