The Environmental Institution in Chile, A Political Representation of the Ecological Crisis

In the present scenario of increasing sustainable global governance for ecological issues, the approval of Law 19.300 “Environmental Bases” 1994 in Chile is presented generally as the beginning of a modernization process of environmental institution, which culminates with the creation of the Environmental Ministry 2010 through Law 20.417. The paper will challenge the common understanding of this modernization process simply as institutional improvement and will raise the alternative thesis of a co-production in the representation of the ecological crisis and its solution between the politics and scientific systems. With the historical emergence of the National Environmental Commission (1994) the research shows the emergence of a particular form of relation society-nature in Chile based on: i) the previous environmental institution existing in the country oriented to tackle pollution conflicts ii) the international influences by the official reports of United Nations Environmental Program and the Organization for the Economic Cooperation and Development with a center in the institutionalization of the environmental impact assessment and market instrument to regulate environmental problems and, iii) the global market integration of Chile as a supplier of raw material with a high pressure over land, water and energy in territories inhabited by indigenous population. Together, these three influences are at the bottom of a representation of the ecological crisis only in terms of pollution management and rational use of natural resources which exclude the possibility to understand the human and social consequences provoked. In this scenario, the emergence of social movements against mega extractive and energetic projects show the need to review the manner in which the political system renders the environmental crisis. The notion of socio- ecological conflict is presented to understand how the search for sustainability could reinforce environmental problems especially for the mining activity, forestry industry and energy production, milestones of the ecological debate, nowadays

The spatio-temporal structures of society: modernity and ecological modernization as restructurations of time and space

Approaches in the social sciences have experienced a shift toward the themes of time and space, at least over the past three decades. This shift was clearly announced in the invitation made by Anthony Giddens in the early 1980s to retreat from the considerations of time and space as simple containers of social action. Furthermore, several other authors have pointed out at least three shortfalls of the status quo before 1980s: i) the lack of the temporal dimension in the sociological explanation of modernity, ii) the dismissal of the spatial particularity in the accounts of social change, and iii) the need to temporalize the geographical inquiries. How are social sciences accounts and social actions affected by transformation to the spatio-temporal structures of society? That is the general inquiry that inspired this thesis. The notion of spatio-temporal restructuration is introduced to capture the processes of restructuration that are taking place in the social sciences and in social life. Consequently, the study of the spatio-temporal structures of society includes epistemological and phenomenological research. A reorganization of social science spatio-temporal explanatory frameworks is proposed through epistemological research. A phenomenological investigation refers to the dialogical relationship between spatio-temporal arrangements and regimes, which together define the spatio-temporal structures of society. These two conditions of the research in spatio-temporal restructuration –epistemological and phenomenological- explain the twofold structure of the thesis

Reconfiguración ecológica de un espacio urbano. El metro y los micro-relatos de “Santiago en cien palabras”

En este artículo se muestra que la inclusión de determinados objetos en el entorno puede transformar la dinámica relacional y la significación social del espacio urbano. Seleccionado como caso de estudio el metro de Santiago de Chile, se analizan los modos de lectura asociados a los afiches del concurso “Santiago en cien palabras”. La metodología se basa en una aproximación cualitativa que utiliza la observación etnográfica sistematizada en notas de campo, dibujos y fotografía. A través de ella se enfatiza la noción de “modos de lectura”, los cuales se entienden como una variación en las dinámicas de movimiento del cuerpo y las formas de uso del espacio, especialmente dentro de las estaciones subterráneas y los vagones. Al finalizar ofrece una reflexión sobre las implicancias de la aparición de nuevas modalidades de lectura, gestos corporales y posiciones discursivas en el espacio público. Estos aspectos, en conjunto, pueden considerar una ampliación del repertorio de experiencias posibles en la red del metro y, por tanto, en el dominio público en Santiago de Chile

Ficciones que se vuelven realidad, ficciones para intervenir la realidad

En este artículo proponemos que la ficción no es sólo una forma falsa de referir a la realidad social o un artificio para la construcción de mundos imaginarios, sino que una capacidad humana altamente productiva en la construcción y organización del mundo social, que se encuentra diseminada ampliamente en éste. Iniciamos el artículo entregando una panorámica general sobre algunas discusiones sobre la ficcionalidad, su forma y rol. Luego rescatamos las nociones de "ficción real" y "expectativas ficcionales" para abordar el carácter productivo de las ficciones, con especial énfasis a su referencia temporal. El artículo termina estudiando la práctica social de "un actuar como si lo ficcional fuese real" para discutir sus implicaciones en uno de los usos más productivos en el Chile contemporáneo: la noción de "secuestro permanente", propuesta por el Juez Guzmán en los años noventa para desafiar el orden jurídico que estabilizaba la Ley de Amnistía de 1978.In this paper, we propose that fiction is not only a false way of referring to the social reality or a ruse for the construction of imaginary worlds. On the contrary, we understand fictions as a human capacity highly productive in the construction and organization of the social world, a capacity widely disseminated in this world. We started giving an overview on some discussions in social sciences on the issue of fictionality. After that, we rescue the notions of "real fiction" and "fictional expectations" to address the productive character of fiction, with special emphasis on its temporary reference. We conclude by studying the social practice of "to act as if the fictional was real" to discuss its implications in one of the most productive uses that has had in contemporary Chile: the notion of "permanent kidnapping" proposed by Judge Guzman to challenge legal order established by 1978 Amnesty Law

