The Socio-Existential Anchors: The Case of the Future Expectations

The goal of this article is to discuss the work that individuals develop to sustain themselves in social life, focusing on the question of "socio-existential anchors", and in particular on one type of these: the expectations of the future. After a review of the theoretical debate and based on the results of a qualitative empirical research for the case of Chile, the text analyzes the way in which the figure of the going to the South-Field is constituted as the foundation of these expectations of the future and acts as an anchor for social existences. This analysis will allow to argue that the "socio-existential anchors" are active in specific individuals but are socially shared and can be understood as a response, with nuances according to social group, at once singular and general, to the structural requirements to which it is exposed at a certain historical moment.