Docente del Doctorado en Estudios Sociales Avanzados lidera proyecto Fondecyt para diagnosticar y poner en valor el patrimonio funerario chileno
El académico Marco Valencia Palacios, docente del Doctorado en Estudios Sociales Avanzados de la Universidad Central, quien también es académico de la Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura, ha sido adjudicado con un proyecto Fondecyt Regular 2024 que le permitirá diagnosticar el estado de conservación y poner en valor el patrimonio funerario chileno. El proyecto, titulado «Diagnóstico del estado de conservación y puesta en valor del patrimonio funerario chileno. Estudio del proceso de patrimonialización de cementerios tradicionales del norte, centro y sur del país», busca analizar y comparar los procesos de patrimonialización de cementerios tradicionales que cuentan con protección legal, así como aquellos que carecen de dicha salvaguarda. Con un financiamiento de $121.776.000 y una duración de tres años, el estudio liderado por el docente e investigador permitirá reconocer estrategias efectivas para la conservación y gestión del patrimonio funerario en 12 casos emblemáticos a nivel nacional, como el cementerio laico de Caldera, los de Valparaíso, el Cementerio General de Santiago, el Santa Inés de Viña del Mar, el Sara Braun de Punta Arenas, entre otros. La metodología contempla un abordaje mixto que incluye análisis documental, estudio de normativa, análisis urbanístico y de paisaje, evaluación del estado de conservación y entrevistas a actores clave. Los resultados del proyecto serán fundamentales para diseñar e implementar políticas públicas orientadas a la protección y puesta en valor de este valioso legado patrimonial.
Researcher Marcos Gonzalez presented his book «UNCOMFORTABLY OFF. Why the Top 10% of Earners Should Care about Inequality».
«UNCOMFORTABLY OFF. Why the Top 10% of Earners Should Care about Inequality 10% of Earners Should Care about Inequality.»was the book that was presented a few days ago in an activity organized by the Research and Postgraduate Institute of the Faculty of Economics, Government and Communications, and its ESOC Max Planck-UCentral group. The event was led by Marcos González, academic and researcher at the UCL Social Research Institute, Universidad Diego Portales and COES, and one of the authors -together with Gerry Mitchell- of the book published by Bristol University Press. The book offers a detailed qualitative work on inequality beyond the analysis of the top 1% of society to cover the top 10% and look at their social and political perceptions. One of the points made by González was that «an important difference in Europe is that the vision they have of poverty, for example, in Spain, if you ask them about the causes, they were quite fatalistic and gave rather structural answers». The researcher also stressed that «stop thinking that 10% is so different from 90%, take a pause.»The company said that one element to consider is that it should «bring people with high incomes closer to policies that would benefit everyone and over time inequality within that decile will be seen more and more as inequality within society».
UCEN-COES Winter School has already started
With a packed room 68, the UCEN-COES Winter School for early stage researchers began, an initiative jointly organized by the Research and Postgraduate Institute of the Faculty of Economics, Government and Communications (FEGOC) and the Center for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion (COES). Felipe González, director of the institute and of the Max Planck-UCentral Group, commented that «we have been working systematically to promote research, constituting a great team that not only researches individually, but also develops collective knowledge with an academic community in mind». Meanwhile, Ignacio Cáceres, executive director of COES, said at the inauguration that «for us this is an instance of training, exchange and generation of super important networks (…) Take care of it and help to strengthen it and enjoy it». The activity, promoted by COES and UCEN researchers, Paz Concha and Gabriel Otero, and COES and the Social Sciences and Youth Research Center (CISJU) of the Catholic University Silva Henríquez, Carolina Ramírez, was organized in collaboration with the following researchersIts focus is to promote the formation of transversal skills for insertion in the academy. The School is being held this week at Universidad Central, in the Vicente Kovacevic II building, 1278 Santa Isabel Avenue, in a hybrid format.
