Take care of the metro. The care-control, emerging form of underground regulations and threats

The Underground System of Santiago, Chile has undergone significant deterioration of its transportation conditions since it was integrated to the ‘Transantiago’ – the metropolitan bus network. The Underground operating company has given a great deal of visibility to the control devices of its new masses of users: optimized turnstiles, ubiquitous signage, increased number of agents, etc. The study of the operating company’s official speech and, above all, the ethnographic study of these devices show that the modes of control, themselves, have evolved. On top of the legal threat to foreigners and the regulation of flow through a discipline of the body, a care-control is being conducted on the population that requires protection: the people who are being cared for by the operating company are required, in return, to care for the Underground. The care-control not only constitutes an emerging mode of control, but it is also the general form of control in the Santiago’s Underground.

Control; Care; Daily commuting; Underground; Santiago, Chile