Politicization of discomfort, social mobilization and ideological transformation: the case “Chile 2011”

Abstract

Between 1990 and 2011 raised a subjectivity that allowed a significant increase in discomfort without a corresponding political expression. A depoliticized society privatized public problems and processed them at individual level. In this context, the dissent of citizens with the political order to which they should respond, not only never had an institutional representation, but rather institutionality was their main obstacle. Institutions stood as a retaining wall for discomfort and thus protected the political class. The latency of discomfort came to an end, or at least to a significant suspension, in 2011, by ways of a significant social mobilization process that anchor the discomfort energy in Chilean education. The former illegitimacy of public protest reversed its sign and protest became a fundamental part of the way citizen demands managed, legitimately, a climbing up to the authorities consideration, while the last saw reduced their already scarce citizens approval. This article discusses the transformative nature of the mere possibility of processing discomfort in a politicized manner, becoming this a sufficient condition to increase the degree of societal deliberation on public issues, reconfiguring the public space’s texture and even radically modifying the prevailing hegemonic conditions.