1 ike Univesity Press ans reserved ce Unite States of America on aei-ree Designed by Erin Kirk New in Brandt and Fr Types boy Keystone Typeseting Ine xy of Congress Cataloging ok sion Dats appear on the 1 « printed page ofth ‘ue wEpERLOURE (OOKP, 2003) LUNIVERSITATS- UND STADT- aIBLIOTHEK KOLN Contents Introduction: Wiggle Room DORIS SOMMER 1. Media ag Intervening fom and through Rescarch Practice: Meditations on the Cuzco Workshop 31 Jess MARTIN BARBERO Between Technology and Culture: Communication and Modernity in Latin America 37 JESOS MARTIN BARBERO DNA of Performance 52 DIANA TAYLOR A City that Improvises Its Globalization 82 NESTOR GARCIA CANCLINE 2.Maneuvers 91 ‘The Cultural Agency af Wounded Bodies Politic: Ethnicity and Gender as Prosthetic ;pport in Postwar Guatemala 93 DIANE M. NELSON Tradition, Tran: Candomblé 121 J. LORAND MAT ism, and Gender in the Afro-Br The Discourses of Diversi in Latin America 146 vage, Ethnicity, and Interculturality JUAN CARLOS GODENZZIConspiracy on the Sidelines: How the Maya Won the War 167 ARTURO ARIAS Radio ‘Taino and the Cuban Quest for Ide ARIANA HERNANDEZ-REGUANT y and Difference in Afro- Clodum’s Transcultural Spaces: Commu Brazilian Contemporary Performance 203 DENISE CORTE Political Construction and Cultural Instrumentalities of Indi Brazil, with Echoes from Latin America 229 ALCIDA RITA RAMOS Questioning State Geographies of Inclusion in Ar Politics of Organizations with Mapuche Leadership and Philosophy 248 CLAUDIA BRIONES 3.ca S279 Caltural Agency and Political Struggle in the Fra of the Indio Permitido 281 CHARLES R. HALE AND ROSAMTS, MILLAMAN ism and Melancholia in the Colombian ‘The Crossroads of Faith: Her “Violentologists” (1980-2000) 305 SANTIAGO VILLAVECES QuiERDO Afterword: A Fax, Two Moles, a Consul, and a Judge 326 se PRATT MARY 1 Afterword: Spread It Around! 334 CLAUDIO LOMNITZ References 342 Contributors 371 Index 375 Introduction: Wiggle Room DORIS SOMMER That from cus et, of community "om aw the resco humai “Program de gobi ss singled out Lagos, Ni ‘ » traffic in tourism. On this count, Bogatanas them- ves didn’t doubt the North American advice to keep a safe d their own city. Many had emigrat places too troubl selves ance from confidence altogether, and those who were not if tended to live very s lives. The hopeless, given the general level of corruption that could turn any invest red, privat ment apn eal. More mone or ecmamic rr ee eae the umber Bereta ot Bee eat and ru yea c would increase the number of ropased a 4 term this book proposes to name and recognize as a range of social ply stared, Mockus pu would not sustait igh creative practices, Sim- ture to work, If civic sp body politic that could take fis had worn so thin it cures or demandart, anties, and nd then a public security, the first prescription was to revive the spirit throy sand philosopher, hat would themselves yield accountability, First a mathemati cervant, the mayor made theory = s of struggle that stayed more reflection. Hl sidestepped conventional sites of strusel — a ike Antonio Gramsci, Mockus re- d practices fear and opportunism. better conditions and instead promoted 2 “passive revolt: tion” through the power of eultut ' response to unbeatable odds ‘makes him something of a patr wal ages ‘wedge to open up the civil conditions necessary for decent ps ae economic growth, workers would get beyond economistic deadlocks an stuck betwes fiased to wait vy. Using culture ss and saint of ‘move toward the goal of emancipation. Yor Mayor Mocks cviy was goal enough, and getting tere Beeame 2) experiment that mixed fun with function (imagine Frvdri Schiller’ playful education for self-made subjects with Immanuel Kanes dyment inspired by aesthetics). Vor example, the bi appeal to intersubjectiv rl ity’s inspired staff hired pantomime artists to make spectacis of lojects suddenly be- ses at traffic lights. Skeptical s ‘good and bad performances att a fame an interactive public ofspectaors, The mayor's team printed thousand Jnumbs-up on one side and red thumbs-down, ton the other, for drivers to flash in judgment ofthe safe (or reckless) a 3 of itywide perfor ww drivers, Vaccination against violence was one city nance therapy against the “epidemic” chat had become a ci for agers sion. Arts programsin schools, rock concers in parks, a monthly cclvia that “dosed strets to traffic and opened them to bikers and walkers have, among 4 alongside rigorous educational programs, helped 10 other civie gam revive the metropolis. ' Citizens now pay their taxes, often over and above what they owe in ord sn 1993 and 2003, the co support a library, park, or senior program. Between 1993 3 cdot \d term, one stu jcator of change was the rate Poday, Bogotd feels the strain of ‘end of Mockus’s sect of homicide, which fell by 65 perce sigrants who flee zones of conflict for this newfound haven. As they oo Jonners suggest that migration might stow d rubled areas of the country. load the city’s systems, cl i still cultural agency were stepped up in st i ‘¢ Americas, culture is @ vehicle for agency. Photographers ‘Throughout are teaching visual literacy and whet sciences, Nancy MeGirr began with a few children from the city dump im 1g young appetites for other arts and Guatemala City and now ts one of them as a colleague with a college degree. Joao Kulesar trains art students as facilitators of photography in {favelas of Sao Paolo. In theater, improvisations foster collaboration and find dramatic outlets for frustration while rehearsing roles that rise to d ing challenges, Without the ‘Teatro campesino, reports a labor organizer ‘who worked with César Chavez, there would be no United Farm Workers? Union.+ Perhaps the most far-reaching case is Augusto Boal’s Theater ofthe Oppressed. The multiplier effect of his lessons in listening to disadvantaged social actors and encouraging them to take the stage r his two-term election to the city coun ied, for example, in i of Rio de Janciro, ‘There, he pro rmoted legislation suggested by audiences and! actors in marginal neighbor- hhovds; thirteen laws passed, and several were adopted at the national level Alongside these and pi tist-activists are many others. Musicians, dancers, poets, 8 past and present do not yet figure as subjects of academic studies perhaps, but they may well inspire the kind of creative reflection that amounts to civic contribution, Tn Bogoti, no one asks what eultural agency means. The concept resonates, y of public practices that link creat tions. But elsewhere the term can beg definition, M activity, but T suspect th social contribu uybe this shows a lack of vity is almost everywhere, What we lack in- stead is perspective on the imily resemblances among a variety of reper- toires and remixes. Recognizing these res lances and giving them the name cultural agency will, perhaps, make these arts and their effects more visible to scl iG table, ship and to tivists who stay alive to inspiration ire enables agency. Where structures or co ve practices add dangerous 1s can seem intrac- ipplements that add angles for inter~ vention and locate room for maneuver. Social movements have learned this and occasionally taught it to social from Sonia Alvare7, Fv entists, Humanists might take a lesson Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar, the editors of the of Politics, Politics of Cultures? The editors Inural studies because scholars who venture be- important collection Cult vweleome experiment yond disciplinary mind. Strang how a change of heart can lead toa change of students of creativity seem slower to study the material effects of art and interpretation. Changing cultures often cause conflict, but they can also offer remedies. ‘Yer culture can fall out of focus both for social scientists, who do not deal iner | = ite a the world. 1, who imagine they have litle effect art, and for students of J scholarship can do regarding Homanists tend to be timid about what d cory and practice. Until he oversight limits both rights and resources. snow, concern about material conditions has produced symmetries. But critique As an end product, Rigo- Jearal studies” 10 political and economic deseribe, or to denounce ‘can dead-end if it doesn’t nudge toward chan} American Studies meeting in terta Mench quipped informally at the Tt anos, ertigue isa sign of privilege. Poor people need «next ste servives dwindle, and a war on terror cone th concentrates, st syone’s civil liberties, people ean feet anyone's control seem ro cancel any capacity to defend ih culture. Bat some of us prefer to notice the sexed toward despair ghis taps in destabilized systems as they scramble to make adjustmeAts This is wiggle room. Recognizing it amounts promoting moments and manners of acting UP through cultural practices, gains, but the purpose is also to reinforce what & anticipating, and (as @ corollary) ical theorists acknowledge as “the cul ning hearts and minds in democratic life.” This he fore, but it is an advance over standard politics, too shy to step forward? usually stop short of growing ground” for W bring background 10 1 which hardly notices eultore at all's uma culture who denounce of thei scholarship, No wonder cult and now tired debate among Latin Americanists Jbel for standard interdis- Students of art studies has, asking about the effects bbeen a topic of & Defenders have called cultural studies a new North America recently discovered; and detractors for foreign as mere raw materi md this debate and adds the question of particular arts promote or deform them gain attention and legitimacy? And how d ‘or another culturally conditioned aesthetic value 13? Culture can do damage, for exam And it can do good, for ‘use academies academies use artist-activists to teach 01 positi that conditions political pre ple, by closing ethnic ranks to breed intolerance ses to reach specific goals and more generally example, by developing strate dd others that enables democratic engage by promoting the respect for self ant int, In either case, human values and desires develop through cultural ices that constitute vehicles for change. 1 polities of culture vulnerable or invisible to it took the US. Supreme Court to pority and gay rights. Yet the Court finally did respond to d= ‘eloping definitions of the good by establishing the tion to the agency of culture shows that resistance is we response to oppression. Michel Foucault taught us to be skeptical about any po escape from the repressive power of politics, medicine, and the law becuse fighting discursive power wi ofien indirect and delayed, which can make it favor of minorit more discourse was sure way to increae the Yolume of arguments in a spiral of repression and refusal. But Foucault arly noted what Michel de Certeau called “the practice of everyéay li or “domination and the arts of resistance,” in James Scott's tern ‘ Despite cautious variation and to mul = sl ame ‘operates at many levels of association and be often providin ‘ ‘than one anchor of id Fanci creo yy for each subject. those anchors is wiggle roon .¢ contradictions among ‘Now more than ever, says Nést purposes reveal the totalizing design of modernity to be only ¥ Imagined Globatiza se the title of his book.* That is why Garcia rence, whi swigele room exists, Jestis Martin Barbero endorses the exhortation with his own description of a 1 Cane layered field of media options in America that allow for surprisingly jsingly autonomous messages. The adviee is to develo spaces for what Bra oi) ns call jago de cintura, a move from the waist (or bip) not forward or backward, but sideways. A Puerto Rican eq: : cablike jatberia, and the English w ‘eaginess over confrontation alent, the le room suggest this same preference for . The preference admits that opponents greater weight and force, so that heroism is foolhardy and good sense de- mands creative options. “Passive revolution” was Gramsci’ jogo de cintura. He veered away 's demise and suggested aw:EE ——_ catension from other subaltern spaces) and hindsight following the Russian Revolution (which succeeded where marxists Teast expected it), Gramsci ven that workers could force change when the forces of history didn’ ine wp Fah Fe derured around economic determinism on one sie ant Lenin's thoritarianism on the other, and made a sidestep roward cultwral mutual effects of the econ yomy ofeach sphere political ineitations."