Paper short abstract:

Chilean High Student's Movement of 2006 gave the symbolic foundations for what is is today being contested at the political realm, over which was developed the huge students' mobilization of 2011.

Paper long abstract:

In 1989, once democratic order was reestablished in Chile - after a 17-years old dictatorship- the word politics commonly referred just as the process by which the ruling Center Left reached consensus with the Right. Similarly, during the 90's, social movements were practically absent of the public sphere. However, in 2011, the massive and Chilean student's movement became the biggest uprising after dictatorship and was internationally known. Such unrest was led by university's students the same generation that, in 2006, led a huge mobilization that surprised Chilean political lethargy.

This article is based on a 2008's qualitative research with ethnographical perspective. As its main conclusion, it proposes that the secondary school students' mobilizations of 2006 broadened the boundaries of the possible within the political sphere by contesting the common ideas that consensus establishment had constructed, in three different ways. Firstly, it created an image of social inequalities. Secondly, it allowed students to contest the extended idea that conceived youth as essentially apathetic because of their null interest in formal politics. Consequently, they felt invested with authority to claim proposals beyond political consensus by displaying new ways of relation and decision making with a youthful nuance of joy and festivity. Thirdly, they re-actualized what was considered to be lost in Chilean society: community and solidarity networks. I believe that 2006's mobilization gave the symbolic foundations for what is today thought as politics and how society can be transformed.

Paper Download (376 KB)