The Role of Individuals in Socio-Urban Exclusion : A case study on the School Institution in Santiago de Chile

This is a work concerned with the increasing processes of social exclusion in cities nowadays. In approaching this phenomenon, the research highlights how people interact with their institutional environments. This is also, perhaps centrally, an investigation into the possibility to engage an individual perspective to understand the transformation in urban experience, which is orienting society to new uses and forms of exclusion. Following the perspective deployed by the so-called “sociology of individuals” in French sociology or “reengagement of agency” in the Anglo-Saxon world; I claim that individuals as well as collectives are gaining increasing power to question and re-organize institutions. This re-organization, in the case of socio-urban institutions, is no guarantee for major levels in integration, cohesion, and equality. Unfortunately, social institutions are becoming hard in its exclusionary capabilities under people intervention during the last four decades. I believe that urban sociology is a field of struggle between different perspectives competing to “make sense” of social phenomena in cities. The orientation supported in this research is just one on many and it follows the roots of people and their life experiences within cities and how they influence the processes that shape the city. The last formulation is possibly not the clearest, because as we all know, references to “inhabitants” are presented in every variant of urban sociology. Nevertheless, there are not many variants focusing on peoples’ capability to influence institutional environments and by this way affecting the urban condition in which they find themselves. The particular institution selected for this study is the “School”. This thesis is organized around two parts: part one includes the conceptual framework, methodological approach, and historical contextualization; part two describes three case studies produced to analyse the forms of and the relations between individuals and school institution. Part one starts from a premise: within the context of declining welfare State in the case of industrialized countries, an important part of urban studies focuses on economic and spatial restructuration. Confronted with the same situation, a part of social sciences shifts to the individuals’ agency and social uncertainty. This research is embedded in the last theoretical description presented above, thus, because it tries to observe urban processes from the perspective of the individual and outside of developed economies. In this sense, Latin America represents a fundamental reference because urban conditions are historically marked by weak institutional arrangements to integrating people and large levels of marginality and exclusion among population. In this scenario individuals’ practices around inclusion-exclusion have an essential meaning in everyday life. Part two offers three study cases in which the relation between individuals and school institutions has been analyzed for the Metropolitan area of Santiago de Chile (MAS). Using different methodological resources an exhaustive account on three levels is presented: i) geo-referencing State intervention in public policies connected with neighborhood and schools to understand the form and extent of socio-urban exclusion in MAS, ii) narrative biographies applied to parents with children attending primary school, in order to reconstruct the familiar process of school selection and describing its impacts on the stabilization of school as an exclusionary device, and iii) autoethnography to describe in detail the temporal dimension involved in stabilizing actions which reinforces social mechanisms of urban integration-exclusion during the last three decades in Chile. A key argument advanced by this research proposes that: the way in which the idea of integration is enacted by people in their biographical careers imprints changes on the institutional orientation and by this way, contributes to the reorganization urban life. The high level of social exclusion in Santiago de Chile is not accountable without considering transformation in all socio-urban institutions, especially the school. No family considers social integration with people from a low social, economical or cultural background as relevant orientation for school selection. This particularity of the Chilean social reality is not derivable from any big capitalistic or modernization processes impacting our cities. Within the light of the thesis findings, I conclude that socio-urban institutions logics must be reassessment under the influences of people actions and representations. I also propose a consideration to major complementarities between urban studies and urban-institutions analysis. The school institutions is not just a sectorial field reserved to the researcher in education, on the contrary, it represent a key entrance to address people’s experience in their institutional urban environments. The re-emergence of social and urban movements in 2010, under the “Arab Spring” or the “Chilean Student Movements”, is not only a demonstration in the public space as result of major global trends. These situations are in essence, for this research, individuals gathering together and calling for recognition and autonomy inside institutional environment that tends to reject them. Similar situation was the focus of the Latin American urban sociology research, within the focus on grassroots and urban social movements at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. In both cases, socio-urban institutions, unaware of recognition requirements claimed by inhabitants, are not beyond individual or collective reach. My main concern is to show that socio-urban institutions are constantly re-shaped as a result of individual action, what makes the difference, is the spirit that we all, socially, imprint on the logics of our socio-urban institutions, moving them to inclusion or exclusion

