How did meat emerge to become such an important feature in Western society? In both popular and academic literatures, biophysical and political-economic factors are often cited as the reason for meat’s preeminent status. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive investigation of these claims by reviewing the available evidence on the political-economic and biophysical features of meat over the long arc of Western history. We specifically focus on nine critical epochs: the Paleolithic, early to late Neolithic, antiquity, ancient Israel and (...) early Christian societies, medieval Europe, early modern Europe, colonial America, the American frontier, and the modern industrial era. We find that except under conditions of environmental scarcity, the meaning and value of meat cannot be attributed to intrinsic biophysical value or to the political-economic actors who materially benefit from it. Rather, meat’s status reflects the myriad cultural contexts in which it is socially constructed in people’s everyday lives, particularly with respect to religious, gender, communal, racial, national, and class identity. By deconstructing the normalized/naturalized materialist assumptions circling around meat consumption, this paper clears a space for a more nuanced appreciation of the role that culture has played in the legitimation of meat, and by extension, the possibility of change. (shrink)

Luego de veinte años desde la recuperación de la democracia en Chile, el modelo transicional basado en el pensamiento concertacionista, ha demostrado carecer de flexibilidad y capacidad de adaptación a los nuevos contextos. La matriz de gobernabilidad establecida por éste modelo, bajo supuestos de verticalidad en las relaciones y estabilidad en la estructura institucional se ha visto confrontada por el surgimiento de nuevos actores con capacidad de veto social que exigen inclusión y participación en la toma de decisiones, (...) lo que determina la necesidad de consolidar un nuevo pacto de gobernabilidad. Los objetivos generales de este trabajo consisten en identificar factores de obsolescencia de la matriz de gobernabilidad en Chile entre 1990 y 2012 y, al mismo tiempo identificar las oportunidades para establecer un nuevo equilibrio en la interacción de los actores estratégicos. Para lo anterior se describirá, en primer lugar, las líneas básicas del debate sobre gobernabilidad, así como los aspectos centrales del modelo chileno de transición. Luego se caracterizará la conflictividad social en América Latina a la luz de los procesos políticos de nivel macro experimentados en las últimas décadas. En tercer lugar, se analizarán algunos factores que explican la creciente conflictividad social en Chile y la genética de la desviación política manifestada en nuevos actores y repertorios de protesta. Finalmente, se analizaran diferentes escenarios hipotéticos para reequilibrar la relación entre actores políticos institucionales y nuevos actores con capacidad de veto social. (shrink)

En el contexto del sistema presidencial chileno, el artículo analiza el rol del Congreso en la elaboración de la política exterior, desde la perspectiva del enfoque transaccional desarrollado por Pablo Spiller y Mariano Tommasi (2000). De este modo, se plantea que el trabajo del Congreso en general, y de las comisiones de Relaciones Exteriores del Senado y de la Cámara de Diputados en particular, se caracteriza por la permanencia y continuidad de los miembros y, en consecuencia, por un trabajo especializado (...) y de alta calidad profesional, lo que favorece la cooperación entre los actores y los intercambios intertemporales entre éstos. (shrink)

La relación entre maternidad y trabajo ha sido materia de políticas públicas desde comienzos del siglo XX, pero en las últimas décadas ha adquirido nuevas connotaciones por el aumento de la participación laboral femenina. Ello no ha conducido a una eliminación de las discriminaciones que enfrentan las trabajadoras por su condición (real o potencial) de madres, ni a una organización del mercado de trabajo que permita articular demandas laborales y familiares, ni una redistribución del trabajo reproductivo. Para analizar cómo (...) class='Hi'>actores involucrados en la formulación de políticas relacionadas con esta temática concebían la relación entre trabajo y maternidad y las tensiones que derivaban de ella, se entrevistó a un grupo de actores sociales provenientes de tres ámbitos. Dos ideas caracterizan sus concepciones: las normas de protección a la maternidad en el trabajo afectan negativamente la empleabilidad femenina y la relación maternidad trabajo es difícil porque la organización del mercado de trabajo dificulta la articulación de responsabilidades laborales y familiares. Respecto de las tensiones, se constataron en diferentes dimensiones: económica, demográfica, ejercicio de derechos y sociocultural. (shrink)

Little is known about how and why corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerged in lesser developed countries. In order to address this knowledge gap, we used Chile as a test case and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leaders of CSR initiatives. We also did an Internet and literature search to help provide support for the findings that emerged from our data. We discovered that while there are similarities in the drivers of CSR in developed countries, there are distinct (...) differences as well. In particular, we found that different sectors drive CSR in Chile. In contrast to other geographies where consumer demand and government regulation provided the impetus for CSR efforts, multinational companies (MNCs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are key actors in Chile. MNCs imported their CSR beliefs, skills, and processes into Chile. Their efforts resulted in a virtuous cycle. Once large domestic firms felt pressured by their MNC rivals, they too adopted CSR initiatives. The ability to manage relationships with multiple stakeholders and perceptions of authenticity were also critical to the success of CSR in Chile. Using network theory as a lens, we suggest that network density and centrality largely determine whether CSR efforts will be authentic. Based on these contentions, we suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

Food systems transformations require coherent policies and improved understandings of the drivers and institutional dynamics that shape (un)sustainable food systems outcomes. In this paper, we introduce the Chilean National Organic Agriculture Law as a case of a policy process seeking to institutionalize a recognized pathway towards more sustainable food systems. Drawing from institutional theory we make visible multiple, and at times competing, logics (i.e., values, assumptions and practices) of different actors implicated in organic agriculture in Chile. More specifically, our (...) findings identify five main institutional transformative logics underpinning the interests and actions of organic actors. However, we find that the Law was not motivated by these logics and did not advance them. Rather, the Law was designed to support a market niche targeted to elite consumers and to reinforce agricultural exports. As a result, the Law constrains rather than enables the practice of organic agriculture and access to organic food by consumers, especially at the domestic level. We note that attention to institutional logics in the analysis of food systems, and specifically food system transformation, is relevant to more comprehensive assessments of the transformational potential of food systems policies. We conclude that there is a need to further consider and make visible the way in which different drivers (i.e., laws) are constituted through and by diverse, and often competing, institutional logics. (shrink)