Researcher Ignacio Schiappacasse presented before the Constitutional Council
Ignacio Schiappacase, a researcher from the School of Economics, Government and Communications, gave a presentation on social security to the Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights Commission of the Constitutional Council on Tuesday. The academic, who is a member of the faculty’s Research and Postgraduate Institute and the Max Planck-UCentral Group, referred to the amendment 215 of Chile Vamos and Republicans along with addressing how the AFP system works in Chile. The expert pointed out that the amendment presented by the opposition is problematic in that it indicates that «The State must respect the right of contributors to choose freely», for example, in addition to giving constitutional rank to guaranteeing property and its inheritability. «It is problematic because it closes the debate, it gives constitutional status to the AFP system, which is already a worldwide rarity,» he said. «We need to be constantly adapting our pension system on an ongoing basis. (…) The wording is problematic and it opens the door to the pension system’s de-funding because it allows us, the members, to freely choose who manages (…) This amendment, as well as this one, opens the door for us to decide to take the funds out of the AFPs and make an investment to make those resources work», he added. «It gives constitutional rank to aspects that have nothing to do with the international and accepted conception of social security,» he commented. Check out his speech at the Constitutional Council here .
Members of the Max Planck Group-UCentral participated in international conference
«Socio-Economics in a Transitioning World: Breaking Lines and Alternative Paradigms for a New World Order.» was the title of this year’s conference convened by the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) and held July 20-22 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Members of the Research and Postgraduate Institute of the Faculty of Economics, Government and Communications, who are also part of the Max Planck-UCentral Group, participated in the event and presented their main work. Felipe González, director of the institute and the group, highlights the work of SASE and the conference, explaining that it seeks to study economics beyond mathematical modeling and adding social perspectives. «He brings together political scientists, economists, sociologists, anthropologists; he always focuses on political economy and is interested in topics such as markets, finance, entrepreneurs, comparative capitalist systems, among others,» he adds. He comments that it is important to participate in the event because «there is no better academic space to discuss the research that we are producing from the line of economics and society, and also political studies. The convergence is perfect, this is the community that we want to read us, our articles, to comment on us. These are the magazines in which the group publishes, in fact.» Along these lines, he says that the team submitted eight original research articles, all of which were accepted, which were the ones that they presented and that We take advantage of the opportunity to network with other research centers in Europe, the United States, and Latin America,» he said.with whom we are going to make or are designing agreements for the doctoral program we are going to take in Advanced Social Studies. These agreements will allow us to manage the academic mobility of future students, but also of our academics and those from other institutions who will be able to come to the university.
Article on consumer credit and class identity was published in the indexed journal Finance and Society.
The research conducted by ESOC’s director, Felipe González, was accepted and published in early May in the indexed journal Finance and Society, edited by academics from the universities of London, Edinburgh and Heidelberg. «Debt for status? Consumer credit, ordinary consumption, and the sense of place», is titled the paper written by the also director of the Research and Graduate Institute of the School of Economics, Government and Communications UCEN, which explored the interaction between consumerism, lending, and class identity in the context of the factors that drive the demand for credit. The study, which used 26 semi-structured interviews in its methodology, made two main findings: first, it suggests that people borrow not only to obtain prestige, but also to affirm their sense of belonging to symbolic groups. Second, in contrast to the idea that loans are mainly used for conspicuous consumption, the article points out that middle-class families in Chile use them to consume «ordinary» products. Thus, through this type of consumption, the middle class seeks to stabilize its class identity. The findings, the research indicates, address the normalization of credit and borrowing practices along with the conversion of products from a «want» to a «need.» This is a view that has been overlooked in the analysis of the dynamics driving this type of demand, which translates into a missing link in the explanations for the rise in household debts.
The Academic Year of the Instituto de Investigación y Postgrado FEGOC was inaugurated with an interesting discussion on the challenges of the Chilean right wing.
In recent months, the political environment has changed: the defeat of Apruebo in last year’s constitutional plebiscite gave way not only to a new constituent process, but to a political scenario that once again leaves the right wing, especially the extreme right wing, as a relevant actor.after its defeat in both the 2020 referendum and the 2021 presidential election. It is in this context that challenges for the right wing and the paths it will take after the results of the election of constitutional councilors a few weeks ago are also born. This topic was the focus of the discussion that took place today as part of the inauguration of the Academic Year of the Master’s degree programs of the Research and Postgraduate Institute of the School of Economics, Government and Communications. The activity, which was moderated by Political Science academic Sebastián Rumie, counted with the participation of two outstanding researchers: Stéphanie Alenda, lecturer at the Universidad Andrés Bello and editor of the book «Anatomía de la derecha chilena: Estado, mercado y valores en tiempos de cambio» (Anatomy of the Chilean right wing: State, market and values in times of change), and Hugo Herrera, Professor at the Universidad Diego Portales and author of the book «La derecha en la crisis del bicentenario». «This is one activity to kick off another which is the development of our magisterial program on different participations. It is done, I would say, with something that is very demonstrative of what the university should be, which is an instance of reflection,» said Dean Luis Riveros, who also pointed out that «the university should be an instance of reflection,» he said.Each one of us will have our own truth, but we will have the opportunity to contrast them in this space», Challenges and future The conversation delved into several topics about the Chilean right wing, especially the relevance that the Republican Party is having. «Let’s remember that in the election where Piñera won, the presidential election not so long ago, José Antonio Kast got around 8% of the electorate, then in the election that followed he got around 44% in the second round, and in the third round he got around 44%. Now we have seen that the Republicans have 41.5% of this entire constitutional council, why is that?» commented Professor Sebastian Rumie. «One factor, I believe, was the discursive performance of the Frente Amplio, of the new left that comes with a more youthful, contentious discourse than the realism to which we were accustomed to democratic socialism. (…) And together with this, a certain irresponsibility regarding issues that are ugly, but which are state issues such as the rules of the economy, employment, security, are tasks that cannot be left aside, and this was added to the performance of the constituent convention where very radical speeches were made», said the academic Hugo Herrera. Researcher Stéphanie Alenda also pointed out the role of the more moderate right wing, hand in hand with Chile Vamos in a scenario of competition not only with the ruling party, but also with the Republicans. In this line, he said that «as the government’s performance worsens, of course the Republicans have more possibilities to grow (…) Chile Vamos can always compete by showing off, toughening its discourse on issues such as order, security, etc., but He is also much more committed to certain issues that go in the direction of these great social transformations that Chile has known».
Launching of the first Interdisciplinary Research Nucleus in Gender Studies led by ESOC members
Today was the official launching of the first Interdisciplinary Research Nucleus in Gender Studies at the Central University, which will be directed by researchers from the Faculty of Economics, Government and Communications and its Max Planck Research Group in Economics and Society. «Gender autonomies: employability, migrations and youth» (NIAG) is the name of the initiative that will be led by Dr. Paz Concha, Dr. Neida Colmenares will be deputy director of the space, while Dr. Gabriela Zapata will be one of the researchers, all three members of our faculty. Dr. Marcela Betancourt, who is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Universidad de Chile, also joins the core group. Dr. Concha explained that the objectives of the lines of research and a road map for the next two years have already been defined. «As a nucleus we have proposed an active work, in the first instance academic, which is to develop a collaborative and interdisciplinary research space that is of excellence and that borders the subjects of the challenge in gender and sexogenic autonomy in the themes that we have defined, employability, migrations and youth,» he commented. He added that the aim is also to «form a collaborative network between academics and academics from different faculties, that is, to be able to work collaboratively together, and once the lines of research have been established in a second year, to generate an information network with a general cross-cutting information course on the general perspective of the university (…) With the aim of creating a legacy that our research work can leave behind». She also mentioned that «we want to think of autonomy in a more comprehensive way, as a condition that allows us to overcome the elements of gender subordination in which we now find ourselves, and with respect to the lines of work, we have this one». The initiative will have three lines of work: the first will focus on the study of employability and its relationship with gender economic autonomies, such as the labor insertion of women in the post-pandemic scenario; the second will be centered on migrations and will seek to analyze the institutional conditions that favor and hinder the labor insertion processes of migrant and refugee women in Chile; while the third will observe the field of youth with the purpose of revealing the counter-hegemonic conceptions linked to the experiential meanings of the concept of youth.
