Mobilizing Citizen Knowledge: finding a place, building truth

Abstract

This article focuses on “citizen knowledge” as a collective creation that claims political legitimacy inside of territorial public policy debate. With this idea, we seek to go beyond the dichotomy between expert and profane knowledge. Based on the results of two doctoral researches, we analyze the political work of mobilized groups who attempt to defend neighborhoods and green areas in Santiago de Chile. We focused on how the associations enter to interaction, negotiation and conflict, and how they mobilize and create knowledge for having space in a public policy discussion, traditionally closed to citizens. We analyze the citizen knowledge from three dimensions: as a political form, as a way for building and discussing the territory, and as a possibility for citizens to have recognition and legitimacy in democracy.