! Since Marx had appreciated th omy and ideology, Gramsci underlined che relative a to yet more play between them and to make culture cour 2 His jasberia vneided both the ftalism of academic marxism and the deadlock of pro- al vanguard, tetarian dictatorship.® ‘To Lenin's anti-economism and pol Geamac aed the wiggle room of consensual hegemony: Unlike dietator™ ship, hegemony requires compromise and anew culture shat counts ‘everyone jn, Uneven and codependent class interests disturb the supposed laws of ‘marxism and turn it into an artful practice son juggling sticks of fire, This is the ‘Gramsci made mischief with historical fatality. He saw that the unity ofan allenge for organic cultural depend on ideology, so he inverted its emergent class woul relationship to the base.’ The ich of economic constraints and the pull ofa dynamic interdependent two-step. For allegory” of desire and disaster sory;and also the alternating rhythm of rity and universality that ‘Toni Mor~ artists, (Should 1 mention that slaps and embraces” between partic rison describes in peripheral oF ist aesthetics, t0 inside- Gramsci used estrangement, & perspective on history2)# Grams! describe the workers’ reftes! srside movement toggles becween seienec and ercativity to improvise emuane cipatory polities. "ro, Gams, the salve or gue of antagonistic classes that were tuck with ane another isa shared ideology or a “popular religion.” This express sare, a frst step toward political and form of the “people-nation” is a new ex Ikicultural Ltaly, and for other Euro- pean, Asian, and American states, Gramsci craage and his impatience with interference from region nding of the word “emancipati wns or passive revolution toward a single, com trous, The singul posture in his war herent, and outdated outcome. Outcomes are more than one, Ernesto Laclau glosses. Liberally, he x terprets Gramsci’s “emancipation” when n ies the possible results of unhinging sci within the system of logical incompat ‘which follow fr juralizes the term and multi- ice fin marxism: “By playing es; [bly looking at the effects he subversion of each ofits two incompat le sides b ‘drift away” from any single operation.” Here is room other,” strug, to wiggle. Gramsci ready abandoned fantasies of absolute free pian endgame into plural “em plural politcal grammar ricas, the goal is no longer the dusk of a is sn before the a at cr foi et many smaller foci of reform. Fe others, losing si at goal IS mals on i sight of that goal means 1g one’s way. Yet the post-cold world makes radicatism sound mone Tike religious extremism than leftist movement, maybe be: fi eo 3, maybe because monotheism migrates so easly from single- ma ce devotion to single-minded sacrificial ideology.”* Uropian 1s may be too perfect and encompassing for the dangerous supplements of dissent and polities. Struggles for particular freedoms don’t presume : resume 10 out hey tec esa en for concessions. In ea bd : Absence ofa power to opposs, there are no and no victories. The object is to win ground in hegemonic an that depend on popular consent. And the mechanism i oirvtate the ‘ways that stimulate concessions of more freedoms and resources. Refo fi is of course disappointing to those vfs ruggles symm. Bu the vic ofthis plaralize approach sto recognize iti modest agendas. sues To take Av point ntina as a dramatic example, a pragmatic spirit has been beyond the standard polar opposit revolution, Claudia Briones explains. ol bajadores De retween reform and Recent theoretical reflections of the 0 Sttuaciones(_——_ aoe Solano”) show how widespread the development has become Although re- sof intel- form and revolution appear to be opposing options, the col Tectuals and (other) unemployed workers point out that dliference is muted by a fundamental clement zhe compesitors share as they s are informed by .¢ conventional produce political meanings. The two approaches to pol ‘andl by the particular requirements ofthis political srs forced to derive legitimacy mncture, From t from the available meanings in the general context, Poth reformers revautionaties adopt a “rationality conditioned by socially institut forms of legitimacy.” ‘The goal can be either the refo of the democratic state to represent sectors of society; based on the potenti differences and to form consensus, oF alliances in order to take stare power. But when “Sqctivate the production of values towards a new son- capitalists ied possibility emerges, one based on situational thought and unconven tional premises for polities. ‘Thetefor, “afirmfing] situational meanings "> order to make room for social change” leads to thin principles in order to afirm a clear and wrt of a whole, but a concrete .¢ revolutionary creation. of social imary purpose is 10 ibility.” 2 ng oppositionally in terms that “depart from irreducible point of view: the s totality that cannot be subordinated t0 ‘ure opens the way towards a process of ethical recovery of agency that renders the diference between reform and revolt suggestive ofex abstract totalization. ‘This depar- ion, that is, 10.8 es of empowerment.” Th tion secondary to the general practi formulation, which straddles the discursive opera practices and of programmatic manifesos for legitimating them, Bro” “of ingertions to take advantage of the fissures in existing Wy this kind of collaboration between research and n to capture through the idea of cul- ns of descripti activism that the following essays me tural agency. 'A focus on cultural agency is not only poss or even seems plausible for scholars who have many agency is direct, indirect, ‘motives for pessimism, Pessimism about what scholarship can oF should do tings a kind of despair that is close to complacence, As am alternative £9 fom, It is eas! it is urgent, whether agency, despair feels like a failure of vigilance and of ob after all; to be right about a bad situation than to make 2 d ference in it Against our own skepticis s, observing activity where passivity is Jude the skeptics themselves. a ote some promising cultural reinforcing dynamic. and co-opt ng our first Cultural Ageney meeting, concerns over vampirism haunted several discuss self-reflection was the near blocking from view of the den metry is not news to the poor; their chalet doesn’t enter into the hy relat 1s as well as of interested deals, Using others attests to their Perhaps other people are using us, too, as | have been pe t in the case of Rigoberta Menchii’s testimony Ifshe were nat hoping to use us to change opinion, influence governments, and sto war in Guate- not be addressing us through a book that may well be, an appropriat 8 yn of her voice. Vampirism turns out to ism turns out to have the double dealing and uneven logic of hegemony (including traditional mar- ress a together agonistic sectors for mutual but unequal advantage. a lson shrewdly commented that vampires do drink other peoples lood. There's no denying it. But the victims can get eternal life in exchange, ‘When the reciprocal dynamic between cultural activists and scholars works ly, ercative practice can inspire an origi scholarly essay. Cul- ent conf th power be haan Ese ipa hi a wy their ov lent to rBerformances as social speech acts. (Phis mean Martin-Barbero spell ssays represent kin c i pe atc hat essays represent akind of reflective agency to Raymond Williams was a certain “structure of feeling become classics.” Important works, \odel of reflexive scholarship when he named nergent ‘works of literature that would si cipate and give voice to a still-inchoate set of rising assumptions abo . ‘ romote progress. \e worl nd by so doing they liams’s antennae located a kind of 1s, But the limitation of his talent and training as relationa istorian was that he worked backward from results. History doesn’t nor structures of feeling might mally take risks when it comes to naming whi they take hold. Williams wrote after the fact eident merit support befor ("The answers may be fied works that became classes and asked why they ng will warm its cultivators with the glow circular, since a new dominant fe Jike winning armies that story was a fundamentally coherent wartime marca of having been right all alon tive into national epic. For Williams, hi va from one dominant set of assumptions to another, Gramsci story that mov ‘wanted more intervention than ctiology: Te there a reigning stractare of feeling today? Te would miss the point of cour fragmented multicultural be-longings to give ( intense dedication to one ideal is them a single name. Frag- mentation is one feel politics of emancipation, feti tures, Do we celebrate them all? Or do we tune 0 vr frames (ia Wiliam Rowe's formulation), that appresste oF os? Tuning and trying show nur antennae to pick up structures, anticipate democratizing, emancipatory pract ‘on of essays on cultural agency. through this collet savity from North to South. The ‘al agency decided to convene in ‘One effort is to shift the center of cultural g first conference on cultur ily indigenous city overlaid with f for confronting some paradoxes of organizers of Cuzco in January 2001. The indestra Spanish constructions provided the si in one grand des crural lessons learned from several sign to resist earthquakes and ag- cultural politics, Bui agressions, Cuzco is the sum of 2 oncquered peoples in the vast cerritores of Tawantinsuy ,” a set appointed teenage guide told us, ards)" The pride of an autochtonous as visible and audible everywhere, 3s Here are eter pal Inca wi “facing the erum- bling constructions of inea-pable (Spani ‘world that owed nothing to Europe vere the Hispanie interruptions. In Cuzco we were al foreignets (except for Juan Carlos Godenzzi, including those Peruvians who live in the capital. To ve unhcimlich sense of a city that was both cal lineage, however different degrees we shared familiarly Hispanic and also unavailably Andean inf ‘besieged it may be politically and economically: ‘Then, suddenly, a casual comment added a dangerous supplement (0 Incan pride. T e place itself shifted its point of gravity when Rosamel Milla min Reinao, a Mapuche activist anthropologist t referred to the Chilean auth: ined in the United States, sas wincas. The word is a peri che variation on Ir ae ion on Fy, ning enn of th Mapex of ays he way eves names non Jos or Bels or he way indigenous Andes tse mitt ee Crees athe distance stress“ and them” Ni lami “4 : ‘omment remembered Inca as an aggressiv To acknowledge one’s com a icity in certain games of pause in a conversation. But to pa may give ¢ is not to stop, Bese ests es wear ice poston a Terr anguge and beset pore, The ference al srlocw cp wars dn ober fences infos an oak es from cultural agents who manage to enter and exit disparate c¢ : SS de cn Rico of with an sents had begun to train us the mi he before our Cuzco «longstanding theater collective in Tima, staged 5. fap fo De play on nic eine wo er srever in a rural Peru devastated by the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and counterattacks by government forces. Por the first time, the sacrisan refuses to play the Moor crouching at the hoofs daring the holy procession the Creole who w meeting. Yuyac for the next day. He must submi ters developed historical, c against the tr ion of Indians who play vanquished Moors. nied. Buta We fait more than we understood. ‘This is 1 lage that played out the tension between indigenous refusal and Crecle ity was a language we didn't understand. Most aps understand. Most ofthe debate took place in Quechua, without translations.® aan Ithough the conve i i a rf rsations slipped into Spanish offen enough for outsiders to understand the argument, we also Introductionnorant and excluded we were from the scene, The act of dd the kind of cultural estrangement that was at play on in the standot. the actors engaged us in and offstage, Paradoxically, it made us partic! Afverward, when the director, Miguel Rubio, a ‘ago, we learned the dimensions of our exclusion through two revealing details: firs, that each antagonist spoke a very different dialect of Quechua, The Catholic traditional indigenous rival used a popular version from Pum discussion of S Gasquefio, while the spoke cli ixed with Aymara. The yechua ex- distances (of taste, class, race) signaled by these registers of panded the religious rancor to include practically every other eultural con- test, for those who could hear the differences. “The second point of information was teenagers. Yuyachkani had contracted with an ai diences, and the result was dramatic. In contrast to our despair at the dk defeat of religion (as Catholic and as locat ct mostly of migrant parents who worry that their hrighland accent that holds them back in the capital, the teenagers were used to feeling defeated. The play acknowledged that feeling but refused, in Quechua, to submit, The language became a protagonist of collective pride, and the teens desired to learn it ‘The resilience of Quechua, in intrigue us. We learned, for e jn Quechua during early morning hours to coincide with lively migrant re, continued to .