Paper short abstract:

Neoliberal Chile is often seen as fragmented and individualistic, yet its community-based resistance offers a different narrative. Using Relational Wellbeing framework and focusing on bodies, this ethnographic study explores two communities compromised with building dignified, collective futures.

Paper long abstract:

Chile is a country marked by deep historical wounds—from colonial and postcolonial processes to the violence of authoritarian regimes and neoliberal frameworks that foster individualization, competition, fragmentation, and distrust. Yet, amid this landscape of "malestar" (discontent), networks of care, resistance, and community forces persist, offering subversive practices that sustain life.

In this context of historical trauma, certain communities have emerged as vital spheres addressing emotional, material, and social needs. The Relational Wellbeing framework, which challenges conventional paradigms of wellbeing, offers interesting lens to analyze these dynamics. This perspective moves beyond individualistic theories, incorporating dimensions rooted in Latin American knowledges. My research examines how these elements play in Chilean community resistance and wellbeing.

Drawing on ethnographic work with two community settings, I investigate how corporeal and relational practices sustain life under shared communitarian visions. Adding to the theory a focus on bodies as material-affective nodes, I explore how collective practices co-construct social fabrics and cultivate dignified futures.

Ultimately, my research aims to reflect on the relational fabric of Chilean communities as a scenario of resistance, care and collective wellbeing, although full of contradictions and challenges. With the results I want to reflect on how life is sustained and reinvented in the face of systemic challenges, underscoring the transformative potential of solidarity when envisioning alternative futures in harsh and unequal contexts.