Institutional actions and omissions that lead to precariousness

Stigma and identity

Between 1998 and 2001, the sector was known at national level because of the crimes on women performed by the so-called “Alto Hospicio Psychopath”, who murdered 11 female adolescents and 3 adult women. The missing women, which later were identified as victims of abuse, rape and murder, were reported by their relatives, who were discriminated by the authorities that stated that these women had ran away from their homes to escape from the poverty they lived in and from their family issues, disregarding the family demands. Jorge Burgos, by-then undersecretary of the Interior, declared in this regard: “At least two cases will prove voluntary actions that lead to departure, which are products of personal situations that have to do with the poor relationships they have with their parents, domestic violence…” ^{(Cádiz and Campos, 2014)} . Somehow, “their sexuality and social background turns them into suspects […] the victims became the culprits” ^{(Tuozzo, 2003: 152-153)} .

After these events, the marks in the lives of Alto Hospicio inhabitants, the stigmatizing response from the institutions and the media persist twenty years later in their everyday experience of reality in a dangerous place, forgotten by the authorities.

I grew up with the fear of the psychopath, the girl who survived was my classmate, there were a lot of milestones in (sic) over my life, which marked me and were kinda weird (sic), the issue of the girls, then the boy that was dismembered was also a neighbor, then like a lot of important things marked history and my view on Alto Hospicio (Social Leaders’ discussion group 1, September 2021).

We aren’t even in the system […] if a lot of squatters die, it is never reported in the papers, not even in the crime section, they are not interested in the people here in the settlements anymore (Leader 1, sector La Pampa, September 2021).

There is, by the way, a feeling of insecurity among the inhabitants themselves, nuanced, however, by a less homogeneous vision of daily life, for as it will be exposed, even if there is violence and crime, it is emphasized there are “good people”, effort and talent, plus a sort of courage that comes from living and configuring a place “from scratch”.

State withdrawal and private disinvestment

In the face of the exponential demographic growth, boosted by the State itself, the experience of the actors of the territory allows noticing the permanent absence of the State adding to lack of private services —noticed in various aspects—, in contrast to the infrastructure and services of Iquique, the contiguous city.

With the boom of the growth of Alto Hospicio, it was difficult for me because everything was growing, but not work or education chances […] I don’t know why we still had unpaved roads or nor traffic lights or not everything was paved, then it was difficult, then one went to Iquique and it was another world, it was something like Miami (Social Leaders’ discussion group 1, September 2021).

Lacks multiply and State responses to deal with them are slow to arrive or are never received. Over the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), adding to lack of basic services such as potable water, sewer system, and electricity, there is scarce food assistance to face starving. In like manner, the inexistence of digital connectivity would become relevant in relation with education processes, given the change in school attendance from face-to-face to virtual lessons; this took place within an already deficient educational context, with children suffering delays in reading and writing. The service deficits are multidimensional, and abandonment from institutions is questioned.

The idea is that all this would not exist, neither take-overs nor emergency housing, soup kitchens, and nothing like this, the system is the one that fails, that’s why we have to do it (Leader 1 sector La Pampa, September de 2021).

I’m worried by indolence, understanding that up to date, thousands of lunch boxes have been delivered and everything comes from solidarity and self-management, we’re not with the authority, sometimes it is here to take thousands of photos, but not to help, all is love among neighbors, I believe this task has to be shared by the authority, this food has to be afforded by them, as with the hunger we experience here […] but not the authorities in the past and now, never did a thing, things have to be solved by ourselves (Leader 1 sector La Pampa, April 2022).

Expressive are the declarations of the commune authority to the media as regards the situation of the territory: “the Chilean State left 160 000 people abandoned in Alto Hospicio” (Alto Hospicio Mayor, September 27^th, 2022) ^{(Cooperativa.cl, 2022)}.

The problem of housing and bad management practices

In the context of pressing needs related to obtaining suitable conditions of inhabitability and housing access, the actors of the territory point out at vitiated mechanisms in the operation hosing committees.⁸

In the experience of some respondents, people associated by the dwellers with housing committees would be profiting, selling spaces and charging for places in the invaded plots.