While Chile's partial decriminalization of abortion in 2017 was a long overdue recognition of women's sexual and reproductive rights, nearly four years later the caseload remains well below expectations. This pattern is the product of standing barriers in access to abortion‐related health services, especially at the primary care point of entry. This study seeks to identify and describe these barriers. The findings presented here were obtained through a qualitative, exploratory study based on 19 semi‐structured interviews with relevant actors identified (...) through non‐random sampling and snowballing techniques. Coding was inductive and complemented by semantic content analysis. The authors find that the key barriers in primary care to accessing legal abortion are unfamiliarity with the law, insufficient practitioner training, intersectoral discrimination, and the stigma surrounding abortion. They conclude that the government needs to exercise its constitutional mandate as guarantor of public health and act promptly to safeguard and guarantee the abortion rights of Chilean women. (shrink)

This paper examines the efficacy of a statelessness reduction plan implemented by the country of Chile. We evaluate the programmatic alignment of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, #Chilereconoce, with policy enacted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in that office’s campaign to eradicate statelessness by the year 2024. In addition to evaluating the structure of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, we explore the policy outcomes of this plan in achieving its desired goal of reducing statelessness in (...) class='Hi'>Chile. We use Chile as a case study because it implemented the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2014-2024 Action Plan and, therefore, can shed light on if such a plan can put a nation-state on the path to remedy the deleterious effects of statelessness. Our central argument is that Chile’s statelessness reduction plan can, in-fact, serve as a blueprint for governmental institutions to follow towards achieving the goal of reducing statelessness. The success of such a plan, however, is conditioned upon whether principle actors within governmental institutions confront, head on, structural challenges that otherwise tend to undermine the merging of a confluence of critical factors that must be aligned for success to occur. The Chilean project demonstrates that reducing statelessness requires community action, implementation of domestic legislative reform, and governmental accession to international treaties. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo pretende develar los supuestos epistemológicos que se encuentran implícitos en el código deontológico del Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile. Para resolver tal problema se realiza un análisis de discurso que abarca la interpretación del contenido del documento, del contexto en el que se inserta y de los actores involucrados. El análisis sugiere que el código de ética se sustenta implícita y sustancialmente en el paradigma positivista de la ciencia, al alero de la modernidad como contexto. (...) Finalmente, se señalan algunas implicancias y reflexiones en torno a tales hallazgos.: This paper has like objective to reveal the epistemological assumptions implicit into of ethics code of the psychologists' school of Chile. To solve this problem was used an analysis of discourse on the content of the code, the context and the actors involved. The results of the analysis show that positivism is the paradigm that supports epistemologically the code, next to modernity like context. Finally, some implications and reflexions are pointed out around the findings. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo pretende develar los supuestos epistemológicos que se encuentran implícitos en el código deontológico del Colegio de Psicólogos de Chile. Para resolver tal problema se realiza un análisis de discurso que abarca la interpretación del contenido del documento, del contexto en el que se inserta y de los actores involucrados. El análisis sugiere que el código de ética se sustenta implícita y sustancialmente en el paradigma positivista de la ciencia, al alero de la modernidad como contexto. (...) Finalmente, se señalan algunas implicancias y reflexiones en torno a tales hallazgos.: This paper has like objective to reveal the epistemological assumptions implicit into of ethics code of the psychologists' school of Chile. To solve this problem was used an analysis of discourse on the content of the code, the context and the actors involved. The results of the analysis show that positivism is the paradigm that supports epistemologically the code, next to modernity like context. Finally, some implications and reflexions are pointed out around the findings. (shrink)

Siguiendo las coordenadas conceptuales propuestas por Michel Foucault en su abordaje del tratamiento gubernamental de las pandemias, en este artículo se desarrolla un recorrido genealógico por específicas prácticas de gobierno que se han venido desarrollando en Chile en distintos momentos de su historia; se visibilizan de este modo diversos actores de gobierno que buscarán conducir conductas y subjetividades en contextos de pandemia. Entendida como una propuesta metodológica, establecida en base a la identificación de actores, racionalidades y acciones (...) de gobierno, inscrita en el marco conceptual desarrollado por Foucault en su abordaje del tratamiento gubernamental de las pandemias, buscamos problematizar las fórmulas gubernativas que se han dispensado en el pasado para comprender las estrategias de gobierno de la pandemia del presente. (shrink)

En los últimos dos años hemos presenciado como el modelo neoliberal chileno se encuentra en amplio cuestionamiento. Los movimientos y las movilizaciones sociales, han marcado la agenda política del gobierno del Presidente de Chile Sebastián Piñera, exhibiendo un alto índice de conflictividad y protesta social, acompañada de la emergencia de distintos actores sociales y activistas de distintas esferas sociales, que han configurado un escenario histórico de organización de la sociedad civil. En ésta crisis de la matriz de dominación (...) neoliberal el estado ha desarrollado estrategias de construcción de verdad, como forma de sobrellevar una creciente paranoia política y un sádico goce del poder que se resiste a la redefinición de la relación entre Estado-Mercado-Sociedad. (shrink)