¢ capital and elsew! Jc, of several radio stations that broadcast ‘markets, a phenomenon that repeats in Bolivia and surely elsewhere. These are networks that Martin Barbero helps us appreciate, ia “Comin ‘and Modernity;” as structural resilience in Latin American communications. ‘What can culture do in a world that has become a field for games of ag- agressive brinkmanship? Very litle is an easy—and irresponsible—answer. It is true that people everywhere may feel unhinged s globalization dis re shaken after the attacks mantles famil of September 11, 2001, and the sequel of spiraling aggression and terror. at retraumatizes Lat icans who remember ro7h when the democratic Left of Presi jor Allende in Chile ‘cumbed to right-wing terrar incited by the United States. This time, the blasts brought down New York's Twin Towers and lefta gash in U.S. mi September 1 is a date headquarters, reduci gone, Pi 3 wh pees nd th etching up els won bean menace circles the world, “econ as Now sponses ‘seem urgent, to say the least. And those of us in the business of offering them may elicit i i ange retin dg hare Petia ees only forthe potential ye cut in the name of a greater cause, ccoeofthiserts, and athingexcusts us em king core to heart, While Islamic extremists e1 ina holy war against the West, calls go out for a Christian crusade igainst the evil East in Au rate osingle-minded puso ncn delicate, A capacity to think and to fe i is makes finding an more than one idea and : ‘canenbrce ithout getting carried away with it, will be vital because democrs 5 ies need stamina when terror makes e to banish dissension fend. which supposesa sm, and therefore we may -y of culture. On i rr ss the sometimes other hand, anthropologists can defi culture as collective prac sive wadons ties tive practices and beliefs a repository of repetitive tra ind ready-to-hand responses. Culture can therefore mean a strategy’ iment for irvtating change, mater 3 Indian reservations, oF red repressive age of eon for fetish-making observer-voyeurs, indigenous popul living traditions appr Culture becomes a vehicle for ag The two meanings felt, caltve practice anda annie rptre, der enough fer Rasoond Wie Mn en snieraice sence on canada an nts ore an eye for originality often squints at context.” esas A fos on at eves chat of wap autonomous subjects, since a creative ge ile moves as evidence of literal becomes a per-sona; voice. Culture in the broad ant Continuous sense may also add dangerous supplements ioe tobe is, a device t0 project to the hum: eaten fealone, Agency runs interference, demands flexibility, tolerance, andimical to coercive regimes. Quechua on stage, @ male power, of which are humor, wolero divas who turn misogyny into f these are some of the ough man in woman's dr faditions that survive beyond a letter itants that pry open room for maneuvering, They make just tof people for whom difference had looked Hike an oral small i trouble to get a rise obstacle to level and to leave behind. "Another way to approach cultural agency is to take a step back from son is not enough” to settle debates, as political philosophy has noticed from Kant on." The common, collective sense of intersubjective agreement, sndal of reason” demands something more, t difficult to achieve today bet Political theory seldom considers the ccause of asymmetries of power and culture." moclastic uses of culture or of feeling food about compact and cozy commu: as residues of reason.** Do we fee! nities based on “likeness” of bel £ and taste? or do we prefer the hetero~ isky public life that demands creativity? as J said, especially today when mass ing, and geneous, always irri Democracies depend on these risks, litte likeness among residents of the same country: Taking the damage culture can do and nd to support democratic sand migrations leav this step back from political theory that senses edges the need fora cultural backsr sn do, How can even a engagements, we should ask what good if € reflections on cultural ager promote the kind of agonistic, non~ violent polities that deseribe democratic arrangements? “The first section of this book, “Media,” suggests a range of vehicles for cultural agency. The next, “Maneuvers the final note, “Cautions,” asks what can be 0 afterword cont reflections on the collection in the best > tracks some exemplary moves; and gained or lost through cultural agency spirit of participant observers begins with a d 2's most innovativeand uble contribution from Jesis Martin Barbero, tial author on the mixed uble: sages of roass media.** His first step is itself « ‘on the nocessary relationship between scholarship and e. Then he observes local creativity as it veers away from the rency. To observe is homogenizing pressures of mass media ultiform modernity that lacks a clear trajectory is, asin Bard an sesh ture,” is worthy of ‘alee ronel today, the heteroge ance, 10, known how 9 mop en, echo experinesa, ike local cultures flourish in ways on te scholars have har: id entre: tunities that global concept, is ick. Were coherence a goal, it w larism and refuse In any case, global Néstor Gar ethnic and racial parti jovernents offer waginary,” to recall case study ofa city that takes advan- life through the lively ion. The example should conjure ay not be New York, London, or Tokyo, but it mea- city (li trade i others. Mexico City sures up to any seco: Barcelona, B in, Brussels, Paris, Te ad Paris, Hon Koop ag hem, feels the refreshing currents of finance, con ne ing, design, and communication. How to formulate cultural pol that account for and take adv excdby his essay is new life is the challenge posed by Another chi lenge is how to reckon acadei Diana Taylor calls it the “nna of Perfor: ‘move from trauma theory to performs onal pathology asa collective burden, when social disaster ling ae Le er lingers and passes Prescriptions for emotional hygiene i at would pathologize normal p er the burden of therapy to the patient. By emphasizing the publ pain can turn into an engine of cultural agency, ‘The risk t «ies within was the creativity that comper ne competes fore, res mec prec ibs od “Maneuvers” starts with th h this compensatory art of putting « political bod sei fo dros nein Diane M. Nelson tea 3 inher essay “The Cultural Agency of Wounded Agency o led Bodies Gender as Prosth m wat the theme strength can be regained, Guatemalans employ prosthetic devices, 1 a iploy prosthetic devices, pe tion, And Mayan women become useful cover-up devices both or the government that claims to represent them and for 1the women can sometimes take advantage of ‘10 make political speeches oF movement. But in being “stumped,” because the verb also mea 1e proves support cause. ‘Applying a different twist tothe conventions of sex and gender, Torand ge both women-centered and Afriean- Matory makes a move that will unh ‘centered scholarship. He dares to recover the transvestism of Afro-Brazil nen’s preeminence in religious traditions. To the standard defense of wi those traditions, and also to the patriarchal denial of homosexu er level of authority, Matory responds priests wh ich a stand in for women at @ his 1 focus on gender crossing as an important funetion of African )? The crossings tural memory that refresh (See also Richard ‘Trexler’s Sex and Condi fies to receive the spirits depend ona spiritual, that open up be passes through ritual, not through w "Vhanks to Juan Carlos Godenzzi, Peru’s mul hearing. The complexity may be a promising response to the deadlock be- ¥y and majority languages in official biling ‘anada, for saal immigrant populations.) Di- ten texts. * gual repertoire gets a tween ccxample, might focus more on its mult versity i the new banner for progressive Peru (as iti in Carlos Twin’ De= say pais mas dioerse)® Tn light of Perw’s Forty plus o response to sgregor’s collection, jndiyenous language groups, the offic demands for language rights, especially given the debates about for correct Quechua that we glimpsed on stage in Santiag beilliane jogo de cintura beyond binarism was to promote successful lexis tion that made bicultural education mandatory for all children. In practice Janguage and vbat counts 0. Gode this means that indigenous children would perfect their nati Spanish and learn at least Spanish, while Creole children would perfect one indigenous language.” “Phe Gramscian two-step, ths time between home and host languages, also describes the Maya movement during the Guatemalan wars of the 1980s Arturo Arias makes that double play available to other activists by offering heirs was “the conspir: the strategy and the slogan of the Maya participants: acy inside the conspiracy.” Whil to force political and military is were gaining cul- concessions from the Guate tural ground to zenew their nation during the murderous campaigns against jt: The doubled formulation of conspiracy recalls Regis Debray's description of Cuba's political radicalization as the Revolution in the Revolution (1967), thong the Masa mation, ‘Their si a ah Ul reattir~ Warren observed, by standard political measures such as d eee Counterpoint maybe te ie may be hemos eric frm a at cai an frm of at and i fallow Fernando Ortiz’s description of Cuba’s dynamic tussle between i ; igar, black slaves and white masters, macho men at er Counterpoint performs a codependency between one rhythm an “i ent antagoni lovers hardly hop mn. From the for rock bands that Martin Bi is that Martin Barbero finds in chicka that spikes the airwaves in Li oe Meee its appar- nported ds, music has the ungovernable charm of improvisation. C are therefore wary, and ofter fore wary, and often cleverly controlling, when they broade: scargas (meaning jam sessions, cultural bridge hetwe« Cuba and ex paid iba and ex-patriots abroad, the state-controlled station has also bec wercial advertisements and I \ding dissonant voices of sic. The essay by Denise Corte about Olodum’s Afro-Brazilian 1 interferences suggests a wi tical stage a spa colon jut their theatrical success, Corte wort e irony , may produce the npleasantirony ization asa ground for creativi : Aleida Rts Ramos knows how fra : about of underwriting mary thedfeence ca be betveen worn rl genes an he for esvenns Sela coeds he other soon enough, Her mast arene i terful contribution was to do cultural agency one side or thereby to demonstrate that much of the work of interpretative, The conference version of her esInstrumentalities of Indigenism in Brazil,” decried the manipulations ced the Indigenist protests tu of government and mass media as they neu ke— meant to disrupt the quincentennial celebrations in 1993, Her second included here—pulls on the loose ends that protesters exposed and that the government tied to sew up. Claudia Briones also moves defily berween considerations of intended spuches in Argentina begins by agency and real effect. Her work with noting a paradox af neoliberal reform: Deventralizing power gives some degree of autonomy to the provinees, a corollary to market interests that jernational vi promote traditional rights. Mapuches had achieved along with some efficacy through the 1agos, and the gh couraged cross-border alliances of Mapuche peoples. But toward the end of the decade, alliances fragmented as leaders explored the traps of ¢t essentialism and developed other political skills to intervene “sideway: ent. lerts readers that agency can bacifire, If Briones is impressed of Mapuche strategists, Charles R, Hale and Rosamel ay. Like Nelly Richard, who local govern “Cautions! ‘Millamén worry that trial and error can lead reminded us that losing an interpretive vector may mean following a line of fight into another