Committees charge 10 lucas [10 thousand pesos] every month […] make money, a lot of, the plots are on sale now, a month before the alleged housing subsidy, they are selling for two or three million pesos, and apartment. How is that possible? Though the committee tells you you’re next in the postulation (female leader 2 sector La Pampa, April 2022).

State violence and irrelevant solutions

The inhabitants of occupied plots in Alto Hospicio experience structural violence. As pointed out by ^{Liberona and Piñones (2020)} , evictions from taken plots entail direct police violence, relocation next to a dumpster expresses spatial segregation violence and injustice / environmental racism violence; while the absence of the State represents violence in the form of abandonment. In the leaders’ accounts these processes are made evident.

Due to the various irregular land occupations, evictions of informal settlements have been repeated by public security force, being distinguishable because of their violence those of 2016.⁹

In 2016 the take-over occurred here, El Boro became very dangerous, erm, it was also very far, that’s true, we had the chance and came here, where they are presently building the new hospital. Well, the military arrived and evicted us. We moved a little bit away. The Ministry of National Assets arrived and evicted us all (Female leader 3 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

The growing presence of migrants has characterized the dynamics of the territory over the last five years, and the presence of exacerbated State violence according to a female leader:

A lot of migrants are also detained in jail, but these are not considered because the State is always classifying us, some others are more important but not here, and many have been evicted […] those people not only needed to eat, they also needed information, guidance because there was total State abandonment. Then, it was only us (Social leaders’ discussion group 2, April 2022).

Together with physical violence, deceit, waiting and inadequate solutions are noticed as suffering inflicted on the inhabitants. On one side, with the possibility to access subsidized housing, the 200 families of one of the encampments would be relocated to a housing development to accommodate 600 families from various sectors. On the other, long waits have consolidated the installation in the taken plot, with inhabitability and service improvements, which will be lost after moving.

It would seem as a “waiting territory”, such as those described by ^{Álvarez and Cavieres (2016)} , as it comes from mobility and it reproduces in it (eradications and evictions), and there is expectation about the delivery of housing solutions (becoming proprietors of a house via state subsidy), which takes long to arrive. However, there is no desire to leave the place, but to carry on living in it, in better conditions, though. Owing to this, inadequate State responses are received with mistrust.

When we arrived, we were told it would be three years, it’s been eight now, an entirely life, my daughter is 10, she’s been her entire life here and has friends, and as my daughter all the other children, we have an idea of community, it didn’t matter, all of the 200 families are acquainted with one another, and now they’ll put me with other 450 families I don’t know, in 650 apartments, is something mega-giant and if turns out well and people’ll get along with each other (Female leader 2 sector La Pampa, April 2022).

We have been living for six years in the encampment. We had it hard with no electricity and water for three years, in the fourth they provided us with electricity because Bienes Nacionales, it’s their soil where we live, recently signed an agreement to set up the electricity here. We paid 400 thousand pesos, each family per household, plus the meter, do you get it? We paid in two-year installments and just three months ago I stopped paying my electricity bills and now I pay the traditional receipt, right? and two months ago, we learnt the encampment will disappear, see? There is a megaproject coming to this plot, where there will be 600 apartments (Female leader 3 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

Being lack of potable water one of the most pressing problems for everyday life in the territory, there is a claim of neglection in the solutions delivered, as an expression of discrimination and disregard for the dignity of the inhabitants. The initial strategy to distribute water via water trucks would have entailed a health hazard for the population, spreading disease since the trucks did not transport water in a hygienical manner.

About water, the municipality doesn’t have water trucks, or other similar trucks (Leader 1 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

In the beginning they were not suitable to move water and there were many illnesses, many kids with diarrhea, erm, colitis, also adults and elderly people also got sick, and it was because of the water, the water! (Female leader 3 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

For the life trajectory of the inhabitants and their future projection, the lack of relevance in State responses becomes central. After participating in postulation processes in housing policies to receive subsidized housing, lack of institutional coordination is noticeable when after accessing projects to furnish micro-entrepreneurial projects —Fondo de Solidaridad e Inversión Social, FOSIS [Fund for Solidarity and Social Investment] and Servicio de Cooperación Técnica, SERCOTEC [Technical Cooperation Service]— they are allotted housing as apartments in which it is not possible to place their working tools neither perform the promoted economic activity.

