Homosexual Discretion and Good Taste: Two Rules That Govern Homosexual Sociability Space in Santiago de Chile

Homosexual sociability space in Santiago is not socially homogenous. Beyond non-heterosexual identities segmentation (gay, lesbian, queer, BDSM, etc.), the present article proposes a reflection observing certain social distinctions or differences that come into play to create a hierarchy among gay and lesbian individuals within that space. Using a qualitative approximation, we analyze the discourse of homosexual men and women about ways to display homosexuality in different places in the city, as well as some sociability practices used in homosexual venues. The resulting social hierarchy is understood through two central subjective rules: discretion and good taste, dynamic mechanisms that perpetuate the distance among groups within the same sociability space, and to some extent reproduce the city’s class structure. Given that material means to privatize and sophisticate homosexual expression are unequally distributed in Santiago, the resulting differentiated social networks end up configuring the visibility strategies of homosexual identity played out in the city in the last years.     

Trying to stay ahead of the curve in Chile's economic development: exploring a way out of the middle‐income trap through pragmatic export development

Underneath impressive growth levels, the Chilean economy displays signs of being caught in a middle‐income trap. It has been unable to improve its productivity, increase the added value of its exports or upgrade its value chain. Its economy cannot compete either with low‐wage countries or highly productive, innovative countries. Its export strategy based on export promotion seems to have outlived its usefulness. It achieved remarkable quantitative success, but must now attend qualitative attributes. Instead of regarding market‐driven export promotion and state‐led export development as substitutes, this article proposes to view them as alternatives in different stages of development. To choose the appropriate time, more attention should be given to non‐traditional, structural indicators, like export sophistication and political‐institutional capabilities.     

Resistance to metropolitan institutionality and planning in Chile

In this article, the authors review and analyse two key processes conducted by the Chilean state over the past 50 years. The first process consists of the development of specific planning instruments for the particular realities of metropolitan areas. The second process consists of the successive legislative attempts to work towards a definition of a new form of institutionality for cities with metropolitan profiles. These attempts have either failed or solely become bills of law. Both processes suggest a political and technical resistance throughout history, to substantially modify institutionality, as well as planning instruments, in order to make them more appropriate and consistent with the needs of growing metropolitan areas in Chile.     

The stranger the better: support and solidarity in the 2011 students’ protests in Chile

This paper analyses the legitimation dynamics of the student protests in Chile 2011, explaining how the support of ‘strangers’ strengthened its position and endurance. By analysing interviews with both activists and uninvolved citizens, I describe a steady pattern whereby they express the strength and legitimacy of the movement by assessing the ‘abstraction’ of the link between protesters and their supporters. The more abstract these relations – the stranger supporters are – the most relevant and meaningful is their support. Beyond establishing the worthiness of protesters’ claims, strangers provide protesters with a mandate, fostering the movement’s cohesion and thus affecting its ability to endure through the conflict. While the literature has mostly looked at adherents as only potential (or failed) constituents, I argue that support that remains external plays a crucial role in social movements’ chances of success. This support needs, however, to avoid being framed as insufficient engagement. Further analysis shows that the distinction between protesters and strangers often requires active boundary work, allowing the movement to maximize the benefits of strangers’ support while managing its risks. The relation between these boundaries, the efficiency of different contention tactics and their adaptation is analysed here. The study argues that strangeness can involve very different, even opposed phenomena, which are often confounded, namely ‘otherness’ and ‘abstraction’. Critically drawing upon Simmel, I explain how it is ‘abstraction’ in particular that helps our understanding of the role of strangers in social movements and consider how this distinction could enrich research on the symbolic aspects of contentious politics.     

Change in the Chilean social model

Chile modernized its social model in two stages characterized by different strategies: developmentalism (1924–73) and the Washington Consensus (1973–2008). In the first stage, the State pursued both social policies of universal coverage and land reform, while also building up the country's economic and institutional infrastructure. After the 1973 military coup, some public services were dismantled and privatized, and the labour movement was suppressed. Since the end of the dictatorship in 1990, resistance to state regulation and an anti‐labour bias have persisted, albeit to a diminishing degree due to advances in democratization and, latterly, the current world economic crisis.     

Museums and mining technologies

This article has a twofold purpose, first to explore how the founding of museums helps the mining industry to create a new way to look at what becomes natural in landscapes that are intervened by mining operations, and second to analyze how this new way of looking at the landscape ignites a process of recontextualization having a material impact on the territories. As part of this discussion, this article reveals how the technologies of mining production have evolved, facilitating the companies’ material production, and how the mining museum becomes a fundamental part of this technological development. This article looks at two mining museums owned or funded by the Chilean copper mine Los Pelambres, the ‘Museum of Copper and Sustainable Development’, located in Los Vilos next to Los Chungungos dock, and the ‘Andróniko Luksic Mining Center’, located in the engineering department at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Santiago. These museums are funded by the mining company Los Pelambres and one of them is currently managed by the company.     

Development of professional roles in the practice of public relations in Chile

Using survey responses of 577 public relation practitioners, this article examines role conceptions in Chilean public relations, as well as the effects that different individual and organizational factors have on their professional worldviews. The results show that how Chilean practitioners perceive their roles can be grouped into four different types: the long-term strategic, the short-term technical, the passive-complaisant, and the active-vigilant. In general terms, Chilean public relations practitioners distance themselves from the passive-complaisant role, giving greater importance to the other three. The findings also reveal that gender, education level, job commitment, perceived autonomy, organization type, and geographical location are the factors that better predict Chilean PR professional roles, while hierarchy level and organization's reach do not directly affect their perceptions.     

The gender gap in pensions in Latin America

Lower female lifetime labour market participation rates, greater interruptions during their working lives, and wage gaps contribute to create gender gaps in pensions at the time of retirement. The design of social security systems may reinforce or attenuate these gaps. This article provides new evidence on gender gaps in access to pensions and in pension income in four Southern Cone countries in Latin America and analyses their evolution between 2000 and 2013, showing significant improvements in both gaps, with differential patterns by countries. The decrease in the gender gap in pension income has been particularly significant in Argentina and Brazil. In both cases, the largest increases in pension values during the period correspond to the lowest income percentiles, where women are overrepresented. The application of redistributive policies in these countries, aimed at reducing poverty and inequality but not necessarily focused on gender equity, has had positive and probably unintended consequences in terms of reduction in gender gaps in pensions.     

Social security privatisation: the lessons from the Chilean experience for other Latin American countries and the USA

The purpose of this article is to analyse the economic and social implications of the privatisation of social security in Chile and to draw some lessons from the Chilean experience. The focus of the analysis is on the costs and benefits of the privatised system and its impact on social equity. Thus, the main section of the article is devoted to the analysis of the 20-year-old Chilean experience. This section is followed by a discussion of privatisation in other Latin American countries and the impact that World Bank's policies have had on the region. The last section looks at the lessons for the United States and argues against the establishment of a partially private plan in the USA.     

Women in Politics in Post-Transitional Democracies: the chilean case

This article looks at women's participation in formal political institutions in posttransition politics. Employing the case of post-dictatorship Chile, it outlines the barriers to women's participation in the formal political arena; discusses the various strategies that Chilean women are currently employing to overcome their exclusion; and finally, examines the challenges that political women confront in promoting 'women's interests' in political institutions. Throughout the article two main arguments are advanced. First, where women's movements do not demand institutional reforms during the transition period - a time when movements enjoy influence and parties are in flux - then the barriers to women in political institutions re-emerge. In Chile, the fact that women did not demand institutional reforms, such as quotas for women in decision-making positions, is linked tothe broader strategy of the movement tomake citizenship demands based on women's 'difference'. This strategy inhibited women from demanding power (i.e. access to institutions as individuals) because this conformed to a masculine-defined notion of politics inconsistent with women's 'different' style of practising politics. A second,related argument is that a strategy based on women's 'difference' hinders women in politics frompromoting feminist goals,especially in the climate ofsocial conservatism that characterizes post-transition Chilean politics. Despite these constraints and the many challenges Chilean women in politics confront, gains are being made, as women recognize the need for, and begin to demand, institutional reforms to expand their presence in formal politics.