From Welfare Capitalism to the Free Market in Chile: Gender, Culture and Politics in the Copper Mines
Author(s)
Klubock, Thomas Miller
Abstract
In May 1983 the Chilean copper miners’ federation called for a general strike in protest of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. This was in keeping with a long history of political action on the part of copper miners, a practice born of their unique position as the producers of an export that in 1970 accounted for early 90 percent of foreign earnings. This paper explains the remarkable solidarity between men and women, and the mining community’s militancy during strikes, as a result of the gendered process of class formation in the mining enclave. That the class formation, and attached gender roles, were the product of the mining corporation itself is a fact not to be overlooked.
