Highlighting key aspects of a democracy crisis: An ethnographic research of youth participation in the Chilean constitutional process

• In Event: The Landscape of Youth Political Engagement: Lessons and Implications for Educational Research and Practice

Proposal

In 2019, Chile witnessed the biggest and most violent social unrest since the end of the dictatorship in 1990. To reduce the social discontent, the Government held a plebiscite, in which most of the population voted in favor of drafting a new constitution by an Assembly mainly composed of historically excluded sectors in the country. Encompassing principles of plurinationalism, feminism, and environmental protection, the later rejected constitutional draft proposed by the assembly has been known to be the most progressive one in the world. This ethnographic research delves into how youth activists in Chile organized and advocated for political change during the constitutional process. Data collected after six months of fieldwork in Chile indicates that, in a setting obscured by the media's biased approach to the political process, the rapid dissemination of fake news, and the control of conservative sectors over the state obstructing fulfilling its role of generating conditions for informed and conscious voting by citizens, young activists were the only remained defending a collective construction of a genuinely democratic process. With extensive experience in social and political work in marginalized areas, these activists faced the challenge of defending a democratic constitutional process against the obstructionist forces deployed in the country, primarily focusing on creating educational opportunities for participation in areas marked by exclusion and social conflict. This study explores how youth political participation is challenging the various authoritarian and undemocratic enclaves that democracy is currently encountering worldwide. More broadly, this research will contribute to studies on citizenship and political participation and how young people are reformulating the participation collective channels that the new authoritarian wave has made obsolete.

Author

• Pamela Natalia Reyes Galgani, University of Wisconsin-Madison