Entre los meses de julio y octubre de 2010 se llevó a cabo una huelga de hambre de 38 comuneros mapuches, presos en distintas cárceles de Chile, debido a una serie de incidentes y conflictos con el Estado, los cuales han sido catalogados por las autoridades como >. Este hecho visibilizó un conflicto entre el Estado y el pueblo mapuche, a partir de la violencia de estado ejercida en sus formas de control, represión y castigo hacia un sector de (...) la población que lucha por demandas ancestrales e históricas, y que exponen una serie de contradicciones sintomáticas en el seno del Estado. A continuación se pretende realizar un análisis que aborda, resumidamente, las distintas posiciones de los actores involucrados en el conflicto y las principales betas de un ejercicio político de violencia, en su direccionalidad, intencionalidad y rigurosidad, como elemento paradójico de la construcción práctica y discursiva de un escenario democrático. (shrink)

This article explores the political role of rural and indigenous women in the context of the socio-environmental, health and political crises in Chile, where social movements have pressured the political establishment to decisively move towards a change in Chile’s constitutional foundations. The study analyses the historical political demands and strategies of the National Association of Rural and Indigenous Women (ANAMURI) as a case of the women’s peasant movement with a relevant political role in shaping the social demands in (...) the face of the crises. Following the political ecology of food through the decolonial and ecofeminist perspective and the social movement theory, findings indicate the current relevance of rural and indigenous women as political actors of change, a relevance that has been neglected for most of Chile’s history. With their leadership and socially grounded demands, peasant and indigenous women are influencing the political agenda decisively using strategies that are shared with other peasant movements in Latin America. Rural and indigenous women are fundamental political actors that should undoubtedly be considered when studying struggles for social change in the 21st century. (shrink)

El artículo se propone mostrar las formas que adquiere la construcción del nexo entre migración, seguridad y expulsabilidad de grupos específicos de migrantes, en este caso colombianos, en Antofagasta, una ciudad minera ubicada en el norte de Chile. A partir del análisis sostenemos que la criminalización del migrante colombiano está estrechamente ligada a su racialización, y que la validación y legitimidad que adquieren las ideas de expulsabilidad y rechazo son parte de este mismo proceso, pues al situarlo del otro (...) lado de las múltiples fronteras que se construyen —raciales, étnicas, de clase, de género, además de fronteras territoriales dentro de la propia ciudad—, su expulsión definitiva, o su rechazo en frontera, son el resultado final de un proceso previo de exclusión sistemática.La aproximación metodológica empleada en la investigación fue de carácter cualitativo, y recurrió principalmente a entrevistas a informantes clave, mayoritariamente actores vinculados a la generación e implementación de políticas públicas —funcionarios del gobierno regional y local, legisladores nacionales por la región, funcionarios de las fuerzas de seguridad, extranjería y el poder judicial—, aunque no exclusivamente —se entrevistó también a miembros de organizaciones sociales de y para migrantes, algunos migrantes residentes en campamentos, vecinos chilenos y miembros de la academia.El análisis de este caso específico aporta a la comprensión de las formas en que el régimen global de control de las migraciones se articula con procesos locales que definen su materialización específica. El caso de Antofagasta en particular habilita una reflexión respecto de lo que sucede con las políticas de control de las migraciones en contextos de desigualdad enmarcados en economías extractivistas, y en una ciudad que ha tenido una presencia histórica de población migrante. (shrink)

Este artículo desarrolla, desde una perspectiva crítica, un detallado “estado del arte” de la temática de “seguridad ciudadana” en Chile, delineando cómo esta problemática obedece más bien a una percepción de inseguridad instalada en la ciudadanía desde los medios de comunicación, y legitimada por los expertos interesados en asegurar la sostenibilidad de sus servicios en el emergente “mercado de la seguridad.” Se sostiene en el ensayo que en Chile la situación de seguridad ciudadana es la mejor de América (...) Latina, superior a la de los Estados Unidos de América y similar a la que prevalece en los países de Europa, y que sin embargo las encuestas de opinión indican que la población siente un temor creciente ante la acción de la delincuencia, sobre todo porque sus actores son jóvenes que emplean la violencia. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como propósito demostrar que la voz indígena presente en Cautiverio feliz y razón individual de las guerras dilatadas del reino de Chile no es una reivindicación de la alteridad sino un instrumento discursivo útil para la consecución del objetivo textual del cronista. Para ello, examinaremos las interferencias -voluntarias o involuntarias- de la voz del soldado Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán en el trasvase lingüístico y cultural que hace en el registro letrado de la memoria araucana. (...) Durante su cautiverio, el cronista tiene acceso a la oralidad que la configura y al modo en que se transmite entre los miembros del grupo. Irrumpirá en este proceso -como actor, durante su experiencia, y en su memorial, décadas más tarde- desde un imaginario criollo que, a pesar de haber madurado en la multicultural frontera araucana, conserva motivaciones de lucha de un pensamiento etnocéntrico. The purpose of this paper is to show that the Indian voice included in Happy Captivity and Reason for the Prolonged Wars of the Kingdom of Chile is not a recognition of otherness, but a useful discursive instrument for achieving the chronicler’s text objective. To that end, we examine the voluntary and involuntary interferences of the soldier’s voice of Francisco Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán within the written cultural and linguistic transfer from the Araucanian memory. During his captivity, the chronicler has access to its oral configuration and the way in which it is passed on to the members of the group. He interferes in this process -as an actor, during his experience, and as a memory writer a few decades later- and he always does it from a Creole imaginary that retains the fight motivations of ethnocentric thinking, despite having been shaped in the multicultural Araucanian frontier. (shrink)

El presente artículo presenta parte de los resultados de un estudio de percepción y opinión pública realizado en las quince regiones de Chile, sobre la relación entre descentralización, desarrollo regional y gestión pública. El supuesto del que se parte es que la voluntad de descentralización de la ciudadanía y los actores sociales es un factor facilitador del desarrollo de las regiones. Se entiende por desarrollo regional el conjunto de los procesos políticos, sociales y económicos conducidos por los (...) class='Hi'>actores regionales articulados en función de unas prioridades definidas por ellos mismos. Antecediéndolo lógicamente se asume que existe una heterogeneidad regional que proviene de la configuración histórica y cultural de las regiones, y que esta diversidad define una desigualdad en las condiciones iniciales para articular el desarrollo endógeno de cada región. (shrink)