circle of control, Hale and Millaman report that resistance ‘ean grind down into reinforcement of discrimination. ey fear capital that concentrates in capital cities and ignores the coun- tryside, Sometimes desperate need, having little recourse to resources at the national level, encourages rural residents to organize at the local level. Then. the fissures between citizen and state can broaden into trenches of local bases from which to broadcast demands at national and international levels, Briones sees this too. But Hale and Millamén conclude that trenches are too cramped and precarious to be strongholds. Successfully argued demands can trenches turn into branch become mechanisms of state integration, and offices of power. intentions at the national level can lead astray because the study gave them a haunting name. They beyan as radical critics of the state in the late T9705, became counselors of the Colombian government in the cighties and early nineties, and ended up as victims of war and political exile in the late nineties. The success intell ment policies (“feeding the hand govern. as one of my colleagues ited for a donation to our college) hid, for a while, the politcal fragmentation that finally neutral Hale, Millaman, Villaveces-Tzquierdo, and others are mindful of the many at bites ity lated to cultural agency, ranging from co-optation to aggression, ¢ of cultural activism may justify ke is to voice demands without 5 frameworks of repress fi ; and resistance. The essays collected here describe some deft moves alongside those spirals, to catch opponents off \d win a right or a resource before the structure manages we demand. Mary Louise Pratt's after the end ofa proj ads more like a fresh begi Adding her own brilliant case of eultural agency, she also term recasts practices that work, For ex than like reflects on how ural studies by training light on everyday npley she des \ensely human circuit board” that fects indigenous traditions wi erpreters and the state apparatus in ways that can save us from Procedural disasters. Pratt suggests that lasing those connections, si hey were impossible instead of conflictual, misses the everyday agency that aca- demics might otherwise engage. Like her, C puts ‘on the pulse af the invitation uudio Lomnitz puts his finger ink of azency when he commends is m ey, the small interventions that mat oblige us to act. Lomnite lauds lor of us can achieve and that therefore Latin American pride in ‘ean despair about rhe irrelevance of that cultural agency a and reflects on quotidian engage claws to democratic proces: Creativity isa condition ofthat proces, if you conser that democracy describes procedures (through techniques associate with rt seletion, re comes. \geney through whether we take culture to lective and flexible everyday pra from convention ices or the individual departures at we call are agency is a name for the kind of political voice that speaks through aesthetic effects and thatfor the world wh i enhances the worth of artist-agents, Instead of tracing om inequalities back to power, where movement gets paralyzed, cultural agency pursues the tangents is with power and to get of daily prac iply creative e: some wiggle room, Notes ‘The epigraph is from statements made by Cs the coalition against General tet, which managed the government while the dictator was 4 arte... Ena Ja diversion y reereacion masiva hasta las manifestaciones esp 1a asi conechida conviven la tradicin y la novedad, la memoria, La cultura es, por lo tantes del pais, que les dad, de nacién, y que los histirica de vida que i onfiere sentido de pertenencia, de proyecto, de ‘incula cor a espiritualidad de todas los dems sere \pril 2005), 20. Cultural Agency. Harvard 1. Prof, Marshal University, November 17, 200 fanz, during GSAS works! ites of Culture: Re-viioning Latin America ‘ments, ed. Press, 1997) 3. One part ros globules neque empresa en [FLACSO-Costa Rice, 2002). A grow igh mindful of the adverse distributive ramifications of globalization, also uumiber of eritcal econo ymy a8 well as risks of su presents opportunities for greater a ’s approach to is, See Eric Hershberg, “Lat American pol +” Paper presented at the conferenc Studies Be iversity of Manchester, UK., June 2002, D some extent the cours was leading the Borders,” 1) and to some extent it was opinion in ay Quoted in 1 nake the Law, and the C having in the culture war ‘mentous ‘Term, Justices Re “the weapons af the weak; they see steam rather than lead ro a veering off from Weak [New Haven: Yale Univers Tet of Fhe (Weapons y Press, r085)) the sustained public presence and vement webs and alternative publics has been a positive in Latin Ameriea,” 9. See Le Mars ‘Gramscis General Theor tal Mouffs, 113-67, at class in Germany and Italy suffered defeats, ‘Spokespersons such as Karl Kautsky considered the p ian revolution iney sttitude. See Chantal Moutfe, in Gramsci and Marzist Theo Bobbio, “Gramsci ‘Hegemony andpeople ean be documented, It is « complex and confusing task co unravel its causes spiritual nd practic F. Andreueci and T. Detti (Rome: Editor jamsci and the Con and in order to do soa deep and widely diffused study of sctivites is needed, Cramcian, Riuniti, 1958), 280-81. Quoted in Bobbi Society,” 33. Bobbio (35) concludes that Gramsci inverted Marxism, favoring the ddcterminance of superstructure (including civil society for Gramsci) over structure, and within the superstructure, claiming that ideologies are the primary moment xe Superstructures: On the Concept of Civil Societs” in Gramsci ‘and Marxist Theory, 48-79. The emphasis, Otherwise, you could misread him as saying ly difference between Marx and Gramsci is tat the warking class will party into a House of Culture!” (52). Mouffe and Paggi ‘Mars’s emphasis on expressive culture. See their essays in xd Masse Theory iy a is replaced by the law of caus uniformity, But how ean one derive from this way of seeing ” See Prison Notebooks, no. 4,and Mou Badaloi Problem ofthe Revolution,” in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Bo-109 i secondary and subordinate, or even incidental, is now mary —becomes the nucleus ofa new ideological and theoretical com plex” (Gramsci, Prise Notebooks, 195). ni, “Gramsci and the Problem of the Revolution,” 85; The extra was aliemed histor 16, See mn, adopting an articulation based on a 1m Pa feal Writings (1921—1926), tans. end ed. the shocking surprise 1 of recovering balance through reason? 17. Moulfe, “Hegemony and Ideotory,” 194, cites Einaudi, 1975), 2:1084, 321724; Prison Notebonks, 2415 2:2084. con Notchoaks, 14 19.E. Laclau and C, Mout, Hegemony and Soe Democratic Politis (Landon: Verso, 1985), 69-70. cipation(s) (London: Verso, 21. Charles R, Hale articulated these Strategy: Towards a Radical 196), 2,8. ences in a reflection written after the Cuzco conférence on culturel agency in January 200 22, Jesis Martin Barbero, “Deseneantos dela sociaidad y reencantarnientos dela identidad,” 0, paper presented at the conference *C longing” at New York University, October 3, 2001 23. Claudia Briones: “Fanuary 5, 2003, 24, See Colectivo situaciones 2002, “Mul ¥y contrapoder en la experien in MTD de Solano and Colectivo situaciomes, La Hipstesis Bigs. Ms uenos Aires: Edi | Agents and National cia piquetera, all dels piguet 1 de Mano en Mano), 131-22, 25, Barbara Johnson, “Using People: Kant with Winnicat,” in The Turn o Fohics, ed, Marjorie Garber, Beatrice Hanssen, and Rebecca W: 17-63 (New York: Routledge, 2000). 26, “No Secrets for Rigoberta,” the latest version of an essay begun in 1986. In Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas (Canvbridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 115-59, ims, Marsitm and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 132. I thank Tomés Y relevance for us, 28. Wi ara Prausto for reminding me of m Rowe, Hacia wna ew radical: emsayos de hermenéutiea cultural (Rosario Argenti reformas del ‘Transformador del Mundo (Pachakutig Inka Yi entre 1438 y 147%, sein Bri (BL desarrolle del estado inca 10 wuts, ciertamente, que la Fecha del terremoto put ar datos confiables Arqetectara inca de Grazie ano Gasparini y Louise Margolies, que es el 30. Hlicura Chihus Ediciones, 1999), 52 imos que han existide, existen y exist los 05 deci no Mapuche invasores, padores, que no serin desde luego sy los kamollfiehe, la ante de otra sangre, es decie, gente no ‘mapuche-como ust om 31. Miguel Rubio claimed, during the discussion session conference parti ts ler the play Sen tic opacity was inspired1 page article in the New York between Christian evany Lebanon. Bernard Lewis admits that Pr nate, but excusable, ists and Mus! ‘war forthe cross?" t “almost always means s rarely, if ever, religions.” But in the Middle Ess medieval precursors of Eu some Western leaders are neither reluctant nor sorey to revive the original _ during a briefing in Berlin, where on September 26, president Via ccuss international cooperation against terrorism, constitute itself on the basis ofits ir V, Putin and German ch met wit Christian roots” “We sh aus civilization” against shat ofthe Islamic world. Quoted by Steven Elanges, “Taly’s Pre jc World, swith enn website readers on September 22, 2001 ier C wl Western Civilization Super jencral Wesley A that this isa threat to Western js ethreat that ‘or be appeased by apologies or changing policies toward Isracl. tis derived from ignores the secular tradition in Arab fundamental ountries. Seephen Zi 1s begins his article, ‘with a reminder that “ual stereotypes of Musfims” don't take into account “the Policy i September 12, 2001) 33. TW. Adorno, Negative Dialet ce understanding is that it misunderstand the parti and this rea xe sake of unity, The greedy sul Papers (New York: Routledge, 1996) fan reckons the Toss in “Terror’s Long, iminates particularity fo formulation, See Diana Fuss, i author David Gros September 20, 2001: “Terror also sharpens 35. Chihuailaf, Recadoo 36. Ibid. 48: “La cultura no es solo los elementos 1 poseemos ¥ las manifesta- cura como Ia forma de pensar, avanzar progresar en el desarrollo y en 7 nos permite transfors nuestras comunidades e dejar de ser indigenas, la que diferentes ala vez. que interes uso de la tecnologia, que facilita muestra labor organizativa.” 237: Raymon 1s, Keywards (rex, ed.3 New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 90-92: Ie is especially reference to effectively overlapping positions; there are also, understand questi and confused answers, But these argu resolved by reducing the complexity of a and some blurring or nccessarily involve alternative ips and processes which this cormplex wo ‘not finally in the word but ignificantly indicate cates, The complexity, that isto we problems this observation, 1 October 29, 2001 Gender, Ageney, and the Mexican Rolero,” Mark’s conference contribution, “Nationalism, Cosmopofitanism, wut the Mexican intelligentsia, showed creativity can alo serve a8 a mechanism of control. Tr debates literary about style and matter between «eC ecole intesnationalists and popular defenders 0 uring th nationalism became oficial through 950s and 19608, ical monopoly on culture. Lidia Santoshold out fOr J into one airtight strc. mtsie and unruly Brasil with agencies that gave the elite pra ies of the a different dynamic that does everything and the with-n iat reinforce one another. They are the landless movement 1 urned int speech act) and concrete poety Cnguage that counts ug? describe a parallel movements (eoeterial condi for material interventions beyond colon ga. “There is always ‘more tham reason, essays by Richard Rorty, Jane Mansbridge, Chantal Mou, Bes Bonnie Honig, “whether this be power, nonnegotible a vce or te never-ending assertions of confit and alerts” See Democracy and Difference: ye Boundaries of the el. Seyla Ben tabi, 18, a 24 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), Sentimen’ S28 iy addressed by Sheldon Woln’s contribu sion, the state cultivates the po est -abidingmess, parrot 3). Here, of course, trate predisposition. And Job Rawls nods in the ah democracy without exploring its sensibility jumbia University Press, 193) 215) ced. Ronald S. Beiner ital. hackyzound et (Pofteat Liberalism (New Yorks C 445. Hannah Arendt, Lectures os Ka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1982). “4g. See Seyla Banc, Claims of Cultre: Ewa 