Community Engagement in Chile: A New Generation, Conditioned Legitimacy, and Academic Capitalism

Abstract

179 pagesSince the 2011 student social movement erupted, Chile has become an example of resistance to neoliberal policies and inequalities in higher education, leading to a new Higher Education Law in 2018. In 2019, a social uprising shocked the country, inaugurating a “constitutional moment” where two constitutional assemblies created two drafts of national constitutions that were rejected in national referendums between 2020 and 2023. In this convoluted context, Chile is experiencing a new national reform on community engagement that mandates all higher education institutions to be accredited on community engagement (vinculación con el medio) by 2025. The main purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how engaged scholars in Chile are embedded in this socio-political context from a socio-historical approach. The study is presented in three articles that focus on three key areas of this context: the emergence of a new generation of engaged scholars, the struggle to earn and maintain legitimacy, and the entangled relation with academic capitalism. Research methods draw from an interpretivist and critical epistemology and qualitative methodologies. It used ethnographic research methods, participant observation, and interviews with 52 scholars from two universities (one public and one private) in Santiago, Chile. A new generation is observed whose purpose for developing community engagement projects is to promote systemic change, respond to pressing social demands, influence public policy, develop critical thinking, and help those considered in need. The university, governed by the requirements of the world class university project, offers a conditioned legitimacy to engaged scholars’ work, which is responded to by operationalizing the accreditation requirements, negotiating by demonstrating the academic value of their work, and resisting by recovering the Latin American university project. Academic capitalism and community engagement not only co-produce services for a fee but also entrepreneurs, consumers, clients, market niches, and a rationalization process expressed in professionalization and standardization.2026-06-1