“Uno tiene que tener casa donde nació". Ciudadanía y derecho a la ciudad en Santiago

Abstract

During the 1990s, the Chilean State sought to avoid the reappearance of urban movements by massively building subsidized housing units. The significant building of social housing units did not, however, entail better living conditions for the poor. To become homeowners, they were systematically expelled out of their neighborhoods of origin while being relocated to the segregated periphery. These dynamics of expulsion have brought about the reemergence of housing mobilizations in Santiago, in which poor families in need of housing have increasingly demanded the right to stay in their neighborhoods of origin. Based on an ethnographic study, this article holds that such a demand illuminates a reframing of urban struggles, which is materialized in two phenomena: a) The appearance of right-to-the-city claims; and b) the transformations of the ways in which the poor conceive of citizenship and rights on the basis of a self-recognition as committed, hardworking, and self-sacrificing residents.