4s. Jess Mart 4 (Mexico City: Gustavo Gi ecto cultural” TELOS, no. (Madeid, 2980) and “Tented and M, Welter, eds, Pormadernidad en la perifeia i (Retin: Langer Verlag, 10 nt: Between nfoques lasinoamericanos de fa nueva teria ap. 10 Pasado y Haciendo lo Pre Remembering and Forgetting in Post-War El Salvador. as Gendered 5 Political Onder, and nell University Press, 1993) 48. Crossover arts include queer uses of funguage that mancuver berween the relatively le identity markers of one language and another. But queerness pre- sents @ paradox for protests against official monocultres. If the protest succeeds, dloubleness may become legitimate or even required and a vehicle for control rather ran for iriating creativity. Consider the case of Paraguay, where ve speakers of ‘Guarani strive for inclusion and where inclusion cx finment, Bartomen ‘Metié wrestled wich this double bind at the Cuzco conference. His Jesuit order has long history of paradoxical contri wns to Paraguay. Indigens ged through Jesuit elforts to fa between priests and Indians during the years of cffec, a goneral language mnquest and seat ad that today, Paraguay is the hemisphere’s only oficial bi agual country south: Canada, and the only one to rescue a local languaye for national use, countries have corollary concerns in common: one isthe st subaitern sound of the soblem isthe capacity for cooptation of minority speakers by powerful sectors who know enough Guarani (or Trench) to set agendas, But the traps, risks 1 keep Melid igh the Ministry second “offic snguage tothe powerful eenter; another ind contradictions did from promoting bilingual policies, through his scholarsh of Education, Despite the constraint ded that bilingual games have a igh spaces. Imagine a field wher time, he suggested; the moves are always surprisi 1 that finds wiggle room in tight and admiration (Melid, Blox “That metaphor of the ing. Living in two languages forces open a range of assum rarrow the fields through a Jarship that tends t monolingual focus, Code switching to manew students find a way around Affirmative Action Ban’ jonolingual agonist who Toses a step or doesn’t laugh perception pleasure, are all moves that most people th the forcign-making (Verfer lung) effect that amounts to aesthetic ake. But the moves fall out of focus in ‘academic discipfines that take monofingualism to be normal, a paradigus of belonging cither to one culture or to another. 49-Carlos Ivin Degregori, ed, ana (Timms: PUCE, IE, 2000). 40. No-one would be stuck in the dogmatism tha follows fro say pais mas diverse. Compe Mikhail Bakhtin pot it; nor would anyone presume to have munication in Peru, In what Mary Louise Pratt called the American contaet zones, Introduction 27“where European, Hodigenous, and African colores colide 203 6 anguage or style vent capture the dypansnm Mary Towise Pest, “APS of the Contact Zone,” Profession, 98 (3999): 37 si. Kay Warren, quoted in Cattares of Pai sons ofstudents Tenders, reachers, development work trave been touched in one way oF another by the pan cealturat production.” 2. That lesson of circularity repetedin Sergio Vilas Rursinats conference paper about the possiblity of adjudiaing Mapuche rights in newly democratized Cnt: When those rights are argued inside the letting mechanisms ofthe state, they lose their foree and purpose bythe very EEstuTe pf submitting to that juridical 44 *Bor tere will be new woera= community elders who yyan movement and its populations.Intervening from and through Research Practice: Meditations on the Cuzco Workshop JESUS MARTIN BARBERO ‘The Ambiguous Burden of Our Own Skepticism In spite of widespread use among its foes, globalization describes « social imaginary that functions in the process of globalization. ‘The image derives to which all ‘vents gravitate around a single point and are motored by a single, uniform subject, But if enything characterizes wlobslization toda plicity of processes and actors, rhythms and logics. ‘The 2001 scare at the New York Stock E inthe value of “new econ- from a monotheistic conception of society and history accordi 10 percent of their value of ther radical altern nor hegemonic. And if | use examples from the financial world, itis because finances seemed to be going at 1p speed and in a single direction. Yet not ie. There are demobilizing skep ‘ones, Not believing in a single globalizing logic even this arena is uniform or mono-rhy ticisms as well as mol iberates us from the heavy burden of causality and, at the same time, bur- dens us with the responsibility to pry open spaces, recognize, anticipate, and promote the fissures that traverse and destabilize the global, in order to Jntervene toward the development of multiplicity Intervening through Research Practice Here I refer to intervention that can be exercised from the practice of re~ search theoretical iselP'and which begins, as Charl Hale proposes, wi dlovclopment of eulural protagonism or of “the cultural.” My essay included here on the politica ind cultural dimensions that bring communications studies heyond instrumental rationality is a contribution in this direct We are witnessing the emergence of cultural citizenships that signal the grow- ing presence of strategies of exclusion and empowerment, exercised in and¢ cultural arena. The strategies of empowerment not “entity politics” within the polities of human emancipation, b ‘open the very meaning of politics, giving rise to new agents and new types of political subjects~agents and subjects that have been visible since f subverted the metaphysical machismo of the various Lefts with the assertion ps proveis that the that “the personal is political.” What those new Wberal- democratic institutions have been loath to incorporate the mult forms of cultural diversity that may strain and rupture soci because these do not fit into a particular: conceived and exercised ye moderns,” whi entities based on gender, ethni of the citizenship o a the level of y, rave, or age, the kind ‘h multiple citizen e. The necessary start of democracy that is necessary today is one in wh sibility for identities and differe assume resp point for ereat our ability to m uals and as citizens. ly sustaining the tension betwes wt other tension, betwee Another line of interven! construction of maps with ero sm or through is the one that locates the nes, multiple entrances, where simulta is narratives enter into conflict and look for alternativ ter of our research efforts. On this ing: Who images of the relationships lines of escape at ct [have written the follow cartography can only depict borders and not construct labyrinths? the intertwining of the paths an tographic expert like M. Serres has written: ganized travel reteorological the old highway maps. Weencountera cartographic logic that becomes fractal, allowing the maps of the world to recuperate the diverse singularity of the objects—moun chains, islands, jungles, reverses, intertexts, and intervals—a cartography in whi 1s—a logic that expresses itself textually in folds, 1e spaces of geography, of histors, and of the psyche are not discrete but overlap, it- luminating, without ‘phi make them able to accept the elements and the ni perspe ‘The new forms of mapping the sociocultural also require a transformation of writing which places the reader before questions and narratives that ac- ism or postmodern eclectic sms, new questions that phically” liberate cultural studies from its concealed borders and of diaspora as new count for the decentering of the researcher's voive with respect to the multi- plicity of voices and experiences. What is needed here are both hard data and ‘metaphors that can together construct more or less powerful articulations of the economic and the politcal which may reveal the strategic intersections between the economy and culture—focal points for the reorganization of institutions and socialities. The gains in this are enormous—the resulting nocturnal map can lead toa demand formulated, must rearticulate the meaning of the public and the political. ‘The current reconstruction of the public sphere has, without a doubt, much y sity that characterize the cultural policies which, in order to be ental maps, in languages and in p 1ew forms of comp \s and hybridizations of the put private, For exam- ple, the Internet represents 2 new complexity: private contact between inter Jocutors which is at the same time mediated through the Net’s public space in a process that simultaneously introduces an explosion of public discourse mber of very heterogeneous communities, asso~ ial groups can. search, We have already learned about the excess effects ofthat particular perversion, What lam referring toisthe: research to promote both soi of culture by strengt y as well as the political productivity ng its own capacity for experimentation. I sce taking place in two strategic arenas and two different dimensions of culrare:is currently undergoing, both in the rural areas and co-optation, and cul ‘Lhe local sphere, jn small cities, a kind of social prostration, polit tural devastation that is extremely dangerous for the survival of communi ties, We need to encourage research projects that accompany concrete ex zation through cultural agencies—be it through \d tourism, An example: re arts and craft production or mass media ral capital.” It is necessary seaech projects that take on patrimony as “ to expropriate it from its old or antiquated owners 50 that municipal or neighborhood communities can reclaim their patrimony: Then the right to cultural memory is awakened, recognized, researched, protected, ampli- fied, interpreted, put to use, and even made profitable in all senses of the word, ‘The regional Latin American sphere. There is no doubt that Latin American mnamics and am- economic and cultural integration is affected by the jguities of the culture industries. If this was the ease in the past—in in bolero, tango, and the Latin Latin American film, with its myths and yovelas and sal rancheraitis as much or more so today with t rock and even the Latino version of sy, boasting its own stars and myths. ised on preserving patrimonies and promoting the elite art forms, the American states have completely disregarded the cultural policies of Lat decisive role that the audiovisual industries ture. Yer the major culture industries are successfully penetrating personal igh the offer of entertainment the home, Anchored in a we played in everyday cul- and the strategic management of informatior undamentally preservationist conception of iden practices of companies and inde- public poti- and in a lack of un. ‘ofand engagement with (oF pendent groups-that increasingly powerful “third s cies are responsible, to a large exte consumption and for the impoverishment of national production. “This or the unequal segmentation of sulturalism can no longer be ‘occurs ata time when heterogeneity and mi seen as problems but as the basis for the renovation of democracy. Mean m expands deregulation to the cultural sphere, it also sphere from States and inter~ itself will be impossible without ction of a national agencies, Economic integrati the creation of hrough which public communications icy is able to promote and sustain the circulation of production and pro- rams among all countries in the reg creating el opeing tat ean in cach county to shsinther nur in the eon, The would intensify cooper . rion between different the strategic cooperation between tele, film. They would also promote incre: brofsionalas programmers srptyrtrs and dirctors eros na Boundaries and eente networks of exchange and eoopcation berween independent producers throughout the eon ‘The phere of arate lg) god part ofthe pot fas demoralization of tural exclusions politics are named and performed end through which tks lc Ia scythe wha perhaps the greatest symbolic det woos aif suturating itself with signs ly themselves ‘h both our fears and our nightmares is feeling that imbues the notion of youth with its And if youth symbolizes, itis not because of the mar ets crooked operations but because it condenses —i i cries a5 much as in with the new languages through are expressed. It i symbolic meni ts unrest and mis- s a8 in its doeams of iberty or its cognitive and expressive complictes with the language of technologies—some ofthe keys to the cultural mutation that is currently crisscrossing