Recasting "Popular" Movements

Abstract

The fundamental role of women is a key feature of recent neighborhoodbased organizations in Chile, and this raises some important questions about the way in which so-called popular movement organizations, and popular movements more generally, have been analyzed. Women's involvement in neighborhood-based activities is not new in Chile. During the 1960s and particularly during the early 1970s, women joined a variety of organizations in their neighborhoods or poblaciones. The 1980s, however, saw a veritable explosion of organizations. Moreover, the forms these recent organizations have taken are new. Groups in the urban periphery of Santiago are predominantly economic groups or handicraft workshops in which people generate some form of income. More than 90 percent of those involved in them are women (Hardy, 1987; Bustamante, 1985). Furthermore, comparative studies show that the overwhelming presence of women in neighborhood organizations is a phenomenon recurring throughout Latin America (e.g., Barrig, 1991; Corcoran-Nantes, 1990). The newer organizations emerged in the mid-1970s with the aid of the Catholic church as a response to the devastating effects of the economic policies and political repression of the Pinochet regime. Although the church continued to be their main supporter, these groups also received help from other sponsors-national and international nongovernmental institutions (NGOs). Today the political context in which the neighborhood organizations emerged has changed, but the economic situation of the poorest segment of Chilean society has not significantly improved. Patricio Aylwin's center-left coalition government has taken some steps to change this. For example, in 1991 it doubled the minimum monthly wage. However, recent statistics show that neither unemployment nor subemployment has decreased significantly