The Singularity of the Social Uprising

The social mobilizations that broke out in October 2019, following the announcement of an increase in fares on the Santiago subway were surprising in their mass scale, duration, and radicality. The eruptive, almost volcanic, nature of this social unrest—hence, the name estallido social (literally, “social outburst”)—as well as the political slogan by which it was rapidly accompanied (“It wasn’t 30 pesos, it was 30 years”), its visual and creative expression in numerous graphic representations on walls around Santiago give the phenomenon its singularity. It is this singularity of the social outbreak that is addressed from various metrics, with data from the observatory of conflicts (COES).