Collective strategies in unregulated urban expansion: Class and gender as shaping factors in environmental activism in Concon-Quintero, Chile.
In the context of climate change and unregulated urban expansion driven by capitalist land administration practices in the Concón-Quintero region, in Chile, I aim to explore the relationships between the roles of women, levels of trust in institutions, and the strategies and mechanisms developed by two distinct communities to address water issues. The goal is to analyze and compare these strategies through an intersectional lens based in Latin-American ecofeminist theory. I use narrative review to examine regulatory frameworks that influence territorial administration, the role of women inside of these communities, and how socioeconomic positionality influences trust in institutions to find out how much this plays a role when elaborating collective strategies in regard to water scarcity. The main findings indicate that in the Solar de Mantagua community (a higher-income community), women's participation is not as high as in the community of Santa Luisa, despite that the most active figures are women. Trust in institutions is high, and demands are directed towards them. However, these actions have not been efficient in solving the issue, and they still lack sufficient water for their daily activities. In the Santa Luisa community (a lower-income community), women play a key role in organizing collectively and although the trust in institutions is divergent, they have resorted to various mechanisms to obtain water for their daily activities. Currently, organized individuals have enough water for their daily activities, while those that did not are still struggling. This confirms the initial thesis that higher socioeconomic levels correlate with greater trust in institutions and more reliance on them. Similarly, women in communities with higher socioeconomic levels are more removed from the sphere of care than women in lower socioeconomic levels, which could explain their lesser involvement in political action. It is important to note that the primary incentive is not the environment but the provision of water for their daily tasks.
Chile-water, Scarcity, Feminist Theory, Community, Intersectionality
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign