Sebastián Ibarra is a Chilean sociologist and currently Ph.D. candidate at the University of Amsterdam. His doctoral research focuses on the study of urban-oriented mobilizations in neoliberal contexts. Considering as case studies the cities of Santiago de Chile and Barcelona, his research aims to describe and explain how neoliberal urbanism, understood as an institutional framework locally embedded, creates new conditions for citizen engagement in urban conflicts and for the development of contentious actions that seek to influence or change urban policies. Through a detailed study of three grassroots mobilizations in each urban setting this research analyses the processes of politicization of urban struggles as the result of the interaction between government capacity to channel and control these contentious actions and the capacity of activist and grassroots organizations to link their particular claims with broader political struggles. The comparative hypothesis that he explores in his doctoral research is that in the case of Santiago the neoliberal policies have consolidated a type of interaction between state, market, and citizenship that hinders the politicization of social conflicts, including urban conflicts. In contrast, Barcelona is an urban setting hit by a deep economic and urban crisis, which has been transformed into a political opportunity for the emergence of collective actors who develop a radical critique of urban and housing policies and for testing political alternatives constructed from below.

Contacto: s.i.ibarragonzalez@uva.nl