Citizenship practices in rural territories: effects of 40 years of economic neoliberalization

Abstract

During the last two years, Chile has experienced an in-depth discussion about the social pact that has prevailed since 1980. The social outbreak of 2019 and the subsequent constituent process has made us wonder as a society, what are the bases of belonging, rights and duties that unite us. This article focuses the gaze on a sector little studied in terms of citizenship, rural territories, based on their electoral behavior, associativity and link with productive activities. While these territories have undergone the most profound transformations of 40 years of neoliberalism, their inhabitants feel neglected and marginalized by the State and its institutions. By examining two predominantly rural districts –27, in the Aysén region, and 16, in the O'Higgins region– we evidenced a constant electoral abstention from regional and national politics from 1990 onwards, and we argue that 40 years of Neoliberalization has caused a detachment from democratic institutions and spaces, due to their formal and symbolic rather than real character. To understand this, we propose the concept of extractive citizenship, which allows addressing the governance, anchoring and symbolic dimensions and thus accessing the manifestations and the exercise of citizenship in rural territories, thus inviting to deepen the empirical and theoretical study on rural citizenship