The article, through the case study of Chile, explores the interconnections between archives, human rights and transitional justice. Chile represents a unique case globally for the early creation of thousands of records documenting the human rights violations committed under Pinochet’s 17-year dictatorship. In post-Pinochet Chile, the human rights archives have provided extremely important sources of evidence that have proven crucial in the development of transitional justice mechanisms. Truth commissions have, in turn, created their own archives, which have (...) strongly contributed to later processes of reparation, justice and memory. The article aims to develop a better understanding of the multiple roles that archives have played as tools for achieving truth, justice and reparation over the long transitional period in Chile. The article argues that a combination of several factors and the intervention of different actors led to the archives having a significant impact in the development of subsequent transitional justice mechanisms. (shrink)

Durante las últimas dos décadas las culturas de los pueblos originarios del país quedan inscritas en el corazón de las movilizaciones étnicas y de la política indígena de los recientes gobiernos democráticos y, con ello, experimentan una nueva dinámica e importantes transformaciones. La cultura es a la vez el fundamento y objeto estratégico de acción en la emergencia indígena desarrollada en el periodo. Su conformación como sujetos colectivos se establece desde el recurso a la cultura propia, que les otorga especificidad. (...) También se constituye en objeto de una política cultural y de diversos cursos de acción. Participan de ello agentes culturales indígenas, agencias públicas especializadas y grupos e instituciones de la sociedad civil. De su concurrencia se gesta un proceso nuevo de construcción social de lo cultural indígena, cuya estructuración toma la forma de un dominio o campo de lo cultural indígena en Chile. Cultural issues in Chile are undergoing new dynamics and important transformations. During the past two decades, Chilean indigenous people’s cultures have been circumscribed in the core of ethnical mobilizations and indigenous policies deployed by recent democratic governments. Cultural issues are both the basics and the strategic action object within the indigenous ethnogenesis developed during this period. Their formation as collective subjects rises up from access to their culture, which bestows upon them specificity. It also set itself up as an object of cultural policy and diverse ways of action. Indigenous cultural agents, specialized public agencies and civil society groups and institutions participate in this phenomenon. From this concurrence, a new process of social construction of indigenous cultural issues rises. Its structure takes the shape of a scope or a field of indigenous cultural issues in Chile. (shrink)

En los últimos quince años, en el territorio centro sur de Chile se evidencia una gama de situaciones que definen a las relaciones entre empresas forestales y comunidades mapuche a partir de principios de tensión, confrontación, atisbos de diálogo, e incluso, acuerdos de trabajo conjunto. En el marco de estos procesos, se ha puesto de manifiesto la plasticidad de los posicionamientos tanto de las comunidades, como también de las empresas que han debido situarse desde nuevas coordenadas jurídicas y ético (...) – políticas con respecto a las comunidades indígenas. Al respecto, cobra especial importancia lo que sucede en Chile con la entrada en vigencia del Convenio 169 de la OIT y las transformaciones que esto implica en relación a las disposiciones y normativas que afectan a las empresas que invierten en estos territorios y su relación con las comunidades indígenas. Éstas, por su parte, también experimentan su propio proceso de replanteamiento ante las nuevas condiciones políticas y económicas que les atañen y que se van definiendo en la política indígena nacional. Este artículo, ofrece una descripción de las formas y contenidos que condicionan a la relación entre empresas forestales y comunidades mapuche en Chile durante los últimos 15 años, incluyendo hechos y desafíos transversales. Se examina la pertinencia de las aplicaciones etnográficas a las expresiones del desarrollo económico en contextos interétnicos y se concluye en torno a los roles que tanto las ciencias sociales como los propios actores implicados en los procesos de desarrollo vienen asumiendo en el último periodo. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extractivist OntologiesLithium Mining and Anthropocene Imaginaries in Chile's Atacama DesertMauricio F. Collao Quevedo (bio)The term energy transition generally refers to efforts to switch from one energy system to another. In light of the current climate crisis, energy transition projects have sought to move societies away from their reliance on fossil fuels and toward a renewables-based energy system. Yet such projects have not been easy to undertake. As Marie (...) Forget and Vincent Bos point out, an energy system based on renewables requires a transformation of energy "regulatory frameworks, technical and organizational structures, geographic forms and network practices" (1). More specifically, current energy transition models rely on the expansion of lithium production, accompanying systems of private property rights, and complex logistical and technical strategies. This article examines the interplay between lithium extraction, national development, and Anthropocene imaginaries in Chile's Atacama Desert, arguing that the green brand of extractivism that characterizes the industry relies on elaborate institutional arrangements aimed at expanding and protecting extractivist ontological and epistemological regimes in the politically contested region. As such, struggles over lithium in Chile's Atacama region demonstrate the extent to which efforts to decolonize the Anthropocene and make possible non-extractive futures of collective survival must unfold on ontological grounds, against the consolidation of the Age of Man.Mining, Water Rights, and Indigenous Communities in the Atacama DesertAmong today's most promising energy sources and materials are sodium, copper, sulfur, nickel, cobalt, rare earth metals, and lithium. These [End Page 78] have become central to energy transition strategies and states seeking to attract investors for development (Lunde Seefeldt). As a report by the World Bank points out, demand for transition minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite could increase by 500% by 2050 ("Climate-Smart Mining"), highlighting the extent to which global energy transition efforts are counting on greater extraction of transition minerals and the expansion of extractive frontiers to previously unexplored or unexploited regions (Moore, Capitalism; World Bank Group). Lithium is at the center of this economic and technological shift toward green economies.Global lithium demand is growing rapidly, with investment and production rates growing significantly in recent years (Narins) and catching the attention of states (e.g., China) and corporate tech giants (e.g., Tesla) that are already trying to secure greater shares of the global market. The light metal's popularity is largely due to its internal chemistry, which meets many of the technical and practical requirements associated with green energy transition. Lithium is light, conducive, and energy-dense, which in the context of batteries means faster recharge, lower costs, and charge-holding abilities that make lithium-ion batteries more efficient than a nickel-metal hybrid equivalent (Perotti and Coviello). Because of this, lithium is increasingly being considered as promising for human development and survival as its energy predecessors, inspiring labels such as "white gold," "white petroleum," "the new copper," "the 21st century's petroleum," or the "new gasoline" of sustainability (Acuña and Tironi; Lunde Seefeldt; Voskoboynik and Andreucci).But the industry is not without its downsides. The negative impacts of lithium extraction in Chile's Atacama Desert have been challenged by local communities for whom the metal does not exist as a discrete entity that can be easily extracted from its socioecological context. For many of these communities, lithium is more than a transition metal found in an appropriable and materially heterogenous underground brine: it is an ontologically contested, socioecological entity that sustains and participates in complex webs of life-supporting, place-based, and more-than-human relations. Such accounts of the brine are radically incompatible with "official" state accounts of it, which are maintained through an institutional architecture that allows the ontological basis of the brine to be manipulated for extractive purposes by both corporate and state actors.In the following pages, I examine the ways in which Chile's legal and institutional arrangements, informed by imaginaries of green modernization, [End Page 79] create conditions under which extralocal actors can manipulate along extractivist lines the ontological ambiguity and material heterogeneity of lithium-containing brines in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert. Through an analysis of the ways in which lithium industries in the... (shrink)

