Toward a life with dignity:

Abstract

In the last decade, poor urban residents in Santiago, Chile, have powerfully struggled for the right to housing. They have done so by enrolling in neoliberal housing programs through which they seek to become homeowners by both saving money privately and applying for subsidies. In a context in which market‐based urban policies have contributed to the segregation of low‐income families in the city's peripheries, the right to la vida digna (life with dignity) has emerged as the new political horizon of these struggles. As a right based on a moral category like dignity, la vida digna reveals the actions and discourses through which the poor, while becoming ethical subjects, signify their everyday experiences with vulnerability in political terms. [dignity, morality, housing struggles, vulnerability, Santiago, Chile]

Narrating the Chilean Social Revolt through and against Stigma: The Case of Two Older Women from a Stigmatized Neighborhood

“…As in other parts of Latin America, homeless Chileans fought hard for a home of their own, giving rise to the pobladores movement (Cortés 2021). Through collective organization, often under the guidance of political parties, the pobladores carved out a space in the city, building their own homes and communities and articulating their needs by calling on the state to guarantee them their rights, thus enacting a dignified life (Murphy 2015; Pérez 2018). In doing so, the pobladores also countered the long-standing, pervasive stigma that categorized them, for being poor, as morally deviant (Cofré Schmeisser 2015) and unclean (Álvarez-López 2019).…”

De extranjeros a ciudadanos urbanos

“…De allí que, para afirmar su identidad como sujetos responsabilizados capaces de demandar derechos a través de categorías morales como el esfuerzo y el sacrificio (cf. Pérez, 2018), construyan formas de ciudadanía que distinguen de manera clara a los residentes del campamento, sobre la base de una evaluación ética y estética de sus formas de habitar y autoconstruir el territorio. Del mismo modo que la autoconstrucción, desde su constitución como ciudadanos, presenta una temporalidad específica marcada por la continuidad, persistencia y prolongación en el tiempo.…”

Nostalgic neighborhood belongings: Theorizing the interrelationship among nostalgias, belongings and neighborhood changes

“…Since the 2000s, different forms of resistance to these processes have emerged. While some groups value and defend local communities, their self-management and selfcare (Guëll & Yopo Díaz;Pérez, 2018;Tironi & Rodríguez-Giralt, 2017), others seek to protect and visibilize them in urban spaces (Palacios, 2018). It is in this context of change and social tension that the article is interested in nostalgia as a way of making sense of the current world.…”