Childhood Representations in Dictatorial Chile (1973-1980). Neoliberal Articulation and Commodification Policies in Child Protection Systems in Chile

This article analyses representations of childhood in the Chilean press between the years 1973–1980. Both the newspapers «La Tercera» and «El Mercurio» displayed political, economic and symbolical precedents that fostered the application of a subsidiary policy in which the state itself created a market for child protection institutions. The proposition is that the representations of childhood in the public sphere at that time provided ideological support for the political process of remodelling this institutionalism of childhood, since it facilitated the construction of a new rhetoric of privatization of the responsibilities for children and justified its merchandization. Finally, we examine the way in which the distinction between childhood and youth concepts allowed Pinochet´s dictatorship to build an institutionalized structure in which there was ideological control of children and families through scholarly institutions, and of disadvantaged minors through the creation of publicly financed private residential and child protection institutions.