IntroductionAfter three decades of the absolute prohibition of abortion, Chile enacted Law 21,030, which decriminalizes voluntary pregnancy termination when the person is at vital risk, when the embryo or fetus suffers from a congenital or genetic lethal pathology, and in pregnancy due to rape. The law incorporates conscientious objection as a broad right at the individual and institutional levels.ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to explore the exercise of conscientious objection in public health institutions, describing and analyzing its consequences (...) and proposals to prevent it from operating as structural violence.Materials and methodsThis study uses a qualitative, post-positivist design. At the national level, according to the chain technique, people who were identified as key actors due to their direct participation in implementing the law were included. Grounded theory was used to analyze the information obtained through a semi-structured interview. The methodological rigor criteria of transferability or applicability, dependability, credibility, auditability, and theoretical-methodological adequacy were met.ResultsData from 17 physicians, 5 midwives, 6 psychologists, 8 social workers, 2 nursing technicians, and 1 lawyer are included. From an inductive process through open coding, conscientious objection as structural violence and strategies to minimize the impact of objection emerge as meta-categories. The first meta-category emerges from the barriers linked to the implementation of the law, the infringement of the rights of the pregnant person, and pseudo conscientious objection, affecting timely and effective access to pregnancy termination. The second meta-category emerges as a response from the participants, proposing strategies to prevent conscientious objection from operating as structural violence.ConclusionConscientious objection acts as structural violence by infringing the exercise of sexual and reproductive rights. The State must fulfill its role as guarantor in implementing public policies, preventing conscientious objection from becoming hegemonic and institutionalized violence. (shrink)

El artículo asume que el complejo proceso privatizador y descentralizador que vivió el sistema educativo chileno desde el año 1981 ha tenido consecuencias en el sujeto que se educa, a través de problemáticas que se concentran en los actores educativos –específicamente los estudiantes–. Estas problemáticas se han definido como la “psicologización” de los problemas del sistema educativo, la supuesta “clientelización” de los alumnos y el lugar que le cabe a La Familia como figura preponderante en el proceso privatizador. Las (...) consecuencias de esto dicen relación con la consolidación del sistema privatizado en la forma de enfrentar las subjetividades y, muy especialmente, en el quiebre del rol público que le cabe a la escuela y a la educación. (shrink)

Las controversias socio-científicas sobre las vacunas que han surgido en los últimos años en Chile muestran nuevas tensiones entre expertos y ciudadanía. Gran parte de los estudios que abordan estas problemáticas se centran en analizar a quienes rechazan la vacunación, pero no a otros actores relevantes de las controversias como son los expertos. A partir de un enfoque cualitativo, en este artículo se analizan los discursos, estrategias y prácticas comunicativas de los expertos en salud, buscando comprender su punto (...) de vista respecto a quienes rechazan la vacunación. La investigación muestra que, si bien existe unanimidad sobre la relevancia de las vacunas como medida preventiva, hay diversidad entre las posiciones de los expertos frente a quienes son críticos con la vacunación. Esto se refleja en distintos modelos de comunicación pública de la ciencia y la tecnología, con una clara vigencia del modelo del déficit cognitivo y su perspectiva alfabetizador. (shrink)

This study shows how three Chilean media construct in their discourse the social actor ‘secondary students’, in a multimodal way. It focuses on the representation of Televisión Nacional de Chile (also known as TVN), El Dínamo and El Ciudadano of this social group which is often suppressed suppressed from the media sphere. It is a qualitative study with a social semiotic approach, following the guidelines of Visual Grammar and the typology of representation of social actors by van Leeuwen (2003). (...) The corpus comprised 15 multimodal texts of 2018 compiled from internet sites, which constitute a semiotic chain of a news event about education. The results suggest that TVN creates the meaning of an ‘aggressor student’, El Dínamo as a ‘student to be reformed’; whereas El Ciudadano, represents him as a social actor who is an ‘active participant’. (shrink)

It is analyzed the subject of the metabolization of the knowledge on the part of a rural community from its practical relation with a group of scientists, whose operational base constitutes a located laboratory of marine Biology in the locality of Mehuin in Chile. Product of this relation, and inadv..

