Call for Papers

Dear all here is the call for papers for the conference. Please feel free to circulate the information and contact us if you have any question.  

CALL FOR PAPERS 

CHILE’S WINTER OF DISCONTENT: THE BREAKDOWN OF A PARADIGM IN LATIN AMERICA?

11^TH MAY 2012. UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, 9.30 -18.30 

During the last two decades, Chile’s neoliberal economic paradigm has often been considered a Latin American model of political stability and socioeconomic development. Despite Chile’s remarkable economic and political advances, the citizenry has nevertheless started to manifest growing signs of malaise within recent years.

Since early 2011, discontent has been made visible through a series of political and social mobilisations opposing the government’s stand on different issues affecting education, the environment, civil liberties and sexual rights, gender issues, ethnic minorities, and political participation. Chilean citizens have been taking to the streets in great numbers, making social mobilisation a new form of political expression. In particular, the relentless protests led by students for more than six months – dubbed ‘Chile’s winter of discontent’ in the popular press – have established a new social critique to the neoliberal model.

How do we explain this widespread manifestation of discontent? What were the conditions that prevented similar forces from arising in the past two decades? And why have they arisen now? What is and will be the impact of these new social movements in Chilean politics? How will these demands be channelled? How are these domestic events linked to the international agenda debated globally during 2011?

This one-day conference invites scholars and postgraduate students to discuss a new range of issues that have been recently unveiled surrounding the 2011 ‘Chilean winter of discontent’.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to chilesdiscontentconference@gmail.com with a short bio or c.v before March 1, 2012. Questions about the conference should be sent to the same email address. Potential contributors will be notified by March 15, 2012.

Please send your paper by no later than April 20, 2012. It should have a length of no more than 8000 words including footnotes and bibliography.

After the conference, we aspire to compile the best papers presented with the aim of publication in either a book or a special issue of a journal in a relevant studies’ area.

For more updates on the conference please visit:  http://chileswinterofdiscontentconference.blogspot.com/

Possible themes include but are not restricted to:

×          Social movements and new actors

×          Education

×          Political representation

×          Gender policies & sexuality

×          Social inequalities

×          Ethnic minorities & legal recognition

×          Health issues

×          Electoral system & political parties

×          Media coverage

×          Labour markets

×          Chilean International Relations 

Speakers include: Professor Maxine Molyneux, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London. TBC.

Convenors

Andrés Villar, International Relations, University of Cambridge

Carmen Sepúlveda, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London

Tomás Undurraga, Sociology, University of Cambridge