Juan Pablo Rodríguez

I graduated in sociology at the University of Chile in 2008. I hold an M.A in Social and Political Thought from the University of Birmingham (2010), and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bristol (2018). I have taught classic, modern and contemporary social theory and political sociology at several Universities in Chile.

My research is situated in the intersection of contemporary critical theories and social movements, with particular focus in the new cycle of anti-neoliberal mobilisations opened up in Chile in 2006. I am interested in how different approaches such as critical theories, social movement studies and critical sociology can be cross-fertilized to develop a critical sociology of social movements.

In my PhD thesis I combined a series of intensive textual appraisals of contemporary social thinkers on the nature and role of ‘critique’ in modern society, with insightful detailed studies of two actual social reform movements in Chile: the student movement, and the pobladores movement. I pitched this combination as a matter of how various theoretical conceptions of critique must be applied to, but also must be modified by, the critical perspectives/campaigns of real social actors. A book based on my doctoral dissertation, entitled Resisting neoliberal capitalism in Chile: the possibility of social critique, will be published this year (Palgrave Macmillan).

At the LAC I will explore how the notions of life and territory are construed and mobilised by the pobladores, student and environmentalist movements in Chile in order to examine what role these categories play in the renewal of left organizations’ repertories of action and vocabulary.