Youth, citizenship, and activism in the Chilean uprising

• In Event: Educational struggles in Latin America: Everyday Protests and Shifting Movements in Chile and beyond

Proposal

In late 2019, Chile experienced the most violent and massive demonstrations since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1990. To reduce social conflict, the government began a Constituent process that guaranteed unprecedented avenues of citizen participation. Although the proposal issued by the constituent assembly was ultimately rejected, the rapid and efficient formation of pacts among grassroots collectives and youth factions of political organizations facilitated the participation of independent sectors that have historically been excluded from the country's political decisions. There has been prolific scholarly production on youth political participation through non-formal means for the last two decades. Research on the massive Student Movements in 2006 and 2011 (e.g., Ancelovici & Guzmán-Concha, 2019; Donoso, 2013; Salinas & Fraser, 2012 Cárdenas-Neira, 2016; Tricot, 2012), the emergence of new generations of feminist movements often linked to the student movements (e.g., Alvarez & Navarrete, 2019; Lillo Muñoz, 2019; Reyes-Housholder & Roque, 2019), and on the socio-environmental movements promoted by student groups, movements or organizations (e.g., Cabello Cádiz & Torres, 2015), among others, suggests that student social movements have been central to the formation of organizations of various kinds. However, we know little about how activists reactivated their trajectories, experiences, and their networks to face the constituent process of 2022 in Chile, and how they educated themselves in the process. This ethnographic research asks: How did politically organized youth in popular sectors negotiate political and social strategies to face the social, political, and institutional crises during the constitutional process in Chile in 2022? How did their previous activist experiences inform their decision and strategies? Finally, how have these activists educated each other to pursue their collective goals? Following the geographical focus proposed by Davis (1999), and drawing on six months of participant observation and multiple interviews with eleven focal participants, I analyze how activists' and popular educators' professional training and their experiences in higher education activism, social and political collective work with marginalized populations reduced the distance between these communities and state institutions, facilitating negotiations and agreements that strongly impacted people's lives. The constitutional process forced Chilean organizations to define their positions, involvement, and strategies to address the national process, focusing their efforts on a state design that allowed dialogue with the social bases. This study shows how the dialogical focus of collective education promoted by young activists in political processes fundamentally reconfigured politics in Chile. More generally, the study brings a new and emerging case to the literature on citizenship and discussions about how social movements and youth activists are reconfiguring their relationships with the neoliberal state.

Author

• Pamela Natalia Reyes Galgani, University of Wisconsin-Madison