Una carta de navegación para el Chile del futuro

el proceso constituyente chileno en la visión de la historiadora Claudia Zapata - entrevista

Abstract

In the midst of the worrying scenario of frontal attacks on democracy in Latin America that we have seen in recent years, the whole continent accompanied with great expectation the plebiscite held in Chile on 4 September 2022. On this occasion, a proposal for a new Constitution was put to the vote which, if approved, would allow the pillars of the Chilean neoliberal model so strictly consolidated in the 1980 Pinochet dictatorship's Constitution to be overcome.
We had the honour of speaking with historian Claudia Zapata on 17 October, just over a month after the plebiscite and the confirmation of the rejection of the proposed new charter. In this interview Zapata recalls the long process by which different collectives began to present demands for profound social changes in the neoliberal model implemented since the dictatorship, a process that culminated in the social outburst of 2019 and the agreements for the implementation of the constituent itinerary. It should be remembered that, although these agreements were a "negotiation from above", with the aim of saving the weakened government of Sebastián Piñera, the social movements and the left managed to occupy the spaces that opened up at the time, defining a progressive agenda to advance in the conquest of rights unprecedented in the history of the country. These groups were therefore very confident that the new text would be approved and, in this sense, the rejection was felt as a severe setback. The historian's acute analysis, however, opens the way to other readings and broadens our perspective on the advances, hopes and contemporary challenges of social movements in Latin America.
Claudia Zapata is a professor at the Department of Historical Sciences and the Centre for Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Chile since 1999. Her most recent research has focused on contemporary indigenous movements and Latin American and Caribbean intellectual history. Among her numerous publications are Frantz Fanon desde América Latina - Lecturas contemporáneas de un pensador del siglo XX, 2013; Intelectuales indígenas en Ecuador, Bolivia y Chile - diferencia, colonialismo y anticolonialismo, 2013 and Crisis del multiculturalismo en América Latina, 2019.