1887
Volume 23, Issue 5
  • ISSN 1569-2159
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9862
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

In September 2022, Chileans overwhelmingly rejected the draft of a new constitution to replace the inherited from Pinochet’s dictatorship. Existing explanations attribute the failure to a mixture of ill-designed procedures, political dynamics, and ideological distortions and fake news. However, we argue for a different interpretation, emphasizing the collision of normative worlds in the struggle for demarcating rights. Through narrative analysis of social media stories during the referendum campaign, we investigate distinct moral economies around the constitutional debate on housing rights. These reveal a tension between divergent rights claims anchored in the value of “ownership” versus “dignity.” Within these almost irreconcilable normative universes, private property condenses meanings across narratives: the value of personal home-ownership effort and the collective aspiration for decent housing access. While not inherently incompatible, these narratives evolved into polarizing channels through which property became the defining moral boundary that underlies the stories shaping Chile’s constitutional struggle over rights.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.24097.fre
2024-07-26
2025-02-17
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Angelcos, Nicolás, and Juan Pablo Rodríguez
    2023 “Amplifying Dignity in the Neoliberal City: The Pobladores Movement in Chile”, Social Movement Studies, 1–18. 10.1080/14742837.2023.2171383
    https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2023.2171383 [Google Scholar]
  2. Araujo, Kathya, and Danilo Martuccelli
    2012Desafíos Comunes. Retrato de La Sociedad Chilena y Sus Individuos. Tomo I. Santiago de Chile: LOM.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Baranda, Benito
    2022Speech at the Constitutional Convention [Video]. Youtube. 19 April 2022. https://x.com/24HorasTVN/status/1516471662975324165
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bhandar, Brenna
    2018Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of Ownership. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Besoain, Carolina, and Marcela Cornejo
    2015 “Vivienda Social y Subjetivación Urbana En Santiago de Chile: Espacio Privado, Repliegue Presentista y Añoranza.” Psicoperspectivas. Individuo y Sociedad14(2): 16–27. 10.5027/psicoperspectivas‑Vol14‑Issue2‑fulltext‑369
    https://doi.org/10.5027/psicoperspectivas-Vol14-Issue2-fulltext-369 [Google Scholar]
  6. Boltanski, Luc, and Laurent Thèvenot
    2006On Justification: Economies of Worth. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 10.1515/9781400827145
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400827145 [Google Scholar]
  7. Cordero, Rodrigo
    2019 “Giving society a form: Constituent moments and the force of concepts.” Constellations26(2): 194–207. 10.1111/1467‑8675.12405
    https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12405 [Google Scholar]
  8. Cordero, Rodrigo and Raimundo Frei
    2024 “Demarcating rights in divided social worlds: An introduction to the moral economy of constitutional struggles.” Journal of Language and Politics. 10.1075/jlp.24096.cor
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24096.cor [Google Scholar]
  9. Cover, Robert M.
    1983 “Foreword: Nomos and Narrative”. Harvard Law Review97(1): 4–68.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Cristi, Renato
    2021La tiranía del mercado. El auge del neoliberalismo en Chile. Santiago: Lom.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Davies, Will
    2012 “Ways of Owning: Towards an Economic Sociology of Privatization.” Poetics40(2): 167–184. 10.1016/j.poetic.2012.02.008
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2012.02.008 [Google Scholar]
  12. De Fina, Anna, and Alexandra Georgakopoulou
    2011Analyzing Narrative: Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139051255
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139051255 [Google Scholar]
  13. España, Sergio, and Claudio Fuentes
    2023 “El proceso constituyente desde la subjetividad.” InEl proceso fallido: La dinámica constituyente en Chile, 2020–2022, edited byClaudio Fuentes. Catalonia: Santiago.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Fassin, Didier
    2021 “Of Plots and Men: The Heuristics of Conspiracy Theories.” Current Anthropology62(2): 128–137. 10.1086/713829
    https://doi.org/10.1086/713829 [Google Scholar]
  15. 2009 “Moral Economies Revisited.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales64(6) : 1237–1266. 10.1017/S0395264900027499
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0395264900027499 [Google Scholar]
  16. Frei, Raimundo, Castillo, Juan Carlos, Herrera, Rodrigo, and Suárez, José Ignacio
    2020 “¿Fruto del esfuerzo? Los cambios en las atribuciones sobre pobreza y riqueza en Chile entre 1996 y 2015.” Latin American Research Review55(3): 477–495. 10.25222/larr.464
    https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.464 [Google Scholar]
  17. Forchtner, Bernarnd, and Christoffer Kølvraa
    2012 “Narrating a ‘New Europe’: From ‘bitter Past’ to Self-Righteousness?” Discourse & Society23(4):377–400. 10.1177/0957926512441108
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926512441108 [Google Scholar]
  18. Fuentes, Claudio
    . “El proceso fallido: La dinámica constituyente en dos niveles.” InEl proceso fallido: La dinámica constituyente en Chile, 2020–2022 edited by Claudio Fuentes. Catalonia: Santiago.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. García-Huidobro, Luis Eugenio
    2023 “Elite Non-cooperation in Polarized Democracies: Constitution-making Deferral, the Entry Referendum and the Seeds of the Chilean Failure.” Global Constitutionalism, 1–14. 10.1017/S2045381723000321
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381723000321 [Google Scholar]
  20. Ginsburg, Tom, and Isabel Álvarez
    2023 “It’s the Procedures, Stupid: The Success and Failures of Chile’s Constitutional Convention.” Global Constitutionalism, 1–10. 10.1017/S2045381723000242
