Surveying protesters of indigenous causes: A comparative study of Argentina and Chile

• In Event: Methodological approaches to the study of social movements in Latin America

Abstract

During the last two decades, indigenous movements and parties have risen across Latin America. As a consequence, the longstanding problems of racial discrimination and oppression have become a central part of national policy agendas in many countries of the region. While there has been an upswing in the scholarly production on this political articulation in countries such as Bolivia, Mexico and Ecuador, to name a few, we know very little about this process in countries like Argentina and Chile. Who promotes indigenous causes in these two countries? To what extent do the social composition and the motives for participating in the protests vary in Argentina and Chile? This paper presents the results of a survey of protesters participating in the indigenous protests around October 12 in Argentina and Chile in 2015. The study applies the survey sampling technique developed in the collaborative research project “Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation” (CCC) (www.protestsurvey.eu), which has been employed in eight European and four Latin American countries.

Authors

• Sofia Donoso, Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies

• Federico M Rossi, CONICET