Contesting verticality through consumption practices: digital markets as neighborliness in high-rise Santiago

Based on a year-long ethnographic research into everyday life in Santiago’s dense high-rises, this paper analyses the emergence of everyday digital economies among building occupants through messaging applications. In this context, novel neighbor-based commercial interactions have, to some extent, overturned the impersonal character of Chilean verticality. Infused with a communitarian ethos, these transactional encounters reshape residents’ perceptions of neighborliness in dense, heterogeneous vertical settings, fostering a sense of togetherness reminiscent of traditional neighborhood imaginaries, while enabling residents from diverse backgrounds to generate unexpected relationships. I therefore argue that consumption practices within these buildings add complexity and nuance to the experience of living in verticalizing South American cities. Specifically, they reveal alternative ways in which seemingly rigid residential structures are transformed through ordinary inhabitation as neighbor relations become more digitalized. In doing so, this paper contributes to the expanding interest in understanding vertical ordinariness in the region.