Abuse and Disobedience: Chile’s October and "the end of Neoliberalism".
This panel event marks the launch of special edition for Social Identities journal (Vol 27, Issue 5).
Date: Postponed
Time: 3-4:30pm (UK)
Link: This event will take place via Zoom.
'Neoliberalism was born in Chile and will die in Chile'. This chant resonated the days following October 18th 2019, when the first country where neoliberal economic policies were implemented by force in the 1970s, saw the rise of the most significant social mobilization in its history. It was sparked by hundreds of high school students dodging the turnstiles of metro stations in Chile's capital city, Santiago, in protest at the 30 pesos rise in the fare of the metro network. They were soon followed by millions who saw an open the door to express long-ingrained discontent in this act of disobedience.
Two years later, and as one of the primary outcomes of the revolt, Chilean people are writing their constitution for the first time in their history and with considerable popular support. The writing up process involves elected representatives, gender parity, and the mandate of conducting local and grassroots meetings to bring greater validity to the writing process.
How did the country that saw neoliberalism being installed and grow put up a disobedient process reaching social, political, patriarchal and economic dimensions? Will neoliberalism end? These questions will be part of a presentation/conversation between contributors to the special edition, Lieta Vivaldi and Sebastián Ureta, the co-editor of the special edition, Jorge Saavedra Utman; moderated by Dr David Lehmann.
- Dr Lieta Vivaldi, Lecturer at the Law School, University Alberto Hurtado, Chile, author of "Feminist revolution: a fight for recognition, redistribution and a more just world"
- Dr Sebastián Ureta, Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University Alberto Hurtado, author of the article "Constituting Chileans: the Cabildos of October 2019 and the trouble of instrumental participation"
- Dr Jorge Saavedra Utman, Teaching Associate at the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, and co-editor of "Abuse and Disobedience: Chile's October and the end of Neoliberalism".