Justice spatiale et conflits territoriaux dans un contexte néolibéral. Le cas du plan stratégique de Til Til dans la région métropolitaine de Santiago du Chili

In Chile, like in many other places, the grassroots struggles for spatial justice and the right to the city often extend beyond the heart of cities and especially rise up in suburbs or peri-urban areas. The Authors study the Til Til case, a “sacrifice zone” located in the periphery of Santiago (Metropolitan Region), where a large amount of polluting activities have been developed. For a decade, the residents have been mobilizing to show their opposition to this process. By studying the constituent terms and the genealogy of the 2015-2018 Strategic Plan for Til Til Development, set up by the Regional Governement to respond to the conflict situation, and the semi-directive interviews conducted with the main stakeholders of the project, they study how the local community progressively finds its voice by structuring its critical discourse about their right to live in a safe environment, and their to participate to in the decision-making processes concerning their territory’s future. The paper first introduces the case of Til Til and the conflicts generated by the disputed installation of polluting infrastructures in that municipal area. It then analyses the Til Til Plan, its method and contested outputs, before highlighting how the implementation of this instrument, which served the public action’s legitimation strategy, has proved to be inadequate for managing the socio-environmental conflict, yet rather contributed to reinforce the residents’resistance , which calls for a rethink as to the conditions that favour the emergence of the right to the city in the context of neoliberal Chile.