"VERGÜENZA DE VIVIR DONDE VIVO": IDEAS PARA UNA RE- CONCEPTUALIZACIÓN DE LA SEGREGACIÓN RESIDENCIAL SOCIOECONÓMICA.

Santiago, Capital of Chile, is characterized by a large scale pattern of socioeconomic residential segregation. There are very few spaces where the inhabitants of different social strata interact. However, in the last two decades there have been examples in which the scale of residential segregation has been reduced, with a narrowed distance between families of very low and high income in peripheral districts. While originally these peripheral areas were slums occupied by low income dwellers, today the two communities are neighbors in private condos. Does this new phenomena constitute a wide tendency or is it something found in isolated cases? What sociospatial effect does this have for these communities, their inhabitants and the city as a whole in the short and long term? Can the reduction of residential segregation generate moments of social interaction and integration? This paper examines these questions, through the particular case of the Peñalolén borough. The paper outlines the possible negative effects of this phenomenon as well as examines why interaction and social integration are not natural consequences of the close proximity in the actual social and economic context of Chile. Finally, starting from Manuel Castells' theory of the logical flow of space and its application in the case study we review the idea of residential segregation and the methodologies for its study, proposing that there is a need to re-consider this term and to consider new methods for studying it, which emphasize the qualitative methodology that Anthropology can contribute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]