We didn’t need that sort of housing, we fought for a place called house-workshop, which is where you as an entrepreneur live and work. Instead of locating the 200 of us in the encampment in 200 houses, the housing committees wanted to locate 650 families in there, sure SERVIU told us it was because of lack of plots and many families with not home, that was the reason for the towers. I told them as many times as I could that it wasn’t suitable for us, but these committees already sold those (Female leader 2 sector La Pampa, April 2022).

Last year a SERCOTEC worth three million and a half was won, which they have set up as marvelous machines to make furniture in the house yard, tell me where on earth I can place them if I live in an apartment, got it? Or what do I do with my solidarity bakeshop, the one we set up, we have an oven, dough mixer, dough ball maker and the sheeter, or the canteen, what do I do with this? In point of fact I have a small room outside […] I say, you see, FOSIS set up a business for the neighbor (Female leader 3 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

The above contributes, besides, to a vicious cycle regarding the appearance of occupations and encampments, since access to subsidized housing in such typology is not an efficacious response to the needs. Owing to this, some inhabitants who have received housing would have settled in like manner in other plots.

Real estate market and eviction endeavors

The construction of a second access road to Alto Hospicio, over 2019 and a second time in 2022, would be a significant road investment that offers real estate development opportunities ^{(Vilas Radio, 2022}; ^{El Longino, 2022)}. In 2021, the construction of “Las Américas Mall” was announced ^{(Edición Cero, 2021)}, the first shopping center in the commune, in addition to residential projects, notable for their connectivity, and their closeness to economically dynamic zones.

It is noticeable that real estate development projects underscore positive aspects of the territory such as its multicultural¹⁰ nature and quality of life: “This is the commune that is second place in development in the region of Tarapacá”, as stated by real estate publicity, without specifying that the only communes in the region are Iquique and Alto Hospicio, while the rest are small rural communes with fewer than 20 thousand inhabitants.¹¹

The relocation offered to the population is associated to the necessity to vacate the places presently occupied because of already projected urbanist initiatives. It is mentioned that the road connection increases the cost of soil, attracting new investment for middle-income social groups.

We are not asking those niches realtors deal in, we want the plots to be delivered and each builds their house, and we have a serious problem because in the projection of the Regulation Plan in this regard is that this will be the axis of the connection in the south sector of Iquique and Alto Hospicio, the design of the mall is ready, and the design of the city for them is not thought for us here, but we won’t move, this is big (Leader 1 sector La Pampa, April 2022).

Self-managed production of responses to problems and needs

Self-management and self-help in a socially atomized environment

The conditions of precariousness, unrest, and the continuous flow of new families that settle in the territory have been described as a context that favors the weakening of associativity in Alto Hospicio. Early in the 2000’s, some accounts attest that:

In Alto Hospicio there is no leadership capable of organizing people to pursue their goals […] there exists and incredible amount of popular and neighbors’ associations unrelated to one another, which leads to the atomization of the social fabric […] a social outburst is unlikely here ^{(Tuozzo, 2003: 151)} .

After twenty years, some leaders state something similar:

The community is so damaged that everyone was afraid of associating, talking, seeing each other, shady as that (sic) (Leader 5 sector centro, April 2022).

It makes us grow distant and that we don’t even know what we want to fight for, we don’t know, as a community, each one knows, but we don’t know what to fight for as a whole, in the end, “I can go further on my own” as the saying goes (Female leader 7, April 2022).

However, despite social fabric is indeed torn or disarticulated, such large number of popular and community organizations recognized for two decades now is still presently a characteristic of the territory, but they have fulfilled a key social role over a period marked by the Estallido Social in 2019, and the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. Self-management is a characteristic of the territory, and in the face of the abandonment and institutional effects, already described, it becomes a powerful key to understand life in Alto Hospicio.

The social unrest and the pandemic caused a drop in the incomes of families (a large part of them engaged in informal trade, which was significantly affected, in the first place by the demonstrations, and then, by the lockdown), which together with the increase in the cost of living affected their housing status and generally pauperized their life conditions. In the opinion of the respondents, housing, basic services, water, everyday food are needs, which in the absence of State response, are addressed by the actors themselves.

