Collective action indoors. Ethnography and new forms of participation

Abstract

This article describes an ethnographic fieldwork carried out with a neighbor’s association trying to protect a forest in Santiago’s piedmont. It first shows ethnographic descriptions and analysis based on two reunions between members of the neighbor’s organization and state institutions agents. Then, it focuses on theoretical questions presented by social sciences, to analyze this type of collective action, while at the same time suggesting methodological options to understand these new participation processes. Additionally, it states the different types as well as the contradictions emerging from this participation modality.