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Article published In: Narrative Boundaries: Constitutional struggles in an age of polarization
Edited by Rodrigo Cordero and Raimundo Frei
[Journal of Language and Politics 23:5] 2024
► pp. 723–746

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Claims of ownership, claims of dignity

Moral narratives on the right to housing in Chile’s constitutional referendum

ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Diego Portales
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Diego Portales
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Diego Portales
ORCiD logo with link | Centro de Estudios Públicos
ORCiD logo with link | Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez
Published online: 26 July 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24097.fre
Abstract
In September 2022, Chileans overwhelmingly rejected the draft of a new constitution to replace the inherited from Pinochet’s dictatorship. Existing explanations attribute the failure to a mixture of ill-designed procedures, political dynamics, and ideological distortions and fake news. However, we argue for a different interpretation, emphasizing the collision of normative worlds in the struggle for demarcating rights. Through narrative analysis of social media stories during the referendum campaign, we investigate distinct moral economies around the constitutional debate on housing rights. These reveal a tension between divergent rights claims anchored in the value of “ownership” versus “dignity.” Within these almost irreconcilable normative universes, private property condenses meanings across narratives: the value of personal home-ownership effort and the collective aspiration for decent housing access. While not inherently incompatible, these narratives evolved into polarizing channels through which property became the defining moral boundary that underlies the stories shaping Chile’s constitutional struggle over rights.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical remarks on constitutional stories
  • 3.Debating the right to housing within Chile’s constitutional convention
  • 4.Exploring narrative boundaries: Methodological strategy
  • 5.The moral economy of the right to housing
    • 5.1Claims of ownership: Narratives of rejection
    • 5.2Claims of dignity: Narratives of approval
  • 6.Final remarks: Property as a moral boundary
  • Note
  • Bibliography
References (44)
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