Then we created the canteen, it worked three days a week, we couldn’t afford more days and had plenty of problems, until one day, it was not any more the kids, they had lunch, I started noticing more adults, moms and dads, older siblings, this time around soups, the first day was when we noticed the soups and people quietly queuing […] that day we started asking here and there, it was good, people started being solidary at first, then more soup kitchens came to being (Leader 1 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

We noticed food was scarce and decided to turn our women association into this solidarity center, by means of a soup kitchen, which was the first we did, it was the first thing to be done in the encampment (Female leader 2 sector La Pampa, September 2021).

According to its inhabitants, the territory is characterized as a place of state neglection, however, at once, as a place they manage themselves.

Collective actions and hope

Even if daily coexistence is not free from tensions, the inhabitants of Alto Hospicio have found ways to self-manage their needs and longings in the richness of intercultural neighbor bonds, organization and community solidarity. The leaders speak of the large number of housing committees that have existed in the settlements for years, plus the soup kitchens created out of food needs. Living in the territory and attaining less precarious conditions has been the main challenge.

By virtue of solidarity campaigns and voluntary work in a number of areas in the settlements, initiatives such as soup kitchens scaled their need coverage up, projected their community work beyond food, set up shelters for women who experienced gender violence, helped migrant population to regularize their housing status, or else, planned a space for the community’s cybercafé to offer internet to the children due to the new education needs in the context of the pandemic.

Here we set up a shelter for immigrant women that experience domestic violence […] think of an immigrant woman here with no documents and where she lives, the guy possibly returns to kill her (Leader La Pampa, September 2021).

Here, we have made a little school as well, there are some professors from Universidad Arturo Prat who have come to help, some university students and here we come, we realized some children don’t know how to read or write (Female leader La Pampa, September 2021).

The leaders support and manage spaces of organization and participation inside their communities, which, even if predominantly focus on the need of basic solutions, they try to raise awareness as regards the value of good neighbor coexistence, community work, the richness of interculturality, the eradication of gender violence, and recycling. About this last, an emerging interest is the development of sustainable and healthful life, by means of recycling centers.

And there is no recycling, in Iquique I used to recycle everything, I came here and it became impossible, I started collecting water in the bottles and handed them to people passing by. I did the same with the bottles, to somehow reuse them […] in the end, people feel safer in clean places, because of this reasoning they gave us the bucks [resources] to create the green points (Female leader 4 sector La Negra, September 2021).

These are initiatives that intend to retrieve the positive components of living in Alto Hospicio, associating them to the capability of the inhabitants to build something from scratch in unfavorable conditions in an arid place, where everyday life turns into a challenge.

There was nothing, this place popped up all of a sudden, and little by little people has known about it […] we have been promoting it for a little, since the anniversary of Hospicio, which is the pride of hailing from Alto Hospicio. Then, we are part of such pride, it has been known for long. And it was worse after the pandemic, the indices and that was harsh. That is real hard. It is always clear and something we want to contribute with is the opposite, Hospicio has always been recognized by their talents, organizations, owing to the values organization has promoted (Leader 6 sector centro, April 2022).

The interviewed actors point that the process related to the New Constitution¹² has been far from the territory, with weak links with constituent, town councils, and meetings, and with the sensation that the problems in Alto Hospicio were not being considered. Despite such perception, the text of the constitution proposal included, among other things, the “right to decent and adequate housing” (Article 51), and also the “human right to water and sufficient, healthy, acceptable and accessible sewer systems” (Article 57) ^{(Propuesta Constitución Política de la República de Chile [Proposal of Political Constitution for the Republic of Chile], 2022: 22 and 24)}, priority aspects in the commune. The above exposes the distance between actors and process.

Even if there is no contentious program aimed at the State, but particular reactions in the face of the evictions from the plots, electricity cuts because of their illegal access to the network, violence against women, the children’s education needs, in the horizon of collective actions there is also an effort to go beyond survival and move toward the strengthening of future projections with higher welfare.