our world. - ‘The sphere of aesthetic innovation and technical experimentation. The biur- inno in art while at the same time making the emergence of a new standard for evaluating art and rt, technology appears xd leepest epochal transformations being experienced in our society, On the other hand, the dislocation of art by tech destructive fatality of a ‘making it possible for art to subvert the cal rev ion that has for many years i ing military power. This new rela Honship between art, technology, and communications points to more than the circulation of fashion and It signals the reaffirmation ofculeural creativity asthe appropriate space ofthat utopian minimum with Between Technology and Culture: out which material progress loses its sense of imagination and turns into the worst kinds of alienation. In the face of the aestheticization of everyday life—and also in the face ofits other pol through an op seizes the density of the heterogeneity to which different sensibilities and tastes expose us to, in alternative lifestyles and in social movements, Note 1. Michel Serres, Hominescence (Paris: Le Pommier, 2001). Communication and Modernity in Latin America JESUS MARTIN BARBERO o ee thas processes have Clues to the Debate Fr con “fact of technol the beginning, but especially since the mid-2g60s, Latin American nication studies have heen rent between two poles: technology—the tal logie—and cul ture, meaning as they struggle to survive and regroup nce and reappropriation. The theor through res ti ‘land political vacilla~ ‘of communication studies derives from this ambivalent, mestizo dis- ‘course that pulls in the opposite directions of (1) knomledge regulated by the laws of accunmulation and compatibility and (2) acknomledgment of cultural 4ifferences and variable truths. At stake in the relationship between com= mnication and modernity is the very story line of modernity and cultural discontinuities, the anachronisms and the utopias that mass media. both deliver and resist. ‘The debate about modernity has a very particular interest far Latin Amer- ‘ca because it recasts the linear model of progress that had r moder: nity’s variations and temporal discontinuities, the long durée of deep col ight to the surface by sudden changes in the social fabric torn by modernity itself.” and this, debate engulfs Latin America through traditions, che c snd the contradi lective memory “br fe is about our eri temporancousness of its “hackwardness, of develop- ment. Modernism came early and moder lat n heterogencousch philosophic reflec- aradigms for analy pieces. These concerns have joined social sciences sryday experience demands more than sbifti sis; it needs new questions. ‘One key question, unavoi Latin American development, constructions of identity take on decisive dimensions when « retrench themselves against modernity and refresh labels Tr development means the capacity for societies ro act for themselves fe of events, the undifferentiated form of global \l exacerbates fi idablc for understanding the folds in the fabric of is the cultural question. It is crucial, and to modify the cours modernization today clashes with cultaral identities an ‘not static or dogma- and historicity as part of ‘mentalist tendencies. We need a new notion of dents ss transformati but one that assumes continuous tr ‘The improvement would get beyond purely in universality as the coun tic, a substantive modern wnat enon and would ee the puri > . this requires a new con: ally different modes and terpoint to ps cept of development czpacious enough for shythms of insertion. di Globalization delegitimizes the tr contexts of confidence 's is at the root of so n easily assimilate techno- ftions and customs that, until very 22 it dismantles our ‘bases for ethies and cultural habitat. T and also of surface violence. People 5 idernization. But recovering, a system of certainty of | seethin Jogieal advances and images of mo “ a .¢ and civic norms is a long and painful process. The unce = of cognitive a tsi edge than esi 8 Bernt! re the dizzying erst ‘patent in the changes fered by traditional eth mension of vate pela indigenous and Bal) ing = ma her cultures in each country and ith other countries fe commicaton transformations. This is most ‘communication with; in the world, From wi sn ES it also creates oppor show a dynamism today chance to break through isolation. Ifinteraction is that traditional communit) « of anthropologists and folklorists: nibolic life needs to be tunities, The fact is ‘hat outstrips the interpretive framew ia and more consciousness that c sification and development of there is less adjusted for the furure:t Consider the divers artisanal production sraction with modern design and even wi some dynamics of cultural industries, the growing number of radio and ities themselves, or the Zapatista move- ‘ment making proclamations over the Internet about the utopia of indigenous Chiapas. On the othe television stations run by comm ‘Mexicans i and, these traditional cultures offer modern society amt unsuspected strategic relevance by helping to offset a purely mechanical replacement of sent a challenge to fons repre 1e allegedly universal and ahistorical homogenizing pressure of moderr Th ecai sic and technological glob: place and peoples, a co ante with daily demands for more self-determination, They claim rights to count in decisi tion discounts the importance of ple tary pressure from local 8 about economics and polities, to construct their own images, and to recount their own sw wre no longer be more meaningful. It means the p and the activity of dynamic ‘Those stories respond both to the hegemonic language of mass media with 's double movement of hybridization (between appropriation and mestizaje) ind to translations from orality to audiovisual and informatic media as well ng. In its thickest and most conceptually daunting sense, caulturalism points to this reciprocity i ties dynamized by the economy ad justmenc (o global pressures, but also aware of the diverse range of codes and and cultural differences to support a heterogeneity of groups and 1 stories within a cultural group. What globalization puts into play, then, is not just the greater circulation of products, but also # deep reorganization of Cultural identity be narrated and constructed through new media and genres, but only communications industries get direction from creative cultural policies that take everyday culture into account. This would i mation of the relationship between educa relationships among peoples, cultures, and countti ide an explicit transfor- systems and the fields of iat experience ike up the new languages of the information age. ‘The debate has special co obvious reasons: modernizatio ms with the ficld of communication for er more idadvances in information, which makes communication the stratesic site for ity and its repercussions for post modernity: ‘ucial for imagining and identi- Jety signifies not only that seformulating modernity’s vil jon has become In recent years commu {ying new social models. he term information is vital to social life society at large through communication. What does this mean? Basically that itt funetions and spaces would be connected ina sef-regulated Wanspareit nay, SelF-regulation means “well tempered functionality, solarity amon so that all components stay informed about all all the elements of the syste ‘others and about the system asa whol circulation. In other words, self-regulati {is balance, retroactivity, constant would mean a knot of complex at tied each one of ts down in incessant communication, transformation of discourses into forms that be 10 cach other? The result is to “Torarh the very nature of knowledge, understood now to be only that which ized information. Society would then be transparent. correspond to cach other, with nothing left over relationships ‘Transparency is translatable to di Being and knowing wo Cosamunication has also become paradoxically crucial na sense opposed othe posit of dhe informational model jrgen alermas hss eXPeSIy nmunicative praxis” ro the pursuitand defense of noninstramen- ibcrating dimensions of modernity tal rationality, om sustains 1 and questions the reduction of the proj vrmie aspect, Communicative reason is atthe center of his reflection Om ct to its purely technical and eco~ vociey iing the gap left by an “epistemological orphanhood” alr the paradigms of production and representation came to rises? ‘This reorienta- 1 move- tion provides an ability to resist enercion and co promote new 6 . ecological, and feminist movements. From this per a pioneer, despite critiques of his idealization of reason ‘c action, Hl established the relevance of communication, sion, a research agenda, and ‘as undeniable for reframing analyse: the epistemology and polities of critical theory “rm the other side of the crisis of modernity, where postmodernity enters, communication matters too. Communication is hardly # mere SS ment or modality of action, bur a constitu of knowledge, according to J. F. Lyotard. ¢ element of the new conditions This is where damental a" change of epoch is being produced: in knowledge to that modern reason that strives for unity, but oF ‘moves between gaps in a limitless horizon and i knowledge, the impossibility of metanarratives an« of all discourse. Simil ly, but less austerely 0 jatimo listens to a society of communication t geakening of reality"! as urban subjects are subjected to the constant cr036 of information, interpretation, and is an experience of decli ages, Mass society becomes ing values and diminishing power of modernity’s central oppositions: tradition/innovatior . Kitsch. Instead of p progress/reaction, vanguard / , ity through questions of the other: the political and cultural thickness of differences in ethnicity sexuality, and locality ; Another link between analyses o the challengs had separated ‘classi: critical and artistic sen erosion is perhaps th academic viewpoint.'? W crisis and issues of communication is n of mass culture: “The firm fine that modernism from mass culture does not hold for the ¥y of postmodern the modernist rej F, Jameson adds that the wast disturbing aspect of postmodern from an inc of difference undone, we face between tradition and innovation, between high art and popular or he field doesn’t fit into the cate he categories of modernity bet the question of the : ‘opposition use exposes a basi not limited to negation or forms of resistance and resistant forms of affirmation.” The Madernity of Communication Latin America experiences, in particular ways, strategic centrality of communication in mock cade” of the 1980s the only indust notable celopment was com the number of television channels yrew from four hi dred from the mid-1970s to the 1980s; Brazi satellites radio and televisioncountries; daa networks, parabolic antennae, TV cable networks were estab .s launched regional tv channels." By the same ind information technologies fished; and several cou token, since the eighties, telecommunications hhave become beachheads for neotiberalism, y munications (from Argentina and Co- as is evident from the prio given to the privatization of telecomn Tombia to Peru) and from the privatization of television in the few countries like Mexico and Colombia that still had some public channels, What ac- ‘except the fact that communication bas become in macro- counts for this priority strategic not only at the level of technological advance but ‘economic decisions? In other words, the technological and political enclave ‘¢ decisive in social design and reorganization as of communication has becom pable of swell as in economics. This implies that public institutions are im J change in communications. Initiatives are left 0 ‘hat borders on managing the technologi ‘market forces, and state intervention is seen as interference t! censorship! ‘The purposeful confusion has unraveled what for years was called public service." We will have to revive it if we hope to save some notion of democracy. "To think through the relationship between modernity: erica is to let go of the theoretical and ideological baggage that ‘messy matrixes of disorganization and reorgani- ‘migrations, fragmentation, and dislocation. seen expansive demoeratizing communication in Latin Am refuses to accommodate zation in urban life, inetu ‘The dynamism