(Im)possible Identities in the Movement for Chilean Education: Positions and Antagonisms in Academia

Abstract

In Chile, in 2011-2012, a national social movement developed. It sought to criticize the commodification of education and promote structural modifications to the capitalist-neoliberal model that nourished it. As university teachers and students, the authors of this article supported this movement. This social antagonism put us in a problematic subject position, between the ideals of vindication and revolution of the movement and the managerial logics of academia. For teachers, openly joining the demonstrations would mean biting the hand that was feeding us. It is this (im)possibility of participation and the subjective tensions it implied that we want to narrate and analyze in this work.