La escala geográfica de la exclusión en Santiago de Chile. Un análisis territorial de la política pública de regeneración barrial y mejoramiento de resultados escolares

A growing number of public policies are defining the local scale as the privileged space for State intervention. By observing the spaces of intervention identified by different initiatives at local level, we find that there is rarely territorial commonality between them. What is happening there? In general terms, this has been diagnosed as an example of a lack of coordination in terms of State intervention. This paper holds an alternative explanation arguing that: the lack of spatial congruency is the result of a scale-based issue, in which the geographic extension of socio-spatial exclusion has reached a point where any selection of local spaces is possible but insufficient to address the true scope of social problems. Through the description of the intervention spaces for neighborhood regeneration and improvement of school achievement within the metropolitan area of Santiago (MAS), this paper aims to make progress towards a debate on the geography of social exclusion and public policies. Findings show that the scale of exclusion is based on macro-zones —a geography that is at a higher level than local geography —, which demarcate concentrating, extended and interstitial areas as recurring scenarios of social issues within the MAS.Un número creciente de políticas públicas define la escala local como espacio privilegiado para la intervención del gobierno. Observando los espacios de intervención definidos por diversos programas en la escala local, constatamos que raramente existe coincidencia territorial entre ellos. ¿Qué sucede allí? Generalmente esto se ha diagnosticado como ejemplo de descoordinación en la intervención del Estado. Este artículo defiende una explicación alternativa argumentando la falta de congruencia espacial es el resultado de un problema escalar, dónde la extensión geográfica de la exclusión socio-espacial ha alcanzado tal magnitud, que cualquier selección de espacios locales en su interior, resulta plausible pero al mismo tiempo insuficiente para abordar la verdadera extensión de los problemas sociales. Mediante la descripción de los espacios de intervención definidos para la regeneración de barrios y el mejoramiento de los niveles de aprendizaje en escuelas, ambos dentro del área metropolitana de Santiago (AMS), se avanzará en una discusión sobre la geografía de exclusión social y de las políticas públicas. Como resultado se destaca que la escala de la exclusión es de macro-zonas, esto es una geografía superior al nivel local, delineando zonas concentradoras, extendidas y espacios intersticiales, como espacialidades recurrentes de problemas sociales en el AMS

The Role of Individuals in Socio-Urban Exclusion : A case study on the School Institution in Santiago de Chile

This is a work concerned with the increasing processes of social exclusion in cities nowadays. In approaching this phenomenon, the research highlights how people interact with their institutional environments. This is also, perhaps centrally, an investigation into the possibility to engage an individual perspective to understand the transformation in urban experience, which is orienting society to new uses and forms of exclusion. Following the perspective deployed by the so-called “sociology of individuals” in French sociology or “reengagement of agency” in the Anglo-Saxon world; I claim that individuals as well as collectives are gaining increasing power to question and re-organize institutions. This re-organization, in the case of socio-urban institutions, is no guarantee for major levels in integration, cohesion, and equality. Unfortunately, social institutions are becoming hard in its exclusionary capabilities under people intervention during the last four decades. I believe that urban sociology is a field of struggle between different perspectives competing to “make sense” of social phenomena in cities. The orientation supported in this research is just one on many and it follows the roots of people and their life experiences within cities and how they influence the processes that shape the city. The last formulation is possibly not the clearest, because as we all know, references to “inhabitants” are presented in every variant of urban sociology. Nevertheless, there are not many variants focusing on peoples’ capability to influence institutional environments and by this way affecting the urban condition in which they find themselves. The particular institution selected for this study is the “School”. This thesis is organized around two parts: part one includes the conceptual framework, methodological approach, and historical contextualization; part two describes three case studies produced to analyse the forms of and the relations between individuals and school institution. Part one starts from a premise: within the context of declining welfare State in the case of industrialized countries, an important part of urban studies focuses on economic and spatial restructuration. Confronted with the same situation, a part of social sciences shifts to the individuals’ agency and social uncertainty. This research is embedded in the last theoretical description presented above, thus, because it tries to observe urban processes from the perspective of the individual and outside of developed economies. In this sense, Latin America represents a fundamental reference because urban conditions are historically marked by weak institutional arrangements to integrating people and large levels of marginality and exclusion among population. In this scenario individuals’ practices around inclusion-exclusion have an essential meaning in everyday life. Part two offers three study cases in which the relation between individuals and school institutions has been analyzed for the Metropolitan area of Santiago de Chile (MAS). Using different methodological resources an exhaustive account on three levels is presented: i) geo-referencing State intervention in public policies connected with neighborhood and schools to understand the form and extent of socio-urban exclusion in MAS, ii) narrative biographies applied to parents with children attending primary school, in order to reconstruct the familiar process of school selection and describing its impacts on the stabilization of school as an exclusionary device, and iii) autoethnography to describe in detail the temporal dimension involved in stabilizing actions which reinforces social mechanisms of urban integration-exclusion during the last three decades in Chile. A key argument advanced by this research proposes that: the way in which the idea of integration is enacted by people in their biographical careers imprints changes on the institutional orientation and by this way, contributes to the reorganization urban life. The high level of social exclusion in Santiago de Chile is not accountable without considering transformation in all socio-urban institutions, especially the school. No family considers social integration with people from a low social, economical or cultural background as relevant orientation for school selection. This particularity of the Chilean social reality is not derivable from any big capitalistic or modernization processes impacting our cities. Within the light of the thesis findings, I conclude that socio-urban institutions logics must be reassessment under the influences of people actions and representations. I also propose a consideration to major complementarities between urban studies and urban-institutions analysis. The school institutions is not just a sectorial field reserved to the researcher in education, on the contrary, it represent a key entrance to address people’s experience in their institutional urban environments. The re-emergence of social and urban movements in 2010, under the “Arab Spring” or the “Chilean Student Movements”, is not only a demonstration in the public space as result of major global trends. These situations are in essence, for this research, individuals gathering together and calling for recognition and autonomy inside institutional environment that tends to reject them. Similar situation was the focus of the Latin American urban sociology research, within the focus on grassroots and urban social movements at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. In both cases, socio-urban institutions, unaware of recognition requirements claimed by inhabitants, are not beyond individual or collective reach. My main concern is to show that socio-urban institutions are constantly re-shaped as a result of individual action, what makes the difference, is the spirit that we all, socially, imprint on the logics of our socio-urban institutions, moving them to inclusion or exclusion

