Ephemeral Histories

Politics under Salvador Allende was a battle fought in the streets. Everyday attempts to &ldquo;<I>ganar la calle</I>&rdquo; allowed a wide range of urban residents to voice potent political opinions. <I>Santiaguinos&#160;</I>marched through the streets chanting slogans, seized public squares, and plastered city walls with graffiti, posters, and murals. Urban art might only last a few hours or a day before being torn down or painted over, but such activism allowed a wide range of city dwellers to participate in the national political arena. These popular political strategies were developed under democracy, only to be reimagined under the Pinochet dictatorship. <I>Ephemeral Histories </I>places urban conflict at the heart of Chilean history, exploring how marches and protests, posters and murals, documentary film and street photography, became the basis of a new form of political change in Latin America in the late twentieth century.