Juventud, movilización social y prácticas políticas emergentes en América Latina: manifestaciones estudiantiles recientes en México y Chile

Abstract

The institutionalized political field, constituted around political parties and electoral processes, is eroded. In Latin America, this sets in motion a double process. On the one hand, young citizens tend to move away from the instituted dimension of the public. At the same time, they stabilize their subjectivity in the private sphere. On the other hand, subjectivity becomes a political issue that affects the configuration of the public sphere. In other words, the socio-affective dimension of social life has become a political device. This is observed, for example, in the cases of Mexico (#YoSoy132 2012, Ayotzinapa 2014), Chile (Student Movement of 2011, Protests against social inequality in 2019), among others. Alongside conventional mobilizations, new political practices and new political places emerge. This intervention addresses two central questions: 1. What are some of the issues that mobilize Latin American youth?; and 2. What emerging political practices does youth carry out? The answers to these questions will allow us to understand the transformations that the contemporary political field. Similarly, these responses make it possible to trace the liminal contours of an evanescent public sphere.