“The struggle gives you what the law and the boss deny you.”: Interview with Aland Castro and Cristina Cabello, from the Movimiento de Pobladores Ukamau, Santiago, Chile

n this interview, Aland Castro, one of the founders of the Movimiento de Pobladores Ukamau in Santiago, Chile, and Cristina Cabello, one of the collective’s new spokespersons, explain how Ukamau managed to mobilize more than 400 families over a decade and thus secured the construction of a social housing complex in Estación Central, a central district in the capital city of Chile. They explain how this long, contentious sequence involved a learning process, both for the Ukamau militant core and the mobilized families, which entailed collective empowerment and active participation at all stages. The result, the Barrio Maestranza, won a national award in 2021 for "best social integration project," and demonstrated that working-class people do not have to resign themselves to displacement to the peripheries.