Gabriel Salazar Vergara (born 31 January 1936) is a Chilean

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

. He is known in his country for his study of

social history Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

and interpretations of

social movement A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...

s, particularly the recent student protests of

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

and 2011–12. Salazar was born into a lower class family, he studied history, sociology and philosophy at

Universidad de Chile The University of Chile ( es, Universidad de Chile) is a public research university in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on November 19, 1842, and inaugurated on September 17, 1843.

, and for time he was assistant of historian

Mario Góngora Mario Góngora del Campo (June 22, 1915 – November 18, 1985) was a Chilean historian considered "one of the most important Chilean historians of the 20th century". Though his work he examined the history of the inquilinos, the encomentaderos, ...

and classical historian

Héctor Herrera Cajas Héctor Enrique Herrera Cajas (13 September 1930 – 6 October 1997) was a Chilean people, Chilean historian and scholar who specialized in Byzantine studies. He is remembered for being a polyglot, and is known for teaching two winners of the Nat ...

. Salazar used to be a member of the Revolutionary Left Movement until 1973. In that year he was tortured in

Villa Grimaldi Villa Grimaldi is considered the most important of DINA’s (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet regime) many complexes that were used for the interrogation and torture of political prisoners during ...

by the military. Having been released from a military prison camp in 1976 he went into exile in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. There he obtained a scholarship for continued studies in

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hull ...

. He obtained a PhD in Economic and Social History from that university in 1984. Next year he returned to Chile. Relatively unknown Salazar's breakthrough came in 1985. His subject of study has included

peon Peon (English , from the Spanish ''peón'' ) usually refers to a person subject to peonage: any form of wage labor, financial exploitation, coercive economic practice, or policy in which the victim or a laborer (peon) has little control over emp ...

labourer A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philoso ...

s, child huachos and women. Salazar is one of the founders of the historiographic current known as ''Nueva Historia Social''. Salazar considers history as a useful tool for

social action In sociology, social action, also known as Weberian social action, is an act which takes into account the actions and reactions of individuals (or ' agents'). According to Max Weber, "Action is 'social' insofar as its subjective meaning takes ...

. In interview he has declared himself a "leftist, critical social historian" and rejected the label "

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

Biography

Salazar was born into a lower class religious Catholic family. His family lived in the Santiago shanty-town (población) Manuel Montt. From 1964 to 1968, he worked at the

Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso History Institute The Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso History Institute is a Chilean academic unit that is part of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso's Philosophy and Education Faculty. The History Institute dates back to 1952 when it w ...

alongside

. There, he taught the signature theory of history.

Particular views

Salazar describes the 2011-2012 Chilean student conflict as being the continuation of a long strife between popular citizen movements and civic and

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

s. In October 2011, Salazar led a campaign aiming to hold a citizen's

plebiscite A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

on the demands behind the 2011-2012 Chilean student protests. Salazar has been critical of various historical figures like

José Miguel Carrera José Miguel Carrera Verdugo (; October 15, 1785 – September 4, 1821) was a Chilean general, formerly Spanish military, member of the prominent Carrera family, and considered one of the founders of independent Chile. Carrera was the most impor ...

and

Diego Portales Diego José Pedro Víctor Portales y Palazuelos (; June 16, 1793 – June 6, 1837) was a Chilean statesman and entrepreneur. As a minister of president José Joaquín Prieto's government, he played a pivotal role in shaping the state and po ...

. In addition Salazar has sparkled controversy by his criticism of contemporary student leader

Camila Vallejo Camila Antonia Amaranta Vallejo Dowling (; born 28 April 1988) is a Chilean communist politician and former student leader who has been serving as Minister General Secretariat of Government since 11 March 2022. Previously, Vallejo served as a ...

Bibliography

*''Labradores, Peones y Proletarios'' (1985) *''Violencia Política Popular en las Grandes Alamedas'' (1990) *''Los Intelectuales, los Pobres y el Poder'' (1995) *''Autonomía, Espacio y Gestión'' (1998) *''Manifiesto de Historiadores'' (compilador) (1999) *''Historia Contemporánea de Chile'' (Junto con Julio Pinto - five volumes) (1999-2002) *''Ferias libres: espacio residual de soberanía popular'' (2002) *''Historia de la acumulación capitalista en Chile'' (2003) *''La Construcción del Estado en Chile (1800–1830)'' (2006) *''Ser niño "huacho" en la historia de Chile'' (2007) *''Mercaderes, empresarios y capitalistas'' (2009) *''Conversaciones con Carlos Altamirano'' (2010) *''En el nombre del poder popular constituyente (Chile siglo XXI)'' (2011) *''La enervante levedad histórica de la clase política civil (Chile, 1900-1973)'' (2015) *''La historia desde abajo y desde adentro'' (2017) *''El ejército de Chile y la soberanía popular'' (2019)

Notes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salazar, Gabriel Chilean historians 20th-century Chilean historians 20th-century Chilean male writers 21st-century Chilean historians 21st-century Chilean male writers Chilean sociologists 1936 births Living people Chilean former marxists Chilean schoolteachers Pontifical Catholic University of Chile faculty University of Chile alumni Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso faculty University of Chile faculty Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile) politicians Chilean exiles People from Santiago Alumni of the University of Hull Social historians