Youth Activism in Chile: from urban educational inequalities to experiences of living together and solidarity

Abstract

-Youth Activism in Chile: from urban educational inequalities to experiences of living together and solidarity 1. This article examines the geographies of youth political activism in Chile. It makes the argument that a historical spatial identity of public education, as the engine of workingclass and middle-class mobility, intersecting both with contexts of social mixing and with a historical urban educational inequality, provides a different lens through which to understand youth activism. This article seeks to analyse the linkages between these spatialities of public education and different geographies of youth activism as spaces of living together and as practices of solidarity. It reflects on the need for ongoing debates on citizenship education to engage with these geographies of youth activism in order to fully understand the significance of youth political participation within neoliberal market-driven education agendas.

Significados y alcances de la acción solidaria en jóvenes de Medellín

“…Los jóvenes ponen en entredicho las relaciones de poder impuestas, desde la dinámica del miedo, por los grupos armados al margen de la ley, al igual que las «determinaciones» derivadas de los ordenamientos sociales que legitiman la injusticia y la desigualdad. Así, inventan estrategias con las que transgreden y amplian sus espacios de autonomía y libertad y convocan a otros miembros de la comunidad, para movilizarse en contra de aquello que los oprime e intenta silenciarlos (Aguilar-Forero & Muñoz, 2015;Arias-Cardona & Alvarado, 2015;Hernández, 2018;Kriger, 2016). Las acciones solidarias se gestan en estos nichos, reflejando búsquedas, individuales y colectivas, y promoviendo alternativas de transformación social reales, posibles.…”