scrambles the apposition bet {ion with modern technology. This experi- ‘massification and an elite fas cence of communicative thickness obliges us to rethink the Jationship be- ‘ween culture and polities. ‘role has communication played in the process of interpelaing social ‘one which represents a fundamental it. The idea of modernity that as in the 19308 had an econo change at the heart of modernization as well promoted the construction of modern sat {integration into international markets—and a po and feeling for the nation. That ‘component nent to consticute a national culture, ident project was conceivable only and the state, Media, especially the radio, became interpellating masses into the people and the pe caudillos used the radio to develop a new political discourse that abandoned state’s spokesmen, to a nation. Populist emergence of cultures without territorial memor ond place, New musical a tures that are linked to a land. But just because transnational cult sponds to transnational market st il market strategies of television, records, and vi should not be underestimated as an agent of particule eee ‘Today, identities live in sl ‘ ities; they are pr exible enough to amalgama precarious ee te elements from very different and a including modernist residues and radical ‘easy to dismiss these now deterritorialized sensibilities as social but that would make it harder ic eas ‘nay still have for them, communicate the value that “ "he wets augur or ht oon fi yr that des tin po toa a nition They pre cantar svenees of ys alization and cultural fragmentatic efile tts The pens wl ato an noes ec neae differentiating culture by region and age group, : fale cay Re among them through global rhythms and i : only devalued as he while creating links images, The idea of nation is not sult of deterritor also erodes froman ternal liberation of differences. From one point of vie 7 " he nation seems provincial and tied down by the state; from another itis a homogenizing force of centralization. From both perspec ure resig- es, culture resig nies ni of borders. What can borders possibly mean now that for economic de frontiers still exist, but they i aan oeala ta likely to describe old differe oo old differences of wee and the new frontiers of technology and generation rather th borders. Nation can still have some purchase, if it doesn’t ot di > iit doesn’t per dera jolerant particularism as @ reac SS a reaction to dissolving fro: sj it can work as mediator to make intergenerational and inverethnic communica intergenerational an ion possibl :Communication from the Viewpoint of Culture fon doesn't make for Wie know dat struggle through cultural med Jrure unsettles the .g about communication from the perspective of inking that has dominated the field of communication and hrough a technological optimism based on. instrumental hat still legitimates itself today Ac stake, beyond the academic legiti- | legitimacy, the potential for an expansive concept of information macy of communication studies, is intellectual site for social thought” The paradigm of communication to be a strat nalysis opens toward this social weight of researc ‘mediation and cultural miship between communication and society. Otherwise the ex oon the relatior ‘cation could turn pansion of our field and its deepening theoretical so J for moral and practical bankruptcy, tegic every day in the development, or into an embarrassin Communication becomes more strat eties. Consider the links between information and the blockage, of our s0% violence, between the media and new authoritarian regimes 1 public administration, and education, nologies for reorganizing productivit intellectuals face the task of struggling against a cult of imme- As a resal dliacy, We need to recover historical context and critical distance in order 0 make sense of the transformations tha affect the fature of civil society and of democracy, "No wonder communication studies have become so important, In Latin America the field developed from the overlap between (1) a North American .d instrumentalism, and (2) ¢ Latin American ing ideological denunciation. Between these sm, By the end of the 19705 media com’ paradigm of information ané social scientific critique, mt French semiotic structur: was a wedge of Gevelopmentalists promoted a model of society that turned m beachhead for “spreading innovation” and for trans- , dependency theory along with a munications forming society* From Latin Amer ral imperialism would lead to another kind of redueti critique of culeu ‘one that identified communications with ideological reproduction and de- nied its specificity of domain and pr nological know-how and social criti rejection of tech- the seventies made for dangerous excision, Be Communication studies started by theorizing the com- ity between the media and domination, treating technical ly instruments of power and lea rab Frankfurt School or by semiotics. Theodor Adorno cat ae ing the comy : iseduced to der between technological developmes pepe nieiy and economie ra- tionality and to identifying mass media with the death of art2? Semiotics fared no better ical refusals of the 0 {t simply reinforced ideol orced ideological refusals of the result was to chain of total it they managed social cont fe communication studies 1 The combined what Mabel Piccini cals a that blocked any consideration of the culturally and so- anges brought about ‘mental reason was raised, Seepage etna ideological marxism, cms rehinke steams nds. Testi epae i mmunication came as much fi the experi as from a reflection on cultural studies, Ti ral sii, Together hy ited he ion had demarcated the field of be luaedetig wunication, Informat Deut. But the breach between tecnolog cism remained, i. optimism and political skepti- In Latin America, the lifted barriers allowed for new relationships with relationships with a tange of sucial sciences, often shaped by vont ations from the very dis- ly communication, Despite some misgiv- am iethodological (from history, anthropology, zesthetics), while sociology, anthroy ience took on the media and ri i From neighborhoo Ee ighborhood histories of Buenos Aires to the transformation of Black and national sound, fr Sees 1m accounts of symbolic al crafts in market economies to the rhythms of continuity and rup- saltural industries as cpractices, anthropology had ro rethink nival and religious ture in ur the disorienting and hybridizing effects of glo consider the place of media in cultural transformation and cu ‘Along with the theme of media in the social sciences came thy jon needed a transdisciplinary approach.” ig cities would stay fiation, and sociology had to ral politis.2* e growing, consciousness that commu Otherwise the endlessly heterogeneous experience Phrough new practices of getting together and st 1: doesn’t fit into one discipline; they con- ing apart, out of focus. re a density mediating the production of imaginaries and somehow stitute the public by Integration and Construction of Cultural Space in Latin America the iggos was characterized by two general ‘The cultural scene nge along with deregulation of tions: (1) the accelerat markets, and (2) the tion while mass media offered new vehicles f scounting of culture's political value or social fune: social movements and civie expression, "The integration of Latin American cultur industries, This was true of the past, in t jts mythologies and stars, the bolero, tango, ‘as the industries offer telenovelas and salsa, along with Tatin with its own myths and stars. Never- rough cultural iakes plac collective imaginaries of film, ranchera, and it is even more rue today, rock, including a Latin sity chan jovisual industries have been only mar sional integration through the Andean Pat, the North American Free Trade lAprecment (NAFTA), and Mercosur, Marginality derives not from the me> ia’s lack of ect bur because of the complex relationship between media and culture, regional heterogeneity and the jealous interests sal identity. ‘The debate between the nal to te. theless, up Cll now au importan that promote a single allegedly nati n and the United States during a recent mecting of the +) over “cultural exceptions” European U General Agreement on ‘Tariffs and ‘Trade shows that media accords fail in the absence o} nal ground has so far proved elusive, For jon of tele= 1 some political common ‘ground. In Latin America this min one thing, the pressures of neoliberalism accelerate the privat ent multimedia ‘communications and the unraveling of regulations. 4 ee a conglomerates are consolidati nsolidating their power and doin times in self-serving defense of nating ridin ohen sd flows, will, at of al culture and at others in ‘The main ob: ties is the surv le to a minimal politica ‘imal political accord about the culture indus Satan ees" On deere incl de ia to reorganize personal and family life through free Pal jo. gist he et sand otindpen "Ys Stays anchored in an old idea of nati eed ‘ment at home and strategie mans both of media induses n that deepens the inequi- same time that heterogeneity and mult for renovating for i democracy and that liberalism (through deregulatio al and international administra share ra sae het depend pl ‘cooperation among media t i Q other forces are mobilizing wal rt hey te co start-up video prod tion.” ‘These participate in infe eee * nal eters the enn! th global supply and should not be overlooked vom regional inte; ——— “Meanwhile, some gap: n the ‘opportunities, I am referring tocuba in Mexico, Charly Garcia, Fito Piez, or the Enanitos verdes and Pabu- tosos Cédillac in Argentina, to Estados Alterados and Aterciopelados in Colombia, rock hes become a site for constructing symbolic unity for Latin “America just as salsa was through Rubén Blades and the Nueva Trovs in phenomenon, as onc can see from Latino Mtv, Cuba. This is no merely Io where music and visual creativity develop through youth culture's favorite the video clip.” the absence of some minimal public policy on communicatios And without that space, medi But Latin American cultural space is unthinkabl tergenerational and interethnic communication is also unthinkable, Pol bout media but about cultural communicative systems, ould not be merely « each medium has its particularities. Nor would appropriate policy be ‘merely national, since internal and international diversity promote emocra tizing creativity. At stake are cultural pt ccan the relationship between stat Can the state deregulate without reforn cies. Hi integral cultural pol communicative contract? We need polici soci thet address public and ae interests, Ir deregulation is necessary, atleast the state should provide o a context for the democratic multiplication of voices through alternative radio and television channels that big business won't support Notes 1. G. Marramao, “Metapotitica: Mis all de Tos esquemas binarios,” in Razin 2 (Barcelona: Anthropos, 1988), 60. Weron et al, Esa esetita modernidad: Desarrll y ntura en 4. Key contributions 4. N. Garcia Canclini, Cultaras + (Mexico City iy: Popular Cs G, Gimenez and R. LuNaM, 1994); W. Rowe and V. Sche Arserica (Landon: Verso 5. See Homi K. Dhabhs, ed., Nason and Narration (Lon IM. Matinas “Le identidad contada,” in Destinos 75-88. as, eds, Routledge, 1077) Jo (Valencia; Archivos de i 8. J. Habermas, Teoria de la azcién comunicat dliscurseflsifica de ta moder 9. J.B Lyorard, La condi 1984), and La diferencia (Barcelona: Gedisa, 1988). Lk 10, G. Vattimo, Elfin de fa moden d (Barcelona: Gedisa, 1986), and La sociedad or A. Hays (Buenos Aires, 198: 12. F Jamesor 16, fa del nodernismo, offprint fr "astmodernismo y sociedad de consume,” in La postmodern 13. Huyssen, Guia 14. A. Alfonso, (Carueas: Minist 15D ed 16.0. Lan, Romain at mara de tao Aires; Puntosur, 1988). a postmoder lovisiin de se in de Cultura, lucraiva en América Latina ra polttica (Buenos Aires: Cedes, 1982), 1987), 22. 