ABSTRACT
In writing about Chile, Claudia Beas and Javiera Sánchez tease out what they call the “Cultural Isolation Complex.” This chapter seeks to understand how this cultural isolation complex has developed and how it plays out today in Chile. The authors explore several factors that have contributed to the development of this complex: Chile’s geography, history, the influence of the Spanish and their Catholic hardline conservatism, and the reactivation of the conquest trauma as a result of the long dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, as well as the role of the mother as the axis and core of the family unit.
