Robo Sacer , livre ebook

Robo Sacer
CRITICAL MEXICAN STUDIES
Series editor: Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado
Critical Mexican Studies is the first English-language, humanities-based, theoretically focused academic series devoted to the study of Mexico. The series is a space for innovative works in the humanities that focus on theoretical analysis, transdisciplinary interventions, and original conceptual framing.
Other titles in the series:
The Restless Dead: Necrowriting and Disappropriation , by Cristina Rivera Garza
History and Modern Media: A Personal Journey , by John Mraz
Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures: Feminist Living as Resistance , by Irmgard Emmelhainz
Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture , by Oswaldo Zavala
Unlawful Violence: Mexican Law and Cultural Production , by Rebecca Janzen
The Mexican Transpacific: Nikkei Writing, Visual Arts, and Performance , by Ignacio López-Calvo
Monstrous Politics: Geography, Rights, and the Urban Revolution in Mexico City , by Ben Gerlofs
Robo Sacer
Necroliberalism and Cyborg Resistance in Mexican and Chicanx Dystopias
David S. Dalton
Vanderbilt University Press
Nashville, Tennessee
Copyright 2023 Vanderbilt University Press
All rights reserved
First printing 2023
Cover image by Mario A. Chacon, from Lunar Braceros .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file LCCN 2022034903
ISBN 978-0-8265-0537-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-0-8265-0538-5 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-8265-0539-2 (EPUB)
ISBN 978-0-8265-0540-8 (Web PDF)
For Ariadna, Davidcito, Dan Armando, and Isadora
Contents
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION: Defining the Robo Sacer in a Necroliberal World
PART I. DENATURALIZING GREATER-MEXICAN ZOĒ : THE EARLY STAGES OF NAFTA (1992–2001)
1. Reimagining the Sanctity of Expendable Life: Necroliberal Markets and Secularly Holy Cyborgs in Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints and Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos
2. Existing in the Necroliberal Order Online: Robo-Sacer Subjectivity in Pepe Rojo’s “Ruido gris” and Ernest Hogan’s Smoking Mirror Blues
PART II. NAFTA AFTER THE TRANSITION: WORKER EXPENDABILITY IN A NECROLIBERAL AGE (2006–2018)
3. Hacking the Bios : Disposable Braceros and Bare Life in Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer and Rosaura Sánchez and Beatrice Pita’s Lunar Braceros 2125–2148
4. Robo-Sacer Resistance and Feminicide: Gabriela Damián Miravete’s “Soñarán en el jardín” and Carlos Carrera and Sabina Berman’s Backyard/El traspatio
5. Guns, Narcos, and Low-Tech Cyborgs: Magical Realism, SF, and the Posthuman in Julio Hernández Cordón’s Cómprame un revólver and Rudolfo Anaya’s ChupaCabra Trilogy
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
From its inception, Robo Sacer was always going to be an ambitious project. The idea of an Agambian cyborg in Mexican and Chicanx dystopian fictions certainly interested me, but the project entailed numerous hurdles. I wish to extend my gratitude to the people who have been there to lend an ear as I have embarked on this study. I originally began thinking about the notion of robo sacer as a PhD student at the University of Kansas while taking a course on transnational race and performance with Nichole Hodges Persley. She was instrumental to helping me to think through and theorize how cyborg theory interfaced not only with gender and sexuality, but with race as well. Indeed, both of my books were born in classes that I took with her. Stuart Day was also a valuable resource as I first began developing this idea. I eventually decided to leave Robo Sacer to the side as I worked on my first book, Mestizo Modernity . Nevertheless, I’m very grateful to the mentors at KU who helped me to articulate my notion of robo sacer. I’m also grateful to colleagues like Jacob Rapp and Ezekiel Stear, both of whom read (very) early drafts of what would eventually become this manuscript. Their encouragement helped me to take confidence in my ideas and to develop them to their full potential.
