Urban struggles in Santiago Place-based claims and resistance to neoliberal urbanism

The expansion of global urbanization and neoliberal urbanization has generated a transformation of urban mobilizations, which has implied a redefinition of theoretical approaches to account for their new characteristics, dynamics, and impacts. Based on a qualitative study that addresses social mobilizations for access to social housing and the protection of neighborhood heritage in Santiago (Chile), this research seeks to describe and explain how urban activists and grassroots organizations develop specific claim-making strategies to advance their particularistic demands and build emerging alternative political agendas that challenge neoliberal urbanization.
The results of this research show that the early and radical way neoliberal-oriented urban policies were implemented in Santiago has had a profound impact on the material and symbolic relationships that people and social groups have with the spaces and places they inhabit. Thus, the threat of socio-spatial displacement is a key element in explaining the emergence of these contentious actions, which are built from local spaces and with a strong sense of place expressed in their discursive frameworks and mobilization strategies. These place-based mobilizations generate incipient acts of urban citizenship within the framework of neoliberal urbanism. However, their territorial imbrication has resulted in a spatial encapsulation that restricts its possibilities to transcend the local scale and generate links with other actors to generate broader political demands.
Despite the particularities of Santiago, the analytical approach of this research, which articulates urban studies and social movements literature, can be useful for comparison with urban activisms in other contexts where neoliberal urbanization has followed other patterns.