Community filmmaking as research: (re)considering knowledge production through the camera's lens

In southern Chile, Mapuche Indigenous communities are using video and digital filmmaking to collectively reflect on and communicate knowledge. This article shares their experience, arguing that with the increasing accessibility of information and communication technologies, we should be rethinking and broadening the acceptable ways to generate and convey knowledge about development. Acknowledging the diverse ways of knowing and communicating knowledge, this article suggests that video can be a powerful tool for self-representative knowledge-sharing by Indigenous communities. Only by expanding our debates beyond written media can we engage equitably with a plurality of knowledge-holders to resolve development challenges.     

The return of censitary suffrage? The effects of automatic voter registration and voluntary voting in Chile

How does a change from a compulsory voting system to a voluntary one affect election turnout? It is often argued that an electoral regime under which voting is voluntary reproduces class bias or, in other words, that the rich vote more than the poor. This bias is corrected either by the introduction of compulsory voting or the existence of strong left-wing parties and trade unions able to mobilize poorer segments of the population. In this article, we put forward an alternative argument. We assert that when voting is voluntary, class bias can disappear if an election is very competitive since this affects both turnout and its socio-economic composition. To evaluate this argument, we examine the case of Chile's 2012 municipal election when voting was voluntary for the first time, instead of compulsory.