This brown bag seminar is hosted by the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities, an Oxford Martin School Programme

Speaker: Simón Escoffier, Postgraduate Associate, Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities; D.Phil. candidate in Sociology

Summary: This seminar goes beyond hegemonic scholarly approaches to Latin American social movements, namely the political opportunity structure and the new social movements. While the former focuses on the top-down institutional approach to social movements, the latter was concerned with the functioning of power in the grassroots. Arguably, those approaches have been highly influenced by circumstantial academic accounts in the US and Europe, poorly accounting for the political and social realities of the region.

Consequently, this seminar looks at the theories of identity to address the sense of participating in Santiago Chile’s poor neighbourhoods, under the assumption that such a concept allows: 1) providing an analytical framework emerging from the empirical ethnographic reality in those neighbourhoods; and 2) a non-essentialist dynamic approach that can overcome the institutions-grassroots divide.

To contribute to the potluck, if you can, just bring along a dish representing your country/culture, or something easy you would like to share with the rest of the group. We will provide drinks.