The purpose of this thesis is to analyse political memories, through the life stories of people who participated in political parties or movements during the time of Pinochet’s dictatorship. The analysis focuses on two aspects of activism which have usually been neglected, namely family and gender relations. Several questions were embraced along this research, around the central motivation of learning about the way in which people became politically active. What role family traditions and loyalties played? How gender has been constructed through political memories and political activism? And from a more historical point of view, how State terrorism during the Chilean dictatorship marked political militancy, both rightwing and leftwing, particularly for those who were defeated and suffered human rights violations? Methodological aspects determine the limits and richness of this work, based on memory narratives taken from interviews. Political identities are analysed through memory work, from the perspective of the ways in which people remember and construct their experiences of activism, through their own narratives. I examine how committed militants view their past participation, how they currently live their commitment, how they relate to the Chilean past, and how they construct their identities through the narrations of this particular and essential aspect of their lives. Political parties, particularly the leftwing, have been criticised because of their failure to stand as political referents and their inability to vindicate current struggles, to reflect new forms of exploitation and the lack of recognition for new social actors. Therefore, and taking the Chilean experience as an example, I also revise some reasons why ‘modern’ and western styles of militancy, in the last decades, may have become less popular. Finally, I would like to state that this research intended to stand as a space for the narratives of some Chilean political actors, to confront the official history of this painful period, a history that tends to forget that behind the facts that shocked Chile during the 1970s the protagonists were real and normal people, whose everyday life conditions drove them to live with a strong political commitment.

This thesis describes and analyses the intellectual trajectory of the Franco-Chilean cultural critic Nelly Richard between 1970 and 2015. Using a transdisciplinary approach, this investigation not only analyses Richard's series of theoretical, political, and essayistic experimentations, it also explores Chile’s artistic production (particularly in the visual arts) and political-cultural processes over the past 45 years. In this sense, it is an examination, on the one hand, of how her critical work and thought emerged in a social context characterized by historical breaks and transformations and, on the other, of how these biographical experiences and critical-theoretical experiments derived from a specific intellectual practice that has marked her professional profile: crítica cultural. The first chapter proposes an exploration of Nelly Richard’s arrival in Chile as well as of her first critical texts on the artistic production of the 1970s. The second chapter analyses the process of institutionalization of Nelly Richard’s critical art writing during the 1980s, as well as her analytical turn towards new areas of critical thinking (such as Kristeva’s theory of signification, post-modern theory and feminism). Chapter 3 deals with Chile’s democratic transition between 1990 and 2000, as well as an in-depth analysis of the specific methodological, conceptual, and political aspects of Richard’s crítica cultural. The fourth chapter explores the way Richard has discussed and developed the question of memory in Chile from 2000 to the present. This thesis concludes that the challenge of Richard’s crítica cultural is to insist upon the search for cultural texts that are not only resistant to the culturally homogenizing policies of global capitalism and their impact on the local cultural landscape, but which also unveil and de-centre strategies of symbolic legitimization that institutionalize domination in all its forms. In this light, crítica cultural is a process of permanent refoundation.

This thesis examines the paradox of the Chile-Peru border, and specifically the Chilean border city of Arica, between 1925 and 2015. Through an eclectic mixed method ‘collage’, primarily relying on archival research and extended interviews, the richness of the lived experience of the border comes to the fore. Arica has been a space of violence since it was appropriated from Peru by Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883) and I am interested in how this violence has lingered and manifested itself in various ways since Arica officially became Chilean territory in the 1920s. This violence often stems from a performance of Chilean machismo at the border. Arica is a space of contradiction. A space of extreme nationalism but also of rejection of the Chilean state, of being central to the Chilean nation but also of being peripheral and abandoned. Over five ‘border moments’ over ninety years Arica oscillates between centrality and marginality dependent on threats to Chilean sovereignty at the border. Through a chronological and multi-disciplinary arc the history of violence in Arica can be better understood. The thesis begins in 1925 when the United States became involved in the dispute over the Chile-Peru border that hadn’t been settled since the War of the Pacific. Violence permeated the region and made an attempted plebiscite impossible and although the border was demarcated through other means in 1929, Arica soon became ignored by the Chilean state. A state of abandonment remained until the 1950s when economic initiatives enacted at the regional level succeeded in raising the prospects and spirits of Arica, purging the area of violence, until the 1970s when General Pinochet’s new economic plan reversed Arica’s progress. Arica instead became a military space in this decade as tensions arose between Pinochet and Peruvian dictator General Velasco and international violence returned. This international level is then contrasted with violence at the corporeal level in Arica in the 1980s when HIV/AIDS and abortion both became increasingly pertinent at the border. The thesis closes with how violence remains present in Arica today, particularly as seen through the 2014 maritime border dispute.

This dissertation investigates the emergence and impact of social movements in Chile since the reinstatement of democracy in 1990. Seeking to make an important contribution to the understanding of the reconstruction of collective action in post-transition Chile, I focus on two cases which have been particularly successful in questioning the benefits of market-friendly policies introduced by the military regime (1973-1989) and continued to a great extent by the Concertación governments (1990-2010). The first case is the 2006 Pingüino movement, named after the secondary school students’ penguin-like black and white school uniforms, which forced a substantial discussion on the education system’s segregating effects and its neoliberal underpinnings. The second case is the 2007 Contratista movement, composed of subcontracted workers of CODELCO – Chile’s main state-owned copper-extracting company. The Contratistas repoliticised a long-dormant debate on labour issues and revitalised a trade union movement which had been in decline in previous decades. I draw on the Contentious Politics approach, which stresses social movements’ interaction with the institutional terrain, and explain the emergence of the Pingüinos and Contratistas as the result of three distinct but intertwined processes: the opening up of the structure of political opportunities involved in the rise of President Bachelet; the deeply felt discontent with the education and labour reforms introduced by the military regime and kept largely intact by the Concertación governments; and the movements’ adoption of non-hierarchical organisational forms as a way of reconstructing collective action ‘from below’. In terms of political impact, I show that both the students and the contract workers were successful in introducing issues onto the public agenda that were not there before the emergence of the movements. The extent to which this was translated into bills that reflected the concerns of the movements, however, depended on their capacity to continue to exert pressure on the government and to forge political alliances. In this way, I argue that the impact of the movements was indirect and followed a two-stage process through which first the Pingüinos and Contratistas influenced aspects of their external environment, namely, public opinion and political alliances, and then the latter influenced policy. Overall, my research shows the links between processes at the micro-level (the development of organisational resources and grievance interpretation) and their subsequent impact at the macro-level (agenda-setting and policy impact) – a development that has undoubtedly acquired greater relevance and analytical urgency since the wide range of protests that have taken place around the world since 2011.

La thèse a pour objet de décrire, caractériser et analyser le nouveau scénario développé à Tocopilla (Chili) pour l’installation d’une puissance pour alimenter les mines de cuivre à Chuquicamata et de salpêtre dans l’Atacama par des capitaux américains. Létude porte sur l’inclusion, la transformation et les dérives du capitalisme minier, ayant développé diverses asymétries qui ont frappé la population jusqu’a aujourd´hui, ce qui transforme la ville en un pôle technologique, génerant de relations coloniales avec la population, faisant de Tocopilla une périphérie étudiée sous l’influence de l’État en raison d’une économie coloniale qui a profondément affecté l’environnement. / The thesis aims to describe, characterize and analyze the new scenario that was developed in Tocopilla (Chile) by means of the installation of a thermo power station to energize the copper mining in Chuquicamata and the mining of nitrate in the Atacama desert through american capitals. The inclusion, transformation and derivations of mining capitalism are studied. They developed numerous asymmetries that impacted the population until the present time. Converting the settlement into a technological pole, establishing colonial relations with the population and establishing Tocopilla in a periphery by the influence of the State, due to the effect of a colonial economy that deeply affected the environment. / La tesis tiene como objetivo describir, caracterizar y analizar el nuevo escenario que se desarrolló en Tocopilla (Chile) por la instalación de una termoeléctrica para energizar la minería de cobre en Chuquicamata y la minería del salpetre en el desierto de Atacama a través de capitales estadounidenses. Se estudia la inclusión, la transformación y las derivaciones del capitalismo minero que desarrolló diversas asimetrías que impactaron profundamente a la población hasta el tiempo presente, tornando al poblado en un polo tecnológico, estableciéndose relaciones coloniales con la población, además de constituir a Tocopilla en una periferia ante la influencia del Estado por efecto de una economía colonial que afectó profundamente al medio ambiente.

Après l'arrivée au pouvoir des révolutionnaires cubains en 1959, l'Amérique latine s'insère de plain-pied dans la« guerre froide pour les idées», suscitant un intérêt croissant de la part des deux superpuissances : les États-Unis et l'Union soviétique. Quant à cette dernière, le bouleversement social à Cuba incite le Kremlin à porter un regard intéressé sur l'île des Caraïbes, un pays qui deviendra plus tard, après une phase de divergences (1962-1968), un allié fidèle de Moscou. Mais le rapprochement de l'URSS avec La Havane entraîne également une doctrine spécifique envers d'autres pays du continent latino-américain. C'est le cas du Chili, un État qui, sous la présidence d'Eduardo Frei (1964-1970), noue des accords ambitieux avec l'Est, encourageant des échanges accrus. Cette tendance, interrompue tragiquement suite au coup d'État de Pinochet en septembre 1973, se renforcera après la victoire électorale de Salvador Allende en 197 0. Outre l'essor des relations politiques ou économiques, l'administration soviétique à l'ère de Nikita Khrouchtchev s'efforce de mettre en place une vigoureuse diplomatie culturelle, ce qui se traduira par des interactions grandissantes avec la Cuba castriste et le Chili des années 1960 et 1970. Alors qu'à Santiago, la culture soviétique est appelée à dévoiler un côté positif d'un pays méconnu, à Cuba, elle devient vite un indice des liens privilégiés tissés entre deux États qui font désormais partie du même« camp idéologique». Cependant, les effets que les échanges culturelles produisent ne sont pas les mêmes dans les deux régions analysées, engendrant des représentations sociales hétérogènes, voire ambivalentes, indissociables de chaque contexte. Par le biais d'une perspective comparative, fondée sur les priorités soviétiques à Cuba et au Chili, il est possible de prendre la mesure des spécificités de la politique extérieure du Kremlin en Amérique latine ainsi que des effets variés que la nouvelle proximité provoque. Cette approche nous autorise aussi à constater que les rapports à l'égard d'un État conditionnent souvent la politique menée envers l'autre, érigeant une « logique triangulaire» des relations URSS-Chili-Cuba. / After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Latin America became a crucial point of the "Cold War for the ideas", generating a growing interest of both United States and Soviet Union. Concerning USSR, social transformation of Cuba encouraged the Kremlin to have an attentive eye on the Caribbean island, a country that will become, after a phase of divergences (1962-1968), a faithful Moscow's ally. But the rapprochement between USSR and Havana also foster a specific doctrine with regard to other Latin American countries. It was the case of Chile, a state that during Eduardo Frei's administration (1964-1970) signed ambitious agreements with the East, encouraging bilateral exchanges. This trend, brutally interrupted by Pinochet’s coup d'état in September 1973, strengthened after the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. Beyond the growth of political and economic relations, Khrushchev’s administration made an effort to consolidate a powerful cultural diplomacy, which will result in increasing interactions with Castro’s Cuba and Chile of the 1960s and the early 1970s. While in Santiago, Soviet culture was supposed to unveil a positive facet of a largely ignored country, in Cuba, it became rapidly a mark of the privileged links built between two states belonging to the same "ideological camp". Nonetheless, the effect of cultural exchanges was not the same in the different areas analyzed, engendering heterogeneous and even ambivalent social representations that were deeply associated to each context. On the basis of a comparative approach, focused on Soviet priorities in Cuba and Chile, it is possible to measure the nature of Kremlin's foreign policy in Latin America, as well as the various consequences of the new international proximity. This standpoint also allows us to remark that relations with one state may determine the policy towards other nations, configuring a "triangular articulation" of Soviet-Chilean-Cuban relations.

Durant la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, le système universitaire chilien a connu trois importantes transformations successives : la Réforme universitaire commencée en 1967, l’intervention militaire des universités à partir de 1973 et la législation universitaire imposée entre la fin de 1980 et le début de 1981. Durant ces différents processus, l’expérience de l’Université Catholique du Chili a été à la fois particulière et caractéristique. Sa particularité est notable dans la manière avec laquelle chacune de ces transformations se sont déroulées en son sein. Elle montre, outre sa condition d’institution d’élite, catholique et pontificale, l’existence d’une grande variété d’acteurs, de motivations et de relations, dont les tensions se gèrent par des stratégies et des mécanismes caractéristiques de sa communauté universitaire. Mais elle est aussi emblématique car les rapports de force qui traversent les acteurs de l’Université Catholique reflètent bien la variété et la complexité des logiques et intérêts en jeu, qui se retrouvent dans les autres universités chiliennes. / The Chilean university system experienced three important and successive transformations in the second half of the twentieth century: the university reform which began in 1967, the military intervention in universities starting in 1973 and the imposition of university legislation from late 1980 and early 1981. The experience of the Catholic University of Chile throughout these processes was as unusual as it was revealing. Unusual because the effect of each of these transformations on the university not only shed light on its position as an elite, catholic and pontifical institution, but also exposed a variety of actors, causes and relationships, and thetensions between them, which were managed through strategies and mechanisms characteristic of the university community. And revealing because the power relationships between the university’s own actors, compared with those of other institutions, painted a more complex and complete picture of the different ideas and interests at stake, whose influence was not restricted to the Catholic University of Chile, but extended to Chilean universities in general.