The 503 Days Of “El Piquete De Londres”: A Diasporic Space And Moment

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AbstractThis article looks at the picket lines formed during the detention of Pinochet in London in October 1998. El piquete de Londres (“the picket of London”) involved the rerouting of a worldwide dispersed group of members of the Chilean diaspora to London, the recreation of a repertoire that combined contention and commemoration, politics and emotions, as well as local and international domains. Reflecting on those processes, the article argues that the 503 days of el piquete are part of a crucial moment and space: that of the diasporic. Through this, the Chilean diaspora’s distinctive connections to Britain were visibly (re)articulated while their sense of “home,” displacement, and belonging was, once again, reformulated. Along with turning our attention toward Britain’s “new” diasporas, this piece contributes to a critical tradition in migration studies which—while challenging essentialist approaches—conceives “diaspora” as a field of interaction, which is embodied and affective as well as historica...