Keywords

Space, Social protest, Cities, Informal sector, Chile

Disciplines

Sociology

Abstract

Recent discussions of contentious politics have focused on struggles in and over space and place. This article builds upon these concerns by using ethnographic, interview, and documentary data to analyze the spatial politics of street market vendors in Santiago, Chile. Drawing upon Lefebvre’s concepts of perceived, conceived, and lived space as well as ideas drawn from research on space and protest, I show how street market vendors build upon spatial routines, a sense of place, political alliances, and scale jumping in their self-defense strategies at the local, national, and international scales. The findings illustrate Lefebvre’s argument that the advance of abstract space (constructed by dominant economic and political elites) provokes resistance by groups who defend and seek to reconstruct lived space.

Original Citation

Stillerman, J. (2006). The Politics of Space and Culture in Santiago, Chile’s Street Markets. Qualitative Sociology, 29(4), 507–530. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-006-9041-x

Included in

Sociology Commons

Share

COinS