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The things they are a-changin

Reinventing daily objects during the chilean 2019 revolt

Bibliographic Data

ID12700504
AuthorsRobert Greene (0000-0002-1930-320X, Facultad de Ingenieria, Arquitectura y Diseno, corresponding author), Tomás Errázuriz (0000-0002-5772-1736, Campus Creativo, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile)
Year2024
Volume23
Issue4
Pages549-562
Publication date2024-08-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueVisual Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-3572 • E-ISSN: 1741-3214
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/14703572231197789
OpenAlexW4401851090
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited8

In October 2019, fuelled by a collective discontent with the lifestyles and inequalities generated by the capitalist model, social protests took place in the Chilean streets. People staged massive demonstrations in every city demanding profound changes to the system. Known as the ‘Estallido Social’ (Social Explosion), the demonstrations paralysed an important part of the country and, after a few weeks of revolt, managed to initiate a new Constitution-making process. These events triggered a process in which the country was re-imagined, subjectivities were rewritten and objects and the environment were heavily transformed. This study places its focus on a set of industrially produced objects, whose original functions were subverted in the streets to enable new uses and meanings aligned with the Social Explosion. Kitchen items such as pots and ladles were used to make a lot of noise; road signs and pieces of urban furniture were re-located to block the streets; and gas cylinders and oil drums were reshaped for protection against police forces. While specialized literature generally seeks to recognize the new social forms and models that emerge from the crisis, this essay aims to reflect on the ways in which the relationship with the everyday environment is transformed in the midst of a social crisis, and how operations of resignification and reinterpretation may also be necessary to bring about more profound changes. As such, this study aims to characterize these operations of mutation (of bending, crumpling, scratching, wetting, moving, cutting, twisting, hitting, breaking, cracking, tricking, whipping, throwing, crushing, dragging, drilling and burning), and from there to move towards elucidating the practical and symbolic repercussions that this new material reality has had on the social body and daily life

Aesthetics · Art · Constitution · Political science · Sociology · Visual arts · Latin American Urban Studies · Law · Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America

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Unique citing works2
Citations per year2
Citation span2026 - 2026 (1)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo

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