1) Mn aber Bab ta Comuunicac “= no. 20 (Lim 20, See Ph. Schles (Barcelona: An 22, J. Nun, “EL otra red José, Costa Ries: FLACSO,‘ag. J. Martin Barbero, De les medios a las mediaciones: Comuncacin, cultura y hegensnia (Barcolona: G. Gi on, Culture and Hegensony (London: Sage, 199°) 25, M. Piceini, La imagen de tejedor: Lemguaes 9 +29; translated as Com ca de comunicacién (Mexico 1087), 16; and “Industria eulturales, transversaldades y regimenes in, 90,17 (Lima, 1987) af. L, Gutierez and L.A. Romero, Sectres populares y ci wa politica (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 198 ‘Squef and J. M.Wisoik, O nacional ¢ 0 pagdlar na cultura brasileira: Mibsica (Sio Paulo: Br (Rio de Janeico: Zahar, 198 iiense, 1983); R. Da Matta, Carnavais, Muriz Sodré, A verdade seducida: Por JJ J. Brunner, C. Cats malantras, er sn conceto de in, and A. Barrios, Chiles ‘Transform (Gantiago: FLACSO, 1989); 8. Roncesl LLatine: Fatados, empresas y productores independientes,” in N. Garcia Ca Culturas eng ueva Sociedad, 1996), 53; N. Garcia Canclini Culluras hibridas, and Las culeuras populares en ef capitalima (Mexico City: Nueva Imagen, 1982); N. Garcia Canclni ed, consi cultural en México (Mexico Ci Conaculta, r994), amd Ps 1987); and N. Garcia Cane latinoamericana (Mexico Ci palizactom (Caracas: N 1 culiuraes en América Latina (Mexico City: Grill ji and C, Moneta, eds, Fas industrias euftrales en Ia Ina/ SEL.A/UNrsco, 1999) vy, Fora review of ewo research approaches and theoretical developments up t0 the end of the 1980s, see J. Martin Barbero, “Retos a la investigaciin de con 1 Latina,” Ci and “Panorama bibliogrfco Ge ls investigacin latinoamericana en Comunicacion, Telos, no, 19 (Maal, 1992). ‘8, Rail Fuentes, “La investigacién de la eomunicacion: Hacia nariedad on las cieneias sociales,” in Medios y mediaciones (Mexico Ci 221-43. 29, Among works representative ofthe new tendencies are M. Wolf, “Tendenciss integrac niacin en Amés icaciin y cultura, no. 19 (Mexico City, 1980), po teso, 1998), jscipli- actuals del estudio de medias,” en Comtnicacién social rogo, Tendencias (Madrid: Informe Fundesco, 1990); Ph. Schlesinger, “Identidad europea y cambios en la ccomunicacién: Dela politica a la cultura y los medios,” Tels, na. 23 (Madzid, 1990K, LL. Grossberg, C. Nelson, and P, Trsichler, eds., Cultaral Studies (New York: B ledge, 1992); D. Morley, Family Television, Cultural Power, and Domestic Letsre vion: Comedia, 186); G. Marcas and M. Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Cr- suc (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, x986); Bhabha, Nation and Narration go. H. Schmucler and M. C. Mata, eds. Pl yy comunicacién: Hay wm fagar ‘ara la politica en la cultura mediética?( wedoba: Catilogos, x99} 5: Qué hiza la televisén com ba gente, qu cent (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1092); A. Rueda, Memoria, terrtorio y transnac Univalle, Cai, 1998) la gente con la tlevitiin? “Representaciones de lo latinoarericano fad en el videvclip del rock latino” (Thestal Hauntology pna of Performance: Poli DIANA TAYLOR cs alfective power brings us fully into the here and nov; for fs Fdovard Claparede observed in 1911, “It is impossible to feet emotion atic stress part as past.” ‘Trauma and posttrau on and through the body long after the ynal punch, through inv’ ectuens, with its em hacks, and nightmares, The past revisits, full izes trauma, which is always reexperie sce, as present. The repeat charact scerally, a a constant state of again-ness Performance proves vital to humans’ um functions throug! derstanding of trauma and soci similar process of reiterative ‘memory in part because ‘embodied behavior. Although not involuntary, and, in Richard Schechner's words, “twice-b re ofits repeats. “Performance means iscerally in performance docs restored trauma, it is characterized by the natu > jt too makes itself felt affectively and ent (the dramatie/ traumatic core) and never for the first time. the present, capturing both the cont ow-ness of reactivation, ‘Thus, performance can transmit th rience of traumatic memory.* ex for mean then \e meaning amd the always-in-the- present Exp nance and memory rely 0 com ways in sica, What Maurice Halbwachs wrote x “No memory is possible outside Another connection: p ing. In one sense, they're ab about memory aptly applies to performance: ‘ple living in society to determine and retrieve thet jal body ata frameworks used by pe intervenes in the individual /p anxieties, or values. When the A reflects specific fears, particular mom« context changes, they change, establishing a new s jn performance and of traumatic speci ion and transmiss 1 recontext nonetheless points to an important diffe ‘sjchavior is separate from those who are behaving memory, srence. For performance, 8 Schechner points out the —EeES—~— a bohavior can be stored, transmitted, manipulated, transformed” (36). ‘The 's contagion — ‘one assumes and em haviors and events, ‘Tra es he ren pin and pny pat be spec maybe anita at inseparable from the subject who suffers is Perhaps the most important connect mn between performance and trauma/ ‘memory, however, remains the least explored: traumatic memory often rel ’e, interactive performance for transmission. Even studi - size the aimee nk between trauma and narrat si narrative, or witnessing and literature, ee ig and literature, cnt in the analysis itself that the transmission of traumatic me from victim to witness involves the share: Gi ind participatory act of telling and ince.’ The narrative, the story through event so horrible that it cannot be tener. Giving testimony, Felman and Laub make clear, is not “a iven that is reproduced and replicated by the testifies covery of knowledge—its evolution and its very happening Bearing witn ‘dis an event in its Tims nthe prsoecoTaeer whe ames co-owner of the traumatic ev cad of the event into co: ling brings the “massive trauma” into the shared repertoire of cultural experi- ish the process of telling and listening, those ence, into existence, ap between trauma theory and performance theory. While trauma scholars like Laub, Felm: on personal pathology and one-on-one inter: allows us to explore the publie, nonpathological c ‘emphasizing the public, rather than just private, repe violence and loss, soci Argel and Caruth focus mainly fons, performance studies tie actors (such as the families of the disappeared in. that I discuss here) eae he individual foc ies. Tt might be helpful to circles, bound by performance ips as three c and traumatic repeats At the very center of these circles, the individual experiences trauma visceral and self-reflexive—springi id from and aimed back at the self asnightmares, Dashbacks, and other forms of emotional and physical disrup- tion, Trauma makes evident that memory is stored in the body not just 2s visual memory oF as Written imprint, but also as a kinetic function, One victim of trauma I spoke with began to shake uncontrollably whenever there was an unexpected knock at the door. ‘Trauma makes itself felt live embodied and as present. On this self-reflexive level, the individual cannot yet express or turn the trauma outward, m of trauma reaches out to a therapist or In the second circle, the vi witness, The live, structured performance plays an important role in the Performance, unlike drama, does not transmission of traumatic memory, lies on process, ety~ hut, on the contr connote mimetic representatio mologically parfournir, meaning to carry through thoroughly. The telling and setclling offer victims a way of coping. That carrying through—the telling, and beating witness—is accomplished through the physical, live encounter of 1g and retelling constitute a performance, un- rrauima can come into victim and listener. The derstood as reiterative, twice-behaved behavior. Th jugh performance, Conversely, scholars have long argued that ere understood mare narrowly as cathartic performance or itself only performance, to being asa healing practice. According to some, the ancient pidaurus was originally a place of healing. And what jual and social ritual, comes: Greck theater at «catharsis but the purging of noxious elements from the ‘body? Trauma and cathartic performance, so mutually bound up in their origins, also share their end. If the disturbance or trauma were to end, cathartic performance would become unnecessary and, hypothetically, cease twexist. On the third level, however, ‘modes that allows some victims of trauma to move out of the repetitive circle ying, to enter (3) the con- here is an enabling shift in performance of (x) reliving the pain and (2) repeatedly testatory, and no less reiterative, phase of performance protest. Cathartie, such as the weekly marches reiterative performances of sorrow and prot of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, help the victims themselves deal with unspeakable loss. But by moving beyond the two circles of individual pa ogy outlined above, they use the trauma to fuel their political ‘They have contributed co human rights efforts by successfully the eth and path activ 1g traumatic memory from one generation to another and fror ‘Argentine political context (o an international public that did not ss frsthan. Thos was revi oan une agency. . inding of ‘The physical presence of the body in the oseneof aman the ratings tye then Tels le a difference in the way knowledge is transmitted and in ; don’t want to lessen cimiee a importance of the video and virtual testimonies that i the ast deca The Video Acie ‘Testimanies at Yale, for example (among n ‘i oh ae any live not the reiterative repeat of unsfer into the archive: ferent econom © ae ferent economy of storage and representation, In hi cse, a Peggy ‘es compelingly argued, the liv exchange cannot be stored. It becomes vomething else. ‘The replay will always be the same, a record of an ear ‘moment, an anterior utterance that is frozen ta ozen for posterior use.‘ T am not suggesting that che transmission of traumatic memory happens aly ne live encounter, as this essay makes clear. Howe i : ; Tdo want to distinguish between different, though intertwined, systems of knowledge—the archival and the embodied~ chat participat social memory distinct ways in the transmis mn of stn! wenn ers and pefrmance rots et ms oe sive social bet at bat Thee su sr sha ha he ee wins oa called the repertoire, ‘The ct is ay sd dtd memory the wae te = ng—in short, al 5 se acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge. ’ 3 val = other hand, maintains what is perceived as a last- ‘ng core—records, documents, photographs, literar ce graphs, literary texts, police E archaeological remains, bones—supposedly resist and political manipulation. What changes over ti 58 the valu, relevance, or meaning of the remains, how they get Prt, vn embod. In tween md xedaping Stee of Iowle and memory constitute a vast spectrum that might combine the wor the permanent and the ephemeral embodied nature of the net ivegent wns The cognate mts expernc whether he bt sessed by the shudder or the live restimor F ae I encounter—proves vital to ourlerstanding of trauma, So, too, does the archival project that stores evi- dence and testimonies in less carnal, but more durable containers—video, and both are open ‘ing books, forensic laboratories. Both change over time, to manipulation and erasure. Each system of containing and tran: ive ean never be con- knowledge exceeds the limit tained in the archive; the archive endures beyond the limits of the live. Performance works and transforming a shared archiv of history, part and parcel of the cases, performance functions 3s a sym 1a. In others, itasserts a critical distance to make a claim, either affirm- Like frau ing ties and connections or denow trauma, performance protest intrudes, unexpected and unwelcome, on the social body, Its efficacy depends on its ability to provake recognition in the ppast recollection. It insists on physical y by being there, The transmission entails if attacks on social contracts here and now rather than rely presence—one can participate ‘more than content: performance strategies themselves have a history and also undergo change as the relationships of so tors respond to their act na by wearing the small photo ts around their necks, the Madres tarned their bodies into archives, Pre sng the images that had been targeted for erasure, Instead ns or look away serving and di of the body they staged the ar mance could make images lke a second skin, the Madres highlighted the afBiatve ship thatthe military tried to annihilate. ‘They created a pidermal, layered image, superimposing the faces of she Joved ones om themsel es “These bodes, the images made clear, were connected—genctcall, 3 atively and now, ofcourse, politically. This representational atic 0 index: ty mirrored the more scