Lost in the Long Transition

William L. Alexander is assistant professor of cultural anthropology at University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Resiliency in Hostile Environments: A Comunidad Agr'cola in Chile's Norte Chico.

• Chapter 1. Introduction: Enduring Contradictions of the Neoliberal State in ChilePart 2 Part I. Private Interests and the Public GoodChapter 3 Chapter 2. The 1981 Water Code: The Impacts of Private Tradable Water Rights on Peasant and Indigenous Communities in Northern ChileChapter 4 Chapter 3. Intersections or Fault Lines? Chile's Free National Tuberculosis Treatment Program Within a Privatizing Health SystemChapter 5 Chapter 4. Confronting Global Corporations: The Strike in Minera Escondida and Workers' Struggles in Contemporary ChileChapter 6 Chapter 5. Globalization Hits El Trauco: The Archipelago of Chiloé in the Era of NeoliberalismChapter 7 Chapter 6. Purchasing Patagonia: The Contradictions of Conservation in Free Market ChilePart 8 Part II. In Place, At Issue: Identity, Community, ConsciousnessChapter 9 Chapter 7. Cultural History "Written in the Margins": Political Ecology of Copper and Community in the "Little North"Chapter 10 Chapter 8. Builders of the City: Pobladores and the Territorialization of Class Identity in ChileChapter 11 Chapter 9. The Politics of Street Children in ChileChapter 12 Chapter 10. Repatriating Women: Navigating the Way "Home" in Neoliberal Chile

This book. . . generally adopts a narrative style and approach more attuned to the moment of its production, when opposition to neoliberalism was muted. But it is a testament to the book’s quality that it develops insights of paramount importance for understanding present dynamics and discontent. In the introduction, Alexander provides a synthetic and accessible overview of neoliberalism’s Chilean trajectory. He highlights how ongoing legacies from the dictatorship and the continued application of pro-free market policies belied efforts by the presidencies of the Center-Left from 1990 to 2010 to complete a transition to democracy and produce 'growth with equity.' Alexander insightfully organizes the volume into two sections: 'Private Interests and the Public Good' and 'In Place, At Issue.' These titles encapsulate core themes and point to basic tensions in contemporary Chile. ... Clearly, as the contributors to this volume demonstrate, neoliberalism is of primary importance in understanding the contemporary context. The essays drawn together here go a long way in furthering our understanding of neoliberalism’s reach and its present contradictions in Chile.