The last decade has witnessed the proliferation of socio-environmental conflicts across Chile, characterized by the resistance of local communities against extractive and industrial projects. Increasingly, these conflicts have revealed the multiple injustices experienced by communities living in sacrifice zones. A sacrifice zone can be defined as a segregated place where the quality of life of its communities is compromised in the name of progress and capital accumulation. By focusing on socio-environmental struggles taking place in Quintero-Puchuncaví Bay, Coronel Bay, and Hualpén-Talcahuano Bay, three highly polluted and industrialized areas in Chile, this article explores the views and practices developed by grassroots activists in their quest for resisting and moving beyond the capitalist and extractivist model of development. By conducting a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 32 socio-environmental activists, this qualitative study provides a detailed account of how they understand a sacrifice zone and resist in these areas. Furthermore, it describes alternatives to capitalist and extractivist development envisioned and enacted by grassroots movements, expanding on the notions of territorial sovereignty and “buen vivir”.

This article discusses the relevance of militant ethnography as a collaborative and politically engaged form of knowledge production for the study of Latin American social movements. Drawing on my militant ethnographic research with four autonomous groups from Chile and Mexico, the article presents a reflective account of my experience as a militant researcher throughout the different stages of the inquiry. More specifically, I describe the ethical and methodological procedures carried out in the field and their importance in fostering collaboration and horizontality. Furthermore, I discuss the challenges of conducting militant ethnography within Latin American autonomous movements whilst pursuing doctoral studies in a European university and an English-speaking country. Finally, by acknowledging the tensions resulting from my multiple and entangled roles, I suggest an alternative route to militant research that challenges the temporalities and spatialities of traditional research designs and proposes an ongoing process of collaboration and solidarity in the post-fieldwork stage.

El trabajo plantea, a partir de la movilización estudiantil chilena en más de una década, un análisis de su injerencia en la revuelta iniciada en octubre 2019. Sobre la base de materiales de investigaciones previas, se analizan tres coyunturas polémicas: la rebelión pingüina de 2006, el movimiento estudiantil de 2011 y el movimiento feminista de 2018, para definir sus alcances culturales. Se concluye identificando consecuencias culturales en la subjetividad, en los estilos de protesta, en las reglas del sentir y en la economía moral de la ciudadanía, que generaron condiciones político-culturales favorables para la coyuntura crítica de octubre.