The Neoliberalization of Ports in Chile: The Case of the Port City of Valparaíso

Abstract

This article proposes an ethnographic interpretation of the neoliberalization process of ports and its effects on the territory. The case study corresponds to the port city of Valparaíso and its hinterlands. Based on the analysis of context information, quantitative public data, ethnographic observation, and qualitative data, we offer an interpretation of how the mechanisms of globalization and economic restructuration are articulated with processes of productive and territorial change in port cities such as Valparaíso. The article’s central thesis is that the coupling of neoliberal rationality, extractive exploitation of resources, and logistics management of capital operations converge in the territorial restructuration of Valparaíso and its hinterlands. This coupling between neoliberalization, extraction, and logistics has contributed to the consolidation of a particular development of capitalism with a functional port model. However, this coupling is not necessarily a virtuous one. In our view, the difficulties of this model and the related social conflicts are the result of some inherent limitations of these logics.