ABSTRACT
The political uprising that began on 18 October 2019 triggered a profound questioning of the neoliberal model implemented during the Pinochet dictatorship fifty years ago. Massive protests took place throughout Chile that were fiercely repressed by the police forces. In this chapter, we analyse social workers’ practices of professional resistance in the context of the 18-O movement. From the qualitative analysis of testimonies, documents, and images produced in that period, we identify three types of revolutionary actions: the ‘occupation of the streets’ by social workers, the politicisation of professional organisations’ discourses, and the development of orchestrated actions to denounce human rights violations in this context. These practices of revolutionary social work show us an alternative to the depoliticisation and de-professionalisation that social work has experienced in recent decades.
