Set in stone? 'Desired whiteness' and the urban space: A collaborative research in (post) colonial Chile.

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Issues of race have long been silenced in many (post)colonial contexts in Latin America and beyond, and are not established in public discourse, especially in relation to the implicit social norm of 'whiteness'. Nevertheless, as sadly highlighted by the Covid-19 health emergency and by the BLM protests after the murder of George Floyd, inequalities are closely linked to racialisation processes, shaping social life in many cities across the world. Chile constitutes an excellent location for thinking about these issues, due to the recent strong reaction against high levels of socio-economic inequality and its racial dimensions. In October 2019, the country was shaken by political unrest, questioning the traditional emphasis on class for the understanding of inequality and privilege in one of the most unequal countries in the world. The income gap between rich and poor is 65% wider than the OECD average and privatisation has had lasting consequences for social security, education, and basic services, exacerbating the racialised dimensions of class inequality that locate indigenous people and mestizos disproportionately in the lower strata.Working in close collaboration with organisations in Santiago, the project aims to make visible the otherwise hidden processes of racialisation through practice-based collaborative interventions employing digital media. Moving from a historical research and ethnographic fieldwork phase in Santiago, a mobile phone app 'MonuRama' will be collaboratively designed. The app will implement a digital interactive city-tour in particular areas of the capital city, through which ideas of 'whiteness' will be addressed as embedded in urban materialities - colonial and postcolonial monuments, statues, landmarks and architectures - shaping the city's socio-spatial landscape, and being embodied/challenged in interracial frictions. Santiago's urban landscape will be addressed as a context where the 'desired whiteness' of the Chilean nation is materialised, and a digitally mediated space for interaction will be created moving from architecture, monuments, and landmarks. In the exchange between the material representation of the national ideology of racial homogeneity, indigenous and mestizo counternarratives, and the app users' responses and reactions, the ways in which ideas of 'whiteness' are enacted, embodied, and challenged will be analysed. The mobile phone app 'MonuRama' will be open access and will be designed by a dedicated external designer, with whom the team will be in contact from the beginning of the fieldwork. The app will then be launched through trial events and public debates, and will be monitored in its use in close collaboration with the local team. This aims at fostering public debate over racialisation processes and contributing to shaping anti-racism policies and city governance agendas by inviting policymakers to dissemination events through the project's partners networks.'Set in stone?' will provide an original contribution to studies of racial inequalities and generate important knowledge exchange between academic and non-academic sectors, involving the social sciences and digital media production. Its key impact will be the elaboration of an interdisciplinary and collaborative methodology that can be applied in different contexts to tackle urban segregation and global racial inequalities; its main outputs include a collaboratively developed app and related trial sessions in Santiago; a project website; academic publications and conference participation; four knowledge exchange activities in European and Latin American cities.