The Architectonics of Social Change: A study of Chilean student protest spatial practices

Zachary Arrington

BA ’17, Anthropology and Spanish

This project is an ethnographic research study in the city of Santiago, Chile. The research conducted in Santiago will focus on student protest and the larger student movement in Chile that has been in progress for the past decade. I will be observing and interviewing students engaged in protest actions and will be gathering data which will be included in a senior honors thesis in sociocultural Anthropology will be working with the University of Michigan Anthropology department and the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile (Federation of students of the university of Chile) to gather research for this project. Student protesters in Chile are politically engaging the institutions themselves to reform the education system toward a “free education of high quality” for all students. As an internationally-situated project, this research supports and develops global scholarship. By engaging with students at the university level in another country such as Chile, this research promotes a collaborative method of knowledge production. Additionally, through this project, I am exploring the archive of the oldest student federation in Chile, and the most active federation in the student movement, to gather textual and visual data produced over the course of the past 10 years of protest.

Library Mentor: Jeff Martin