Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University Dr. Edward Murphy recently published “Capacious and Territorial: The Left and the Course of the Social Revolt in Chile” in Critical Historical Studies. The article adopts a long-term perspective on the evolution of the Chilean left to uncover how and why the street protests in Chile’s 2019 social revolt achieved such prominence, developing the promise and shortcomings of leftist forms of street protest. The article is available here.
Murphy also published “Sobre escribir contra la dictadura: reflexiones de tres décadas de trabajo en las poblaciónes de Santiago de Chile” (“On writing against the dictatorship: reflections from three decades of work in the poblaciónes of Santiago de Chile” in Cuadernos de Teoría Social, a journal publication in Chile). A meditation on the legacies and significance of the military coup in Chile in 1973, the article develops how the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet has left long shadows over the lives of the urban poor in Santiago. At the same time, however, certain social movements and property dynamics among the urban poor also need to be understood in a historical framework that supersedes the dictatorship.
Murphy’s research explores themes of mass urbanization, inequality, domesticity, state formation, and political economy, with a focus on the property regimes of low-income groups. While rooted in the concerns and approaches of Latin American historiography, Murphy also draws on the perspectives of other disciplines, especially anthropology.
