En Santiago alrededor de 8 millones de personas utilizan el transporte público para movilizarse por la ciudad. Durante lo que se conoce como el “Estallido Social” o “Revuelta popular de Octubre” ocurre una ruptura con la normalidad anterior y en las protestas se manifiestan las demandas por una mejor calidad de vida y por una ciudad más integrada. En la vorágine de la rabia, algunas estaciones de metro son intervenidas, quemadas y/o destruidas y muchas otras se cierran para evitar que sean futuros blancos. Junto a ello, se establece el Estado de Excepción y toque de queda, lo que implicaba que el transporte público terminaba su funcionamiento más temprano de lo usual. Con la imposibilidad de usar normalmente el metro y las micros, se genera un colapso en la movilización en la ciudad, obligando a los usuarios de este medio de transporte a buscar nuevas estrategias para moverse a lo largo de la capital. Dentro del abanico de posibilidades, se encuentra lo popularmente conocido como hacer dedo , utilizar la bicicleta o simplemente caminar, estrategias que tendieron a producirse de formas colectivas. Las personas parecen olvidar el mundo subterráneo del metro y apropiarse de los lugares de buses y automóviles.

La pandemia de COVID-19 no solo nos ha confinado en los espacios domésticos, sino que también nos ha obligado a habitar de maneras distintas el espacio público. Estos lugares, que solían ser de encuentro, se transforman en un espacio que nos expone a un riesgo, olvidado por décadas, el contagio. Ahora, todos quienes nos rodean son una posible amenaza. Es por esto que se han impulsado medidas que evitan la propagación del virus, entre las que se encuentran el confinamiento, uso de alcohol gel, mascarillas y distanciamiento físico. Todas estas medidas, condicionan a su vez, cómo habitamos el espacio público y cómo interactuamos con desconocidos. El supermercado es uno de aquellos tantos lugares que se han vuelto una fuente de amenaza. Se han propuesto aforos máximos de usuarios, se han instalado pantallas de plástico entre las/os cajeras/os y las/os compradores/as y se han determinado condiciones de ingreso para todos/as los/as clientes como toma de temperatura, aplicación de alcohol gel en las manos al ingresar y uso obligatorio mascarilla. Esto reforzado por estudios que plantean el mayor riesgo de contagio para trabajadores de estos lugares que para el personal médico de los centros de salud.

We propose to study a set of biographical narratives about neighborhoods and schools’ selection in Santiago of Chile. Our argument holds that these family decisions have the capacity to transform institutional logics which are fundamental in the experience of urban integration/exclusion. In the analysis of 25 in-depth interviews, we identify three interpretative keys to explain these decisions: biographical disengagement, social retraction and polarization of representations, which together point at the search for social integration as the main absence in urban institutions. Finally, we discuss the limitations of a socio-territorial policy where integration is a secondary effect and not a declared action or policy outcome.

The present photo essay seeks to visualize the resilience of a transport system and how it exposes deep social differences in Chile. On the 18th October 2019 a social outbreak started, first in Santiago of Chile, to then expand the rest of the country. This seemed a moment of transformation, a turning point to address many unjust features of Chilean society, many of them related to inequalities and among them, to the experience of discomfort in public transportation. In reaction to the massive protests, subway stations were closed, train schedules were adjusted and train frequency reduced. As public transport service was temporarily reduced bikes started to emerge, people forgot the underground world and started walking the streets, appropriating bus lanes and car lanes. Due to the COVID19 pandemic that started shortly after, the city slowed down even more and urban mobility came to a halt in many ways. Paradoxically, once mandatory quarantine ceased, the dynamics of transport were re-established. The uncomfortable daily ride that was a topic of demonstrations has been resumed unchanged, in the same inhumane fashion already perpetuated for decades. The only appreciable post-COVID19 and post-demonstrations transformation is the obligation to wear face masks, as a new addition in people’s outfits. The first and the third set of photographs reconstruct the timeline of a subway ride, starting with images of the platform and continuing onto the subway wagons. The second set of photographs captures the demonstrations on Plaza Baquedano -or as the protesters dubbed it Plaza de la Dignidad (Dignity Square)- and the pedestrian and bicycles traffic, following overground the underground route of Line 1, the main line of Santiago’s subway which was suspended during demonstrations. We offer a general introduction to each section and then we present the photographs, hoping to encourage the reader’s own reflection on the complexities, fictions, and inertias experienced in the global south.

Using a conceptual distinction between prospective and retrospective research, we analyze the international high-impact literature on tailings. This distinction differentiates between investigations concentrated on specific case studies, where the socio-environmental consequences of tailings are addressed or specific actions on them are documented, and the investigations that model interventions on tailings, propose new forms of design, management and remediation applicable to tailings. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools, we covered all the publications registered in the Scopus database between 2010 and 2020 on mining tailings. Our research question ask for the temporal orientations in the international publication on mining tailings deposits between 2010 and 2020? Our results show an increase in the number of prospective investigations, which practically double the retrospective ones. However, at the level of citations, this difference is reduced and the most cited investigations in the retrospective perspective outnumber the most cited ones in the prospective perspective. We conclude by discussing the need to address the impact of prospective research on mining companies and overcoming resistance to innovation in the industry when there are no regulatory or legal obligations. In the same way, we call for an increase in the public contribution to maintain the independence of retrospective research, without neglecting the necessary construction of updated evidence on the socio-environmental consequences of mining tailings.