The emergence of the “4th Industrial Revolution,” i.e. the convergence of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, advanced materials, and bioengineering technologies, could accelerate socioeconomic insecurities and anxieties or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. In the post-Covid-19 era, the entities that are best positioned to capitalize on these innovations are large firms, which use digital platforms and big data to orchestrate vast ecosystems of users and extract market share across industry sectors. Nonetheless, these technologies also have the potential (...) to democratize ownership, broaden political-economic participation, and reduce environmental harms. We articulate the potential sociotechnical pathways in this high-stakes crossroads by analyzing cellular agriculture, an exemplary 4th Industrial Revolution technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering, and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy, and egg products from cultured cells and/or genetically modified yeast. Our exploration of this space involved multi-sited ethnographic research in both the cellular agriculture community and alternative economic organizations devoted to open source licensing, member-owned cooperatives, social financing, and platform business models. Upon discussing how these latter approaches could potentially facilitate alternative sociotechnical pathways in cellular agriculture, we reflect upon the broader implications of this work with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enduring need for public policy reform. (shrink)

This paper is an outline of a semester long experiment with students in a bioethics course at the College of Staten Island. The experiment traces the complexities students face in moral reasoning. The author recounts the specific moral questions that arose amidst efforts to construct a collaborative list of definitions for terms of moral justification. The project contributed to students’ general knowledge of bioethics and its principles of judgments. The intensive engagement with the principles of moral justification allowed students to (...) grapple with complex moral issues, to research literature for basic terms, and to approach philosophical arguments across the history of philosophy. (shrink)

How does one teach an Intro to Philosophy course without a text? Having discovered that textbooks would not arrive until the third week of the semester, the author designed a course which strove to emphasize writing skills while still capturing students’ attention. Students wrote a short “Personal Philosophy” paper in which they shared their commitments regarding rationality, freedom, ethics, science, the existence of God, the value of life, and aesthetics, and then explained the sources of their beliefs. This paper was (...) supplemented and completed later in the course with a second “Critique” paper. Students used the philosophical tools acquired through lectures and readings to address if and how their beliefs on the content of the first paper had changed, focusing especially on inconsistencies in those beliefs, unfounded assumptions, new insight into the sources of their beliefs, and the most surprising change in their beliefs. After reviewing the instructions for the papers and detailing other structural features of the course, the author concludes by noting that the class was so successful that its design became standard for the author’s Intro to Philosophy course at College of Staten Island. (shrink)

Discussions about “disruptive” food controversies abound in popular and academic literatures, particularly with respect to meat production and consumption, yet there is little scholarship examining what makes an event disruptive in the first instance. Filling this gap will improve our understanding of how food controversies unfold and why certain issues may be more likely to linger in the public consciousness as opposed to others. I address these questions by using focus groups and in-depth interviews to analyze five potentially upsetting topics: (...) dietary warnings about meat consumption, meat safety recalls, eating meat directly from the skull of the animal, the morality of killing animals for food, and the “pink slime” debate. Findings suggest that disruptive events involve negative affective reactions to safety hazards, disgust-provoking sensory cues, and/or ethical dilemmas. When these cues exist in isolation from one another, consumers’ reactions are quite often short-lived, while the simultaneous presence of multiple disruptive elements in the context of a single issue or event can trigger a far stronger reaction. (shrink)

No es extraño que un autor como Crisóstomo Pizarro nos entregue un trabajo teórico-crítico sobre el proyecto democrático. Ya son varias las obras de su producción que nos acercan a su inquietud intelectual por lo político y lo social cristalizado en diversos actores sociales que ha trabajado, como los obreros, los niños, los jóvenes, además de sus interesantes reflexiones sobre ciudadanía, educación, participación, entre otras. No cabe duda además, que su experiencia en estos temas, obtenida ..

According to recent literature in the sociology of expectations, expectations about the future are “performative” in that they provide guidance for activities, attract attention, mobilize political and economic resources, coordinate between groups, link technical and social concerns, create visions, and enroll supporters. While this framework has blossomed over the past decade in science and technology studies, it has yet to be applied towards a more refined understanding of how the future of the modern agrofood system is being actively contested and (...) understood. I seek to redress this gap by using the sociology of expectations to explain the discursive topography surrounding in vitro meat, a nascent agrofood technology whereby processed meat products are developed from stem cells as opposed to live animals. In discussing the obstacles and challenges which confront the proponents of this technology, I utilize three key concepts from the sociology of expectations: (1) hype, (2) retrospective prospects, and (3) the role of myth, metaphor, and ideology. I find that despite sluggish results and financial setbacks, the controversial legacy of previous agrofood technologies, and persistent cultural skepticism, the core ideological justifications for in vitro meat have proven to be resilient in buoying the technology through rough discursive waters. (shrink)

La era del conocimiento ha reforzado el interés de los cientistas sociales por influir en las decisiones políticas y, recíprocamente, el de quienes toman las decisiones políticas por utilizar a los productores de conocimiento sobre la sociedad, sea para reorientar las políticas o para justificar decisiones ya tomadas.Ese interés mutuo, pero no necesariamente de la misma intensidad, hace que dentro de la gran diversidad de actores que en el contexto sociopolítico participan directa o indirecta..

The purpose of this paper is to provide further clarity to the technical and policy difficulties associated with mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by identifying and distilling the core tensions which propagate and animate them. We argue that these complexities exist across four critical dimensions: the epistemological, the ethical, the political, and the practical. Adequately confronting the challenge of agricultural emissions will require improved transparency in emissions measurement, increased science communication, enhanced public participatory mechanisms, and the integration of ethical (...) deliberation in scientific and policy discussions. (shrink)

This paper is an outline of a semester long experiment with students in a bioethics course at the College of Staten Island. The experiment traces the complexities students face in moral reasoning. The author recounts the specific moral questions that arose amidst efforts to construct a collaborative list of definitions for terms of moral justification. The project contributed to students’ general knowledge of bioethics and its principles of judgments. The intensive engagement with the principles of moral justification allowed students to (...) grapple with complex moral issues, to research literature for basic terms, and to approach philosophical arguments across the history of philosophy. (shrink)

How does one teach an Intro to Philosophy course without a text? Having discovered that textbooks would not arrive until the third week of the semester, the author designed a course which strove to emphasize writing skills while still capturing students’ attention. Students wrote a short “Personal Philosophy” paper in which they shared their commitments regarding rationality, freedom, ethics, science, the existence of God, the value of life, and aesthetics, and then explained the sources of their beliefs. This paper was (...) supplemented and completed later in the course with a second “Critique” paper. Students used the philosophical tools acquired through lectures and readings to address if and how their beliefs on the content of the first paper had changed, focusing especially on inconsistencies in those beliefs, unfounded assumptions, new insight into the sources of their beliefs, and the most surprising change in their beliefs. After reviewing the instructions for the papers and detailing other structural features of the course, the author concludes by noting that the class was so successful that its design became standard for the author’s Intro to Philosophy course at College of Staten Island. (shrink)

How to embed reflexivity in public participation in techno-science and to open it up to the agency of publics are key concerns in current debates. There is a risk that engagements become limited to “laboratory experiments,” highly controlled and foreclosed by participation experts, particularly in upstream techno-sciences. In this paper, we propose a way to open up the “participation laboratory” by engaging localized, self-assembling publics in ways that respect and mobilize their ecologies of participation. Our innovative reflexive methodology introduced participatory (...) methods to public engagement with upstream techno-science, with the public contributing to both the content and format of the project. Reflecting on the project, we draw attention to the largely overlooked issue of temporalities of participation, and the co-production of futures and publics in participation methodologies. We argue that many public participation methodologies are underpinned by the open futures model, which imagines the future as a space of unrestrained creativity. We contrast that model with the lived futures model typical of localized publics, which respects latency of materials and processes but imposes limits on creativity. We argue that to continue being societally relevant and scientifically important, public participation methods should reconcile the open future of research with the lived futures of localized publics. (shrink)

The judiciary is a key policy actor that is involved in deciding health rights and policy by intervening in the policy process through a variety of judicial mechanisms, yet the appropriate extent of its involvement remains contentious. Taking the competence objection seriously requires understanding it as an epistemic problem about how courts assess empirical and scientific evidence in order to competently adjudicate controversial health claims. This paper examines recent advances in social epistemology to develop insights for the epistemic competence of (...) the judiciary from a system‐oriented approach. I outline three epistemic features that set the judiciary and the judicial decision‐making process apart from other types of decision‐makers in health policy: the distribution of epistemic power, the epistemic authority of a justified believer, and the principle of disinterestedness. Finally, I relate these insights back to the judicial decision‐making process with a specific focus on recent court decisions in health rights and health policy in Chile. (shrink)

Chile and Colombia have undergone very different postconflict processes. Whereas in Chile there was an elite-based negotiated transition from a state terror regime, Colombia presents a gradual exit from an armed conflict involving multiple actors and taking place in one of Latin America’s most stable democracies. A strong common feature nevertheless exists in these two countries: important social movements—notably, student, afro-descendant, Indigenous, and peasant movements—that put forward memory, but which reach beyond the circle of direct victims. These “memory (...) from below” movements in both countries cannot be understood from their institutional contexts, since these are so different: while Chile’s democratic governments strengthened the amnesty law and led only to timid commemorative initiatives twenty years after the end of the dictatorship, Colombia adopted numerous laws that allowed an institutional presence of memory—notably, through the creation of the National Center for Historic Memory—while the armed conflict was still fully fledged. From a comparative politics perspective, these institutional differences lead one to investigate other causes for the presence of “memory from below” movements in both countries: interviews of participants show that these movements stem from a common understanding of the political role of memory, as well as from a common social imaginary of “shared suffering” that seeks to uncover state violence and that understands past human rights violations as being part of a historic continuum of structural and colonial violence aimed at criminalizing and crushing social movements in democracy. (shrink)

Chile’s recent history has gone through a hybrid conjuncture between what has been called the “social outbreak” on October 18, 2019, and the declaration of health emergency by COVID-19 promulgated on March 18, 2020. In such a context, this article describes and interprets two presidential speeches that announce the States of Exception based on conjunctural enemies’ rise. This social problem is investigated from Critical Discourse Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics, particularly the appraisal system, together with the categories of legitimation (...) proposed by van Leeuwen. This research is positioned from a qualitative perspective and takes as a corpus of analysis the two speeches declaring a State of Exception by President Piñera in 2019 and 2020, respectively. These speeches are available to the public at https://prensa.presidencia.cl/. The results show that an enemy is constructed in both cases by contrasting the actions taken or not, which present negative appreciation valuations in the case of COVID-19 and negative integrity judgments in the case of the social outbreak. In both cases, key social actors emerge that are firmly legitimized within the State of Exception framework, which in turn is based on the categories of authority and moral legitimation. In conclusion, the enemy’s construction is identified in both cases with modification of the actors that interact through a problem, an action, and an agent that solves the problem constructed. (shrink)

