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Peripheral Citizenship: Autoconstruction and Migration in Santiago, Chile

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Emergent Spaces

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology ((PSUA))

Abstract

In cities across the Global South, poor people’s demands for housing have resulted in widespread processes of “autoconstruction.” This concept alludes to a mode of producing the urban peripheries in which residents, in building themselves their residential spaces, turned into citizen city-makers. What happens, however, when the agents of autoconstruction are immigrants who, while demanding housing, claim also their recognition as citizens? This chapter addresses that question by examining the case of the Campamento Nueva Esperanza, a squatter settlement in the peripheries of Santiago, Chile built mostly by immigrants. We show that, to constitute themselves as citizens, immigrants formulate an “urban” type of citizenship in which the act of residing in the city becomes the main criteria for political membership. In such a process, they configure ethical and political narratives through which they make sense of their desires for incorporation and belonging to the national political community.

The authors thank the ANID/FONDECYT 1210743, the Proyecto Anillos Ethnographies of Neoliberalism (ANID/PIA/SOC 180033) and the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (ANID/FONDAP/15130009) for their support in the ethnographic project this chapter is based on.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although scholarly literature often depicts autoconstruction as a process proper to large cities of the Global South, some authors have accounted for similar phenomena in Europe. See, for example, Prato’s (2020) work on urban informality in the peripheries of Tirana, Albania.

  2. 2.

    See, for instance, Wirth’s (1982) classical work on the ghetto.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago de Chile, Chile

    Miguel Pérez & Cristóbal Palma

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  1. Miguel Pérez
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  2. Cristóbal Palma
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  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL, USA

    Petra Kuppinger

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Pérez, M., Palma, C. (2021). Peripheral Citizenship: Autoconstruction and Migration in Santiago, Chile. In: Kuppinger, P. (eds) Emergent Spaces. Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_2

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