PhD in Leadership alumna Dr. Denise Tala has published her dissertation entitled, Living Through the Chilean Coup d’Etat: The Second-Generation’s Reflection on Their Sense of Agency, Civic Engagement, and Democracy. This dissertation illuminates how the experience of growing up during the Chilean dictatorship (1973–1990) affected the individual’s sense of self as citizen and the impact on their sense of democratic agency, civic-mindedness, and political engagement in their country’s current democracy. This generation was part of a social movement that managed to set aside its political and economic divides and its personal self-interests with the collective goal of restoring democracy.
Dr. Tala Diaz is originally from Chile. She spent her childhood and adolescence in Santiago, Chile’s capital, during Pinochet’s military regime. In her 20s she pursued her major in Sociology, in a time when the social sciences were considered subversive and dangerous for the military dictatorship. She has lived in different cities in the world such as Johannesburg, Seoul, Brussels, Los Angeles, California and Paris, where she encountered different people, realities and cultures, which allowed her to develop an understanding of social phenomena from a global point of view. She is currently a professor at the EDC Paris Business School for the Master Grande Ecole and also at the Business School of University of Chile in Santiago. She has worked for the private and public sector and has more than 15 years of experience in consulting, social and market research in different fields. She lives in Thomery, France and enjoys playing piano, traveling with her family and visiting “French brocantes” where the objects she buys have a story to tell.