This book has placed me in contact with an array of academic fields. I am especially grateful to my wonderful colleagues in (Greater-)Mexican studies and in Latin American science fiction studies for their support. In alphabetical order, I would like to voice my gratitude to the people who have read over drafts, attended different conference presentations, or simply talked with me about my ideas through chat or in person: Enrique Ajuria Ibarra, Susan Antebi, Pablo Brescia, J. Andrew Brown, Olivia Cosentino, Ángel Díaz, Rodrigo Figueroa Obregón, Carolyn Fornoff, Miguel García, Mónica García Blizzard, M. Elizabeth Ginway, Rachel Haywood Ferreira, Emily Hind, Rebecca Janzen, Yunuen Ylce Mandujano-Salazar, Emily Maguire, Diana Montaño, Samanta Ordóñez Robles, Edmundo Paz Soldán, Amanda Petersen, Sara Potter, Brian Price, David Ramírez Plascencia, Elissa Rashkin, and Stephen Tobin. Their comments have challenged and invigorated me as they have helped me to make the strongest arguments possible. Sara Potter and Stephen Tobin have both humored me on multiple occasions with long conversations—through the Messenger app, no less—about the intersections of posthuman and transhuman discourses on gendered and racialized bodies. Many of these conversations lasted hours at a time. Truly, this project would not have come into fruition without the support and comments of all of these excellent colleagues. Their deep knowledge of Mexican studies and/or Latin American science fiction studies was a powerful resource. I’m so fortunate to belong to a community of scholars who so freely gives of their time to help one another to succeed professionally. This book would not be the same without them. I hope I can pay it forward and help others with their projects in the future as well.
I’m also grateful to the entire team at Vanderbilt University Press. They have ensured a smooth process at every juncture along the way. Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado expressed confidence in the text when he encouraged me to send this manuscript to his series, Critical Mexican Studies . Zack Gresham has been a pleasure to work with; a professional to the core. He has made the submission process easy, painless, and pressure free while at the same time ensuring things happen in an expeditious manner. He has also been a strong advocate for this project both with the press and beyond. Mexicanist colleagues: if you are wondering where to publish your monograph, you should consider Vanderbilt. Joell Simth-Borne did a fantastic job copyediting this manuscript, and Andrew Ascherl created the book’s wonderful index.
I would be amiss if I were to ignore the excellent support I have received from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. I am especially grateful to my colleagues in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies and to my colleagues in the Latin American Studies Program. My chair, Michele Bissiere, and associate chair, Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, have been incredibly supportive by validating my research and ensuring I have the resources necessary to complete the project. The former directors of the Latin America Studies program, Carlos Coria and Jürgen Buchenau, have also been an absolute pleasure to work with over the last several years. In alphabetical order, I would like to express my gratitude to the following faculty members I have worked with in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies and/or Latin American studies at Charlotte: Benny Andrés, José Manuel Batista, Oscar de la Torre, Michael Doyle, Erika Edwards, Javier García León, Maryrica Lottman, Concepción Godev, Eric Hoenes, Jeffrey Killman, Chris Mellinger, Andrea Pitts, Anton Pujol, Mónica Rodríguez, Carmen Soliz, and Allison Stedman. Many of these colleagues have gone to different presentations on campus that I have done in conjunction with this project; all of them have helped to build our strong programs in Spanish and/or Latin American studies that make UNC, Charlotte such a special place to work. I look forward to Charlotte’s continued growth in Latin American, US-Latinx, and Hispanic studies.
Last but certainly not least, I’m grateful for the support of my family. My parents instilled in me the importance of reading, writing, and education from a young age. When I was a child, they would take me to Kinko’s to bind the novellas and stories that I wrote in a way that looked professional. Their support made me want to be an author. And now I am! I’m also grateful to my children, all of whom are still quite young. They have watched me sift through an array of books and then return to write on the computer. My oldest jokes that my books are my prized possession, and he knows he’s more than a little correct. In all seriousness, they are my great inspiration in my research and writing. I’m so grateful for the support they have given me as I have worked on this and other major projects. My successes belong just as much to them as they do to me. They have made it possible for me to do this. I hope my children find it inspiring to see their dad writing and publishing books, and I want them to know that they can and should aspire to do whatever they want. I’m especially grateful to Ariadna, who is always so supportive of me, especially when I have to go into writer mode for long periods of time. She is my partner in crime, and I can’t imagine being on this crazy ride that we call life without her. I love her very much; I’m so fortunate to have her in my life.
A fragment of Chapter 2 was published in Spanish as “El consumo de la muerte en las televisiones nacionales: El necroliberalismo y la nación cyborg en ‘Ruido gris’ de Pepe Rojo,” Balajú: Revista de cultura y comunicación 11 (2019): 3–26. It has been reprinted here with the permission of the editor, Elissa Rashkin. Another fragment of Chapter 2 was published in Spanish as “Reclamando el ciberespacio para los subalternos: Resistencia robo sacer en Smoking Mirror Blues de Ernest Hogan,” in Recalibrando los circuitos de la máquina: Imaginarios tecnológ