Questioning Traditional Citizenship:

Memory, Identity and Collective

Action in Chile
March 13, 2015

By Simn Escoffier
In this post I contest traditional liberal conceptions of citizenship rooted in the nation-state
and consider the role played by memory in the ways in which Santiago de Chiles
disenfranchised produce contentious politics.
I suggest that, by referring to the past in their meetings and conversations, local
neighbourhood organisations in Santiago de Chiles poor settlements (poblaciones) assert a
particular, anti-hegemonic interpretation of history. Through stories, historical anecdotes, and
different types of memorials, poor residents produce a neighbourhood identity, giving rise to
innovative forms of community membership.
Referring to the influence of the past in contentious politics in the favelas, James Holston has
also proposed novel approaches that allow a rescaling of citizenship. In his bookInsurgent
Citizenship, Holston (2008) argues that history lurks below the surface of our porous present,
sometimes leading to the eruption of movements that question historically entrenched
regimes of urban citizenship. However, Holston does not explain precisely how this
determining relationship between history and contentious mobilisation occurs. My
ethnographic research in Santiagos poblaciones explores this issue directly, examining the
role of memory in the production and re-production of an identity of struggle.

In the first half of the 20th century, South American cities grew rapidly due to rural-urban
migration. The Chilean governments inability to provide proper accommodation for urban
newcomers resulted in very poor living conditions. Overcrowded and living in informal
housing, the poor experienced health and sanitation problems, insecurity, lack of social
services, and many other difficulties.
As a way of demanding their right to housing, what became known as the movimiento de
pobladores (the dwellers movement) coordinated land seizures, occupying brownfields and
abandoned areas and erecting dwellings. After 1945, squatting became a common method of
obtaining urban land, shaping Chilean cities especially in Santiago. Seen as a way of
challenging capitalistic dispossession, occupations were coordinated and helped by leftist
political parties and other groups. Under the banner of popular power, the Leftist
Revolutionary Movement (MIR) coordinated several land seizures especially in the late
1960s becoming highly influential within these poblaciones. Despite being severely
repressed
initiatives,

by

the

Pinochet

protesting

dictatorship

against

social

(1973-89), poblaciones organised

and

economic

resistance

deprivation

and

oppression. Poblacinlocal activism flourished throughout the 1970s and 80s, supported by
the Vicariate of Solidarity progressive branches of the Catholic Church internationally
funded NGOs, left-wing political parties, and radical armed groups (such as the FPMR and
the Lautaro Youth Movement).
In 1988, led by a coalition of parties called Concertacin por la Democracia, Chile regained
democracy through a referendum. The Concertacin ruled until 2010, consistently deepening
the neoliberal policies implemented by Pinochets regime. Different authors have sought to
explain why, despite democratisation, the Chilean urban grassroots movement became
significantly less active after 1990. In line with a few other local scholars, my research shows
that, although the dwellers movement ceased to exist in the form it had taken in the 1980s,
there were several substantial initiatives that marked a continuity of mobilisation during the
1990s and 2000s.
During my fieldwork I spent a large amount of time with local organisations. In meetings,
other informal gatherings, and interviews, I noted that, instead of referring descriptively to
the past, people involved in poblacin organisations tended to perform a particular,
independent narrative of the past in a way that produced a position of agency in the present.
When talking about the past, informants started by presenting an oppressive, frustrating
situation only to subvert it through successful stories of collective activism. For example,
after

the

military

decided

to

appoint

local

neighbourhood

committee

leaders

undemocratically to control poblaciones at the micro-level, contentious activists successfully

infiltrated those committees, influencing decisions and secretly expanding local access to
information.
Unlike in most other Chilean social spheres, people in poblacin contentious organisations
spoke of the 1989 democratic transition as a defeat and a betrayal. For them, the national
political elite betrayed the leftist revolutionary project, which aimed to topple Pinochets
regime from the grassroots. Along these lines, and echoing other opinions and informal
communications, a leading resident stated: back then we called people not to vote in the
referendum () After all we fought and suffered, the Nos victory [in the referendum] was a
terrible defeat for us, because it meant negotiating with the dictatorship. For neighbourhood
organisations, parties not only coordinated the democratic transition with the military, they
agreed to implement an unequal economic system that strengthened class segregation.
Accordingly, for poblacin dwellers, the creation of the Concertacin during the 1980s and
the democratic transition led to a separation between the grassroots and political parties
resulting in increasing neglect of the formers political role and ideological concerns.
Expressing a strong identity of struggle, contentious politics emerges in these
neighbourhoods as a reaction to and subversion of historical developments that are
understood as oppressive. This identity affords legitimation, recognition and pride.
Accordingly, for example, poblacin contentious organisations tend to reject any interaction
with authorities and political parties (only some compromise to obtain government benefits).
In addition, emulating some of their principles and repertoires of action, neighbourhood
organisations express admiration for past radical groups, hence reaffirming their subversion
of an oppressive past. Narrating memory in their own way, poblacin dwellers produce an
alternative form of belonging through activism, prioritising informal connections and
working primarily at the neighbourhood level. Residents capacity to produce their
community by defining the meanings of their urban habitat is one of the most crucial and
yet highly overlooked rights to be exercised in current society. While it is true that most
Chilean poblaciones demobilised after the 1990s, my research demonstrates that a few of
them have been able to produce alternative forms of citizenship.
References
Holston, J. (2008) Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in
Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Simn Escoffier is a DPhil candidate in Sociology at St Antonys College, University of
Oxford

This post is part of our Sociology of Citizenship series, hosted in partnership with Politics in
Spires.