Conversation on power and media analyzed the role of the media 50 years after the coup d’état
Today, with a simple cell phone that has internet it is possible to stay informed: in the age of digitalization, access to news, especially breaking news, has never been easier. At the same time, the traditional media have been immersed in economic crisis and precariousness towards their workers due to the failures of their business models for a few years now. In this context, interesting phenomena related to the power that the press has both in the citizenry and in the elite groups are experienced, especially if we consider the role it has played since the coup d’état, almost 50 years ago. Analyzing these issues was the objective of the discussion «Power and Media: 50 years after the coup d’état» organized by the School of Economics, Government and Communications (Fegoc) with the participation of Alejandra Matus, journalist, author and professor at the School of Journalism of Universidad Diego Portales; Marcos Ortiz, columnist at Interferencia, administrator of the Twitter account Ojodelmedio and panelist at Canal Red TV.and the moderation of Ignacio Schiappacasse, member of the Max Planck-Ucen Group and member of the Research and Postgraduate Institute of the Fegoc (Fegoc). «Although today we have a more diverse media system, because we not only have press but also radio, television and digital, despite these greater opportunities the media agenda continues to be set by a few media outlets. That is to say, today we have more means, but the agenda continues to be determined by a few,» commented the Central University researcher at the beginning of the activity. He pointed to the fading of the alternative referents that were born during the dictatorship: «We thought that these media were going to consolidate in democracy, but unfortunately they tended to disappear towards the end of the nineties and beginning of the 2000s, there were practically none of them left». He said that, on the other hand, El Mercurio has survived all these decades and «has continuously determined the agenda even of other media». Along these lines, Ortiz explained how the traditional media, even without being read or seen, position the issues. «Someone might say ‘I inform myself, but in my life I have never taken any of these media, how is it that they reach me if the role of the press is so outdated?’ and there are many academics who talk about Agenda Setting, that not only the media tell us what to talk about, but the other media as well that are hung up on this more traditional press,» he said, and added that «there is a process of spillover of news from the traditional print press to the rest of the media for different reasons, partly because the traditional press is seen as an opinion leader». Meanwhile, Matus, after reviewing the history of the Chilean press, analyzed why the alternative titles have less power than the traditional ones: «El Mercurio has money to pay, still, a battalion of journalists who cover the news on a daily basis and therefore describe reality. All the other alternative media, the small, the medium, we don’t have newsrooms». He concluded that «we have to be satisfied with critically analyzing what Mercurio publishes, because we do not have battalions of journalists to do labor news on health, economy, cities, medicine. None. So, the reality that remains and on which historians will go to see what happened in Chile between 1973 and 2023, has been published by El Mercurio».
Next Thursday, July 13, there will be the Spanish presentation of the book «The Color of Asylum. The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil» will be presented in Spanish.
Next Thursday, July 13, at 5:00 p.m., the presentation in Spanish of the book «El libro «The Color of Asylum. The Racial Politics of Safe Haven in Brazil («The Color of Asylum: The Racial Politics of Safe Refuge in Brazil») published by the University of Chicago Press and written by Professor Katherine Jensen, who will discuss the main details. Registration link here. The work elaborates an ethnography of the difficult experiences of refugees in Brazil. In 2013, when the millions of Syrian citizens were desperately fleeing a brutal war, the Latin American country took the step of instituting an open-door policy for all those refugees. In the book, Jensen offers an ethnographic look at the asylum-seeking process in Brazil, documenting in detail the various forms of treatment of asylum seekers, and evidencing its underlying racial logic. The analysis focuses on Syrian and Congolese refugees, two of the largest and most successful groups in asylum processing. Although both groups have more or less equivalent rates of obtaining asylum, the transition to asylum status could not be more different: both at the moment of entry into the country and in the subsequent stages, Brazilian officials impose significantly greater difficulties on Congolese refugees. Meanwhile, Syrian refugees are subject to better treatment given their recognition as white migrants by the Brazilian state, in a nation that has historically privileged white immigration. And yet, regardless of their country of origin, both groups of migrants, including those who manage to obtain asylum status, find their lives remain extremely difficult, marked by struggle and discrimination. Jensen is an assistant professor of Sociology and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her PhD in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018, with a minor in African and African Diaspora Studies. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at Tulane University’s Center for Inter-American Policy and Research. She was also a Fullbright scholar in Brazil. As an ethnographer, her research interests include race/racism, refugees and immigration, political sociology and forced migration in the Americas, with a focus on Brazil and the Southern Cone. His work has been published in various academic journals such as «Ethnic and Racial Studies», «Qualitative Sociology», «American Behavioral Scientist», «Social Currents», «City & Community», and «Contexts», as well as in book chapters from various university publishers. The activity is convened by the Faculty of Economics, Government and Communications and organized by the Max-Planck – UCentral Group in Economics and Society, and will be held in the Vicente Kovacevic II building, Santa Isabel 1278, in room 68. Registration link here.