Interview with Hamamé Ahumada, Sandoval, Peredo and Morales: Symbolic-descriptive representation in the Chilean Constitutional Convention

We hear from the authors of recent Journal of Language and Politics article, Symbolic-descriptive representation in the Chilean Constitutional Convention: A multi-modal argumentation analysis, Eva Emilia Hamamé Ahumada, Cristóbal Sandoval, Sebastián Peredo and Fortunato Morales. They tell us what sparked this piece and what you can expect from it.

Photo by Cristina Dorador via Wikimedia Commons

This approach emphasized the visibility of historically excluded sectors in Chile and defended a politics of presence focused on particular identities and the autonomy of their demands.

Why did you decide to write this piece?

The article “Symbolic-Descriptive Representation in the Chilean Constitutional Convention: A Multimodal Argumentative Analysis” is the result of the research conducted by members of the Language and Politics Research Group at the Universidad Diego Portales in response to the impact of the 2019 social uprising in Chile and the events that followed.

After a widespread demand for a new constitution emerged from the popular revolt, a paradox emerged in 2022: the majority of Chilean voters rejected the draft constitution proposed by the Constitutional Convention—an elected representative body that was gender-parity based and included reserved seats for Indigenous peoples.

This outcome appeared paradoxical and counterintuitive. How can one explain that, despite significant public support for modifying the status quo, the Convention’s proposal for a new constitution ultimately failed?

This event revealed a crisis of representation and legitimacy that warranted deeper reflection. For this reason, we focused specifically on the concept of constituent power as a source of legitimacy rooted in the principle of political representation.

Our point of departure was the theoretical framework on political representation developed by Hanna Pitkin, particularly her typology of symbolic, descriptive, delegative, and substantive representation. Our aim was to understand how the elected representatives articulated political representation within their discourse. As a result, we contend that the prevailing conception of representation in the Convention could advance a critical explanation for the failure of Chile’s constitutional process.

Using discourse analysis tools, we sought to examine the political imaginaries constructed by Convention delegates around the notion of political representation. To this end, we analyzed a sample of opening speeches from the Constitutional Convention, devising a methodology informed by Michael Gilbert’s theory of multimodal argumentation and discourse analysis. This framework allowed us to identify different types of argumentation modalities such as logical, emotional, physical (visceral), and intuitive (kisceral), according to Gilbert’s categorization. We thus conducted an analysis of the semantic frameworks mobilized in these discourses.

What are the key takeaways?

Our analysis showed that the dominant mode of political representation in the speeches we examined was a symbolic-descriptive one. This approach emphasized the visibility of historically excluded sectors in Chile and defended a politics of presence focused on particular identities and the autonomy of their demands. The speeches also emphasized the perceived similarities between the representatives of the Constitutional Convention and the Chilean citizenry.

This conception of representation manifested in the delegates’ speeches through all four argumentative modalities proposed by Michael Gilbert, which typically occur simultaneously. Logical arguments emphasized the historical need to give voice to marginalized social groups and their demands. Emotional modalities conveyed anger toward Chile’s prevailing development model and hope to transform Chilean society. Intuitive modalities highlighted the relevance of ancestral knowledge and indigenous cosmovision. Physical modalities—through the use of traditional clothing or symbols from social movements—expressed the specificities and diversity of Chilean social groups.

Where do you plan to go next in your research?

Building on the insights from this article, we aim to further explore the discursive construction of the current crisis of representation and its implications for democratic legitimacy in Chile. We intend to reflect on the foundations of legitimacy in democratic regimes by expanding the discursive corpus to different political and social agents such as the Constitutional Council (the second constituent assembly that also failed to change the current constitution), the executive and legislative branches, and media discourse as a reflection of public opinion. What role does representation—understood as the perceived organic connection between the political class and citizenry—play in democracy?

In this way, the material we have already gathered provides a valuable foundation for examining the crisis of political representation, a challenge that increasingly resonates on a global scale.