Abstract, Doing Politics Differently: Middle-Class Youth and Politics in Contemporary Lima

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Doing Politics Differently: Middle-Class Youth and Politics in Contemporary Lima

by Franka Winter

Two recent studies of the political identities, discourses, utopias, and practices of young middle-class people in contemporary Lima indicate that, contrary to a common narrative of “antipolitics,” they had a critical rather than a negative relationship with politics. While they largely rejected traditional political institutions and identities, they had strong political values and ideals and many ideas for change. They were looking for a different way of doing politics rather than a retreat from it and pursued this through a diverse range of political practices. However, these discourses and practices had certain limitations, in particular with respect to their ability to forge strong alliances and bring about substantial change.

Abstract, Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago

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Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago
by Nicolás Angelcos and María Luisa Méndez                                              


A critical analysis of two conflicts associated with the displacement resulting from gentrification in Santiago, Chile, reveals that this displacement affects both the urban poor and the middle classes and that the common adversary is the real estate sector. The subjective experience of the groups involved can be understood in terms of the concept of territorial disqualification, a threat both to their positions in the social structure and to the recognition of the identities, personal and collective, that have been constructed about particular neighborhoods. The subject defended in struggles against territorial disqualification is the community. While class positions, specific demands, and territorial claims differ significantly, the structural framework in which neoliberal urbanism develops makes possible a confluence of class organizations that are susceptible to generating interclass strategies of opposition.

Abstract, Criminals in Our Midst: Middle-Class Reactions to Representations of the “Ordinary” in a Buenos Aires Shantytown

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Criminals in Our Midst: Middle-Class Reactions to Representations of the “Ordinary” in a Buenos Aires Shantytown
by Jacob Lederman                                      


Building upon the concept of moral indignation, an analysis of the social reaction to a Buenos Aires shantytown shows how discourses that emphasize the criminality of its inhabitants are mobilized to explain the economic and ontological instability experienced by the local middle class. The media’s use of rhetorical frames that highlight the lack of boundaries between the middle-class readership and the residents of the shantytown produces indignation directed against the urban poor. The newspaper’s readership reconstructs social difference through discourses that frame the shantytown’s inhabitants as predatory, undeserving, and dangerous.

Abstract, Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago

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Struggles against Territorial Disqualification: Mobilization for Dignified Housing and Defense of Heritage in Santiago
by Nicolás Angelcos and María Luisa Méndez                                              


A critical analysis of two conflicts associated with the displacement resulting from gentrification in Santiago, Chile, reveals that this displacement affects both the urban poor and the middle classes and that the common adversary is the real estate sector. The subjective experience of the groups involved can be understood in terms of the concept of territorial disqualification, a threat both to their positions in the social structure and to the recognition of the identities, personal and collective, that have been constructed about particular neighborhoods. The subject defended in struggles against territorial disqualification is the community. While class positions, specific demands, and territorial claims differ significantly, the structural framework in which neoliberal urbanism develops makes possible a confluence of class organizations that are susceptible to generating interclass strategies of opposition.

Book, "Contemporary Middle Class in Latin America A Study of San Felipe" by Omar Pereyra

Contemporary Middle Class in Latin America:  A Study of San Felipe

OMAR PEREYRA

In the last decades, the Latin American middle class is growing in size while becoming more heterogeneous. Sustained economic growth explains its increasing size, but behind its heterogeneity there is not only the diversification of lifestyles, but also the crystallization of a large process of upward social mobility of second and third generation migrants to capital cities and their incorporation into middle-class positions. In the last decades, these individuals are now part of the different spheres of socialization formerly occupied by the traditional middle class: private schools, college and universities, middle-class jobs and occupations, and traditional middle-class neighborhoods.