After Pinochet's dictatorship ended in Chile in 1990, the country
experienced a rapid decline in poverty along with a quickly growing
economy. As a result, Chile's middle class expanded dramatically,
echoing trends seen across the Global South as neoliberalism took firm
hold in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Identity Investments examines
the politics and consumption practices of this vast and varied fraction
of the Chilean population, seeking to better understand their value
systems and the histories that informed them.
Using participant observation, interviews, and photographs, Joel
Stillerman develops a unique typology of the middle class, made up of
activists, moderate Catholics, pragmatists, and youngsters. This
typology allows him to unearth the cultural, political, and religious
roots of middle-class market practices in contrast with other studies
focused on social mobility and exclusionary practices. The resultant
contrast in backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of these four
groups animates this book and extends an emerging body of scholarship
focused on the connections between middle-class market choices and
politics in the Global South, with important implications for Chile's
recent explosive political changes.