Table Of Content
CHILEANS IN EXILE
EDINBURGH STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY
General Editors: Frank Bechhofer, Patricia Jeffrey, Tom McGiew
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Titles already published
Kathryn C. Backett: MOTHERS AND FATHERS: A Study of the
Development and Negotiation of Parental Behaviour
Frank Bechhofer and Brian Elliott (editors): THE PETITE
BOURGEOISIE: Comparative Studies of the Uneasy Stratum
Tom Burns: THE BBC: Public Institution and Private World
Harvie Ferguson: STUDIES IN EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Diana Kay: CHILEANS IN EXILE: Private Struggles, Public Lives
John Orr: TRAGIC DRAMA AND MODERN SOCIETY
John Orr: TRAGIC REALISM AND MODERN SOCIETY: Stu
dies in the Sociology of the Modern Novel
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CHILEANS IN EXILE
Private Struggles, Public Lives
Diana Kay
Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Glasgow
M
MACMILLAN
© Diana Kay 1987
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
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First published 1987
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Kay, Diana
Chileans in exile: private struggles, public
lives.-(Edinburgh studies in sociology)
1. Chileans--Foreign countries
I. Title II. Series
305.8'6883 F3060
ISBN 978-0-333-39193-8 ISBN 978-1-349-18636-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18636-5
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Preface viii
1 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY 1
2 ACCOUNTS AND ACCOUNTING 26
3 RUPTURE OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DOMAINS 40
4 RECONSTRUCTING PUBLIC LIFE IN EXILE 72
5 PRIVATE TROUBLES AND PUBLIC ISSUES 106
6 'FAMILY FIRST, POLITICS SECOND' 136
7 REVOLUTION IN THE REVOLUTION? 175
8 CONCLUSIONS 194
Appendix 202
Notes 205
Bibliography 220
Index 224
Acknowledgements
This study is the end-product of an intellectual and personal journey
which began when I first set foot in Chile in 1971. My first debt is to
my teachers and friends in the university there for developing my
interest in Latin America and for sharing the Popular Unity experi
ence so willingly with me. Sadly this group has disbanded since the
coup and their project of placing the sociological enterprise at the
service of the revolutionary process has been suppressed.
My special thanks go to the Chilean exiles who appear pseudony
mously in these pages. They gave generously of their time and hospi
tality, were open to sharing intimate details of their personal lives
and transformed the fieldwork into an enriching period of my own
life. I trust that they will find their voices faithfully interpreted and
that this study will contribute to the writing of the history of the
Chilean exile. Many more Chileans, whilst not part of the sample,
contributed with practical help and advice and without their support I
might well have faltered. I owe a specially warm note of appreciation
to Marta for her encouragement when seeking publication and to
Ruben for his enthusiasm and insights.
This study, which was funded by the then SSRC, could not have
taken shape without the support of Rosemary Johnson and Patricia
Jeffery, my supervisors at Edinburgh University. Their criticisms
were always stretching yet never demoralising. By openly enjoying
the supervision sessions themselves, they gave me the confidence
necessary for this study to flourish. I particularly appreciate Rose
mary's support during a difficult time in her own personal life.
Many others contributed with comments, bibliography and encour
agement: Frank Bechhofer, Lyn Jamieson and Donald Mackenzie
from Edinburgh University, Bert Moorehouse and Barbara Little
wood from Glasgow University, Margaret Stacey, my external exam
iner, Diane Dixon and Gordon Hutchinson from the Joint Working
Group for Refugees from Latin America, and Pauline Martin from
the World University Service. Caroline Bamford and Margaret Casey
vi
Acknowledgements vii
provided friendship during the long lonely hours of writing up. And
finally thanks to Crist6bal Kay, who first introduced me to Chile, and
whose companionship I have enjoyed ever since.
Preface
When I told people I was writing a book about Chilean exiles in
Scotland invariably their response would be: 'what, are there any?' or
'all half a dozen of them?' They would quietly dismiss the topic in
their own minds as being too unique and restricted a piece of
experience to be of much general interest. However this initial
reaction was nearly always revised upon reading, for the focus of this
study appeals beyond an exclusively Latin American audience to all
those interested in the wider question of gender relations and their
potential for transformation during a period of rapid social change.
This is not a conventional history of exile but a history written from
a number of contrasting points of view. It is one which speaks to
those who remained on the political sidelines as well as to the
political activist, to workers as well as intellectuals, to women as well
as men. Based on in-depth interviews, this study is a qualitative and
interpretive account of how a group of actors set about reconstructing
their lives in exile after the military coup in Chile of September 1973.
The focus of much literature on refugees and exiles is on the
process of their assimilation into the host society. Analysts have
attempted to identify variables working for or against integration and
to measure how far the newcomer has succeeded or failed in this
endeavour. This ethnocentric focus ignores the question of whether
this set of relevances accords with the actor's definition of the
situation or not. For many Chilean exiles the problem of exile is not
one of how to assimilate but rather how to get by in this society whilst
maintaining their political commitments and cultural identity as Latin
Americans intact. At the most a very selective kind of integration is
desired.
Where an actor's perspective has been adopted, certain categories
of actor have been singled out for preferential attention whilst others
have been largely overlooked. In particular, few studies of exile have
incorporated a gender dimension into their analysis. If women's
viewpoints in general have been neglected, certain groups of women
viii
Preface ix
-such as women in the home included here-have fared worst of all.
This privileging of the male voice is often related to an exclusive
focus on the public sphere. Studies of exile have documented the
travails of exiled political parties and examined the exiles' relation
ship to the host economy. This study, by contrast, brings women
clearly into view by extending the analysis to include the private
sphere of marriage and the family.
The Chilean men and women in this study have experienced a
bewildering number of dramatic changes in both the public and
private spheres. Within little more than ten years they have lived
through a period of socialist experimentation and a period of military
rule within their own country, and a period of exile abroad. It is well
known that people who are on the move socially or geographically
are also on the move in their consciousness. Personal experience of
changing structures often leads to the questioning of taken-for
granted ideas as arrangements which were once seen as immutable
now come to be seen in a relative light. In the process, areas of life
once regarded as 'private' or 'non-political' may become politicised.
In the Chilean case these dramatic shifts in the public and private
spheres brought men and women into new and more problematic
relationships and exposed contradictions within marriages between
the men's revolutionary politics and women's position in the family.
An underlying theme of this study is to highlight the limitation of a
model of politics which prioritises production and paid work as the
source of consciousness and marginalises a politics of the private
sphere. Women's home-centred focus has sometimes been viewed as
detracting from the political struggle. This study, by contrast, shows
the costs for women of a model of politics which defines the political
as largely coincident with the public sphere and implicitly assumes
that the political actor is male.
