Bodies Holding up Communities Uncaring Infrastructures in Santiago, Chile and Beyond

Abstract

In this article, we explore the role of bodies, housing, and mobility as infrastructures of care for low-income women living in peripheral neighbourhoods in Santiago, Chile. Drawing on feminist political economists and urbanists, we describe the way that bodies act as infrastructures, often compensating for inadequate built and social environments. Even as the caring of these women sustains life, livelihoods, and communities, they suff er slow infrastructural violence ampli fied by immobility, isolation, and insuffi cient support. This reinforces and occurs within a broader context of gendered inequality and gendered violence, in a city where socioeconomic segregation is very pronounced. While there are geographic particularities to this case, the lack of infrastructure for care persists in cities and communities across the Global North and South. We provide policy recommendations oriented toward transforming material and social urban infrastructures, simultaneously addressing gendered and intersectional power relations.