Against public space: criminalization and sanitization in Peruvian migration to Santiago de Chile

Abstract

On the basis of an ethnographic exploration of the uses and appropriation of urban space in the city of Santiago de Chile, complemented by secondary resources such as demographic statistics and maps, this article describes and explains the devices of criminalization and sanitization of the urban spaces occupied by Peruvian migrants in the context of their insertion and reproduction as a social collective in the city. This process will be exemplified by the Peruvian practice of street vending. The comparison between two specific urban scenarios guides the analysis through the contemporary process of the patrimonialization of urban spaces, and reification of the spatial enclosure of the Peruvian collective. Both of these aspects represent vectors that include both migrants and native residents, who together establish the conditions for the production of space, particularly in its capacity as a container of a specific culture and specific social relations.