History textbooks in Chile are characterized by exposing an adult-centered historical narrative that invisibilizes the participation of boys and girls, since they have traditionally focused on describing the political exploits carried out by elite adult men in national and western history. To evidence this problem, in this qualitative, exploratory and interpretive research, critical literacy is used to analyze the texts and images of four textbooks published between 2016 and 2019 by SM and Santillana publishers. From these manuals, thematic units (...) related to Ancient Rome and Greece, colonial Chile, and European history of the 19th and 20th centuries were selected because they have the most relevant evidence to examine the subject. It is concluded that the analyzed discourses show that infants are marginalized social actors in history or are represented from the adult-centered paradigm as dependent and subordinate subjects to the adult world. Faced with this scenario, the importance of prioritizing children’s perspectives in the study of history and in the problematization of historical contents taught in the classroom is emphasized. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta los resultados preliminares obtenidos en la conformación del Atlas Iberoamericano en Bioética que ha desarrollado el Centro Anáhuac de Desarrollo Estratégico en Bioética (CADEBI) respecto a la identificación y análisis de las instituciones de Bioética existentes en la Región. Se realizó una revisión documental a través de motores de búsqueda, bases de datos, redes sociales y otras fuentes. La información obtenida se agrupó en seis diferentes categorías de acuerdo con la estructura, objetivos y actividades que desarrollan. De (...) esta manera, se realizó un diagnóstico inicial con base en las fuentes documentales disponibles en la Web. Como parte de los resultados, se identificaron 157 instituciones en 25 países; así como la variación en la densidad institucional, concentrándose principalmente en España (29 instituciones), México (26 instituciones), Argentina (17 instituciones), Brasil (13 instituciones), Chile (11 instituciones) y Colombia (8 instituciones). Además, se resalta la importancia de las comisiones nacionales de bioética en el desarrollo institucional, señalando la relación entre el avance científico y tecnológico de los países y el desarrollo de la bioética. El texto concluye con la propuesta de crear un Observatorio de la Red Iberoamericana de Bioética para documentar y promover el intercambio institucional y científico en la Región, así como algunas recomendaciones derivadas del desarrollo de este trabajo. (shrink)

En un escenario internacional cada vez más incierto, en el que todavía no se ha dejado atrás la pandemia de Covid-19, y hay que gestionar la ilegítima invasión rusa de Ucrania así como unas relaciones entre Estados Unidos y China cada vez más tensas, Europa y Japón han reafirmado sus vínculos históricos, económicos y políticos con dos acuerdos de asociación, uno de carácter económico y otro estratégico, en vigor desde 2019. El continente asiático se ha convertido además en el principal (...) eje geopolítico del mundo, y Japón quiere tener un papel relevante en el nuevo escenario al que ha respondido mediante su iniciativa del _Free and Open Indo-Pacific_, a la que Europa ha respondido con ciertas reservas. ¿Deben Europa y Japón seguir profundizando en su relación? ¿Cuáles son los ámbitos susceptibles de mejora? El marco adecuado debe ser, en nuestra opinión, el “orden internacional basado en normas” del que ambos actores son claros defensores, y los valores comunes de democracia, Estado de Derecho y protección de derechos fundamentales que los unen. (shrink)

La Unión Europea (UE) e India han manifestado un creciente interés en profundizar sus relaciones más allá del plano económico. Si bien Europa supone un importante socio comercial para India, existe la duda sobre la capacidad de que sea un actor político y de seguridad relevante, tanto en el Indo-Pacífico como a escala global. Para la UE, el crecimiento de India lo convierte en un socio atractivo, pero se debate entre sus prioridades más cercanas, las divergencias de sus miembros y (...) la percepción de reticencia india. Ambos socios estratégicos comparten características e intereses que, en lugar de acercarles más, les mantienen relativamente inertes. A través de un recorrido de las relaciones y sus ámbitos, este artículo plantea cuestiones relativas a los papeles de estos dos actores, tanto actuales como potenciales, y los puntos de convergencia y divergencia de intereses. (shrink)

El artículo se aproxima a la problemática de la subjetividad y experiencia cotidiana de las mujeres migrantes que ejercen como cuidadoras domésticas en dos destinos migratorios altamente feminizados y con una alta concentración de mujeres inmigrantes en el sector doméstico de cuidados (España y Chile). Con ello se pretende indagar comparativamente en dos flujos migratorios (sur-norte y sur-sur) sobre las expectativas y motivaciones que configuran los modelos migratorios femeninos, el significado del trabajo de cuidado en la inserción laboral de (...) las mujeres migrantes en las sociedades de destino, así como la valoración que esta labor tiene para sus protagonistas, tanto desde su dimensión emocional como de producción de bienes públicos. Los resultados presentados se basan en una investigación más amplia, cuya información primaria se obtuvo de la aplicación de 67 entrevistas en profundidad realizadas a distintos tipos de actores involucrados en la relación social de cuidado. (shrink)

Por años, se consideró a las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo como la principal y más grande insurgencia armada, enemigo número uno del Estado. Así mismo, desde 2012 se adelantó un proceso de diálogo y negociación política entre el gobierno colombiano y dichas fuerzas, que tuvo como resultado poner fin a la confrontación militar de más de seis décadas y habilitar un camino de reformas y apertura democrática para esta organización. Son muchos los factores que explican que la (...) posibilidad real del cese definitivo al fuego entre el establecimiento y las farc-ep haya sido exitosa. Sin embargo, la derrota estratégica de la primera guerrilla colombiana es la menos explorada y de escasos resultados en el subcampo del análisis político. Que la guerrilla de las farc-ep haya ingresado a un proceso de reincorporación no solo se explica por un desgaste obvio de la guerra, o una ventana de oportunidad a la salida política negociada, sino también porque en el plano político-militar hubo un escenario desfavorable que no se logró superar. El presente artículo es el resultado de un estudio con base en el enfoque de análisis de coyuntura, que reconoce un horizonte relacional y estratégico de la acción político-militar que comprende la identificación de actores, acontecimientos, escenarios, correlación de fuerzas y relación estructura-coyuntura a partir de la revisión bibliográfica de expertos y el Centro de Investigación en Memoria Histórica Militar, adscrito al Ministerio de Defensa. (shrink)