Animal food during the Late Prehispanic Period at Sierras of Córdoba, Argentina : A zooarchaeological view from Boyo Paso 2

How prehispanic foragers adjusted their foraging activities to plant cultivation is a question that drives much of the modern archaeological research. As a result, the spread of food-producing economies during the Late Prehispanic Period (c. 1500-360 BP) from Sierras of Cordoba, Argentina, has been recently defined as a dynamic sociocultural process, where a mixed foraging and cultivation economy was accompanied by a flexible land-use strategy. However, the economic organization has only been superficially assessed. Thus, the aim of this article is to present the study of faunal remains recovered during the excavation of the open-air site Boyo Paso 2 in order to provide primary data on the properties of the animal food remains left by late prehispanic people and the characteristics of site occupation. Faunal remains suggest a complex sequence of reoccupations where bones were deposited, accidentally reburned and fragmented by trampling. The diversity of exploited prey also sheds light on the fact that a broad hunting spectrum continued playing a key role in the daily subsistence. Nevertheless, cultigens were a fluctuating component in a diverse foraging economy in which wild resources as guanaco (Lama guanicoe Muller, 1776), small-vertebrates and Rheidae eggs continued to be extensively used. The study of Boyo Paso 2 faunal assemblage is relevant because it helps to improve the current understanding of the economic importance of foraging wild resources and would constitute a model to interpret other archaeological cases during the Neolithic or Formative transition, where the boundaries between farming and foraging were fluid, but remained relatively invisible according to the existing terminology.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y MuseoUniversidad de Buenos Aire

Evaluation of Three Methods for CPR Training to Lifeguards: a Randomised Trial Using Traditional Procedures and New Technologies

[Abstract] Background and objectives: When the drowning timeline evolves and drowning occurs, the lifeguard tries to mitigate the event by applying the last link of the drowning survival chain with the aim of treating hypoxia. Quality CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation) and the training of lifeguards are the fundamental axes of drowning survival. Mobile applications and other feedback methods have emerged as strong methods for the learning and training of basic CPR in the last years so, in this study, a randomised clinical trial has been carried out to compare the traditional method as the use of apps or manikins with a feedback system as a method of training to improve the quality of resuscitation. Materials and Methods: The traditional training (TT), mobile phone applications (AP) and feedback manikins (FT) are compared. The three cohorts were subsequently evaluated through a manikin providing feedback, and a data report on the quality of the manoeuvres was obtained. Results: Significant differences were found between the traditional manikin and the manikin with real-time feedback regarding the percentage of compressions with correct depth (30.8% (30.4) vs. 68.2% (32.6); p = 0.042). Hand positioning, percentage correct chest recoil and quality of compressions exceeded 70% of correct performance in all groups with better percentages in the FT (TT vs. FT; p < 0.05). Conclusions: As a conclusion, feedback manikins are better learning tools than traditional models and apps as regards training chest compression. Ventilation values are low in all groups, but improve with the feedback manikin