Paper Short Abstract:

I analyse the Chilean right's discourses surrounding the Chilean social protests of 2019 and the ongoing constitutional process, by focusing specifically on the reshaping of calendrical time as a means to 'craft' politics and foster the emergence of alternative timespaces.

Paper Abstract:

In 2019, Chile witnessed widespread social protests, which culminated in an 'Estallido Social' (social outbreak) in October of that year. A constitutional process was opened to rewrite the nation's constitution; however, despite this, two proposed drafts for a new constitutional text were rejected in referenda held in September 2022 and December 2023. In this paper, I analyse discourses surrounding these events, by focusing specifically on the reshaping of calendrical time as a means to 'craft' politics and foster the emergence of alternative timespaces.

Calendars function as frameworks for structuring temporality, encompassing both a linear and a cyclical dimension. Linearity is expressed through the sequential progression of dates towards the future, while cyclicity is manifested in the recurrence of established events. Nevertheless, calendars and calendrical time can also become sites where politics is 'crafted', through the articulation, re-elaboration, and negotiation of temporality as part of political action.

Here, I reflect on ethnographic material collected during the campaign that preceded the second constitutional referendum (which took place in December 2023). I focus on the ways Chilean right-wing parties and groups reshaped calendrical time as a site of political action and for the (re)production of political narratives that extended beyond the confines of the referendum campaign itself. Through 'crafting' politics, these groups envisioned and enacted multiple alternative timespaces of the nation, especially in the context of drafting and voting for a new constitutional text.