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381723000242 [Google Scholar]
  21. Gonzalez-Ocantos, Ezequiel, and Carlos Meléndez
    2023 “Rethinking the Role of Issue-Voting in Referenda: Conjoint and Vote Choice Analyses of Preferences for Constitutional Change in Chile.” Comparative Politics. Online first.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Greimas, Algirdas Julien
    1984Structural Semantics. An attempt at methods. University of Nebraska Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Habermas, Jurgüen
    2010 “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights.” Metaphilosophy41(4): 464–480. 10.1111/j.1467‑9973.2010.01648.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2010.01648.x [Google Scholar]
  24. Hochschild, Arlie Rusell
    2016Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning in the American Right. New York: The New Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Instituto Nacional de Estadística
    Instituto Nacional de Estadística (2022) Estimación de personas extranjeras Residentes habituales en Chile al 31 de diciembre de 2021. Distribución regional y comunal. Santiago, Chile.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Labov, William
    2013The Language of Life and Death: The Transformation Of Experience In Oral Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139519632
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519632 [Google Scholar]
  27. Lakoff, Georg
    2004Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Larrain, Guillermo, Gabriel Negretto, and Stefan Voigt
    2023 “How not to write a constitution: lessons from Chile.” Public Choice1941: 233–247 (2023) 10.1007/s11127‑023‑01046‑z
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-023-01046-z [Google Scholar]
  29. Lazar, Nomi Claire
    2021 “Time Framing in the Rhetoric of Constitutional Preambles.” Law & Literature33(1): 1–21. 10.1080/1535685X.2019.1688477
    https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685X.2019.1688477 [Google Scholar]
  30. Mendoza, Marcelo, Sebastián Valenzuela, Enrique Núñez-mussa, Fabián Padilla, Eliana Providel, and Sebastian Campos
    2023 “A Study on Information Disorders on Social Networks during the Chilean Social Outbreak and COVID-19 Pandemic.” Applied Sciences131. 10.3390/app13095347
    https://doi.org/10.3390/app13095347 [Google Scholar]
  31. Moretto, Marcio, Pablo Ortellado, Gabriel Kessler, Gabriel Vommaro, Juan Carlos Rodriguez-raga, Juan Pablo Luna, Eduardo Heinen, Laura Cely, and Sergio Toro
    2022 “People Are More Engaged on Facebook as They Get Older, Especially in Politics: Evidence from Users in 46 Countries.” Journal of Quantitative Description21:1–20. 10.51685/jqd.2022.018
    https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2022.018 [Google Scholar]
  32. Moyn, Samuel
    2014 “The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity.” Yale Human Rights and Development Journal17(1): 39–73.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Nedelsky, Jennifer
    2011Laws Relations: A Relational Theory of Self, Autonomy, and Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Pérez, Miguel
    2022The Right to Dignity: Housing Struggles, City Making, and Citizenship in Urban Chile. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 10.1515/9781503631533
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503631533 [Google Scholar]
  35. 2017 “Reframing housing struggles: Right to the city and urban citizenship in Santiago, Chile.” City21(5): 530–549. 10.1080/13604813.2017.1374783
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2017.1374783 [Google Scholar]
  36. PNUD
    PNUD 2017Desiguales. Orígenes, Cambios y Desafíos de La Brecha Social En Chile. Santiago de Chile: Uqbar Editores.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Reisigl, Martin and Ruth Wodak
    2009 “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).” InMethods of critical discourse analysis, edited byM. Reisigl and R. Wodak, pp.87–121. London: Sage Publications.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Rodríguez, Juan Pablo, Sofía Donoso, and Nicolás Somma
    2023 “How to stop a progressive tsunami: Repertoire of strategies against gender and reproductive rights in Chile’s 2021–22 constitutional process”. Unpublished manuscript.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Rose, Carol M.
    1994Property and Persuasion: Essays on the History, Theory, and Rhetoric of Ownership. London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Sajuria, Javier, and Emilia Saffirio
    2023 “Se nos rompió el amor: Cambios en la opinión pública durante el proceso constituyente chileno.” InEl proceso fallido: La dinámica constituyente en Chile, 2020–2022, edited byClaudio Fuentes. Catalonia: Santiago. 10.31235/osf.io/tpyqu
    https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/tpyqu [Google Scholar]
  41. Scherman, Andrés, and S. Rivera
    2021 “Social Media Use and Pathways to Protest Participation: Evidence From the 2019 Chilean Social Outburst.” Social Media + Society7(4): 1–13. 10.1177/20563051211059704
    https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211059704 [Google Scholar]
  42. Siavelis, Peter, and Jennifer Piscopo
    2023 “Chile’s Constitutional Chaos.” Journal of Democracy34(1): 141–155. 10.1353/jod.2023.0009
    https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2023.0009 [Google Scholar]
  43. Tschorne, Samuel
    2023 “Referendums and representation in democratic constitution making: Lessons from the failed Chilean constitutional experiment.” King’s Law Journal34(2): 192–214. 10.1080/09615768.2023.2248649
    https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2023.2248649 [Google Scholar]
  44. Whyte, Jessica
    2019The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism. London and New York: Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.24097.fre
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.24097.fre
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Chile; constitutional referendum; homeownership; moral economy; narratives; rights
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error