Occupied Territory: The Formation of the Emilio Gidi Neighborhood and Working-Class Urban Expansion in Linares, 1968-1982

Abstract

Between 1968 and 1982, the popular occupation of the former Santa Sara estate gave rise to the Emilio Gidi neighborhood on the northeastern outskirts of the city of Linares (Maule Region). This article reconstructs the process of the settlement’s territorial formation based on three questions: what economic, demographic, and agrarian conditions made the occupation and its subsequent formalization possible; how did the territorial process unfold, from the initial occupation to the land subdivision approved in 1982; and what experienced dimension of that process is reflected in the testimonies of the founding residents. Using a qualitative case study design that triangulates municipal legal documentation, historical and self-produced cartography, and two semi-structured interviews, the article shows that the effective occupation of the land preceded its legal recognition (an irrevocable donation in 1977) by nine years and its urban planning regularization (1982) by fourteen years, a time lag that reveals a territorial logic characteristic of intermediate cities in central-southern Chile: the strategic donation of peri-urban agricultural land, adjacent to the Agrarian Reform Corporation’s Reserve, rather than open conflict with the landowners. The findings place the Emilio Gidi case as a specific example of the social production of space in a context distinct from the Santiago metropolitan model, and contribute to an urban history of Chile’s intermediate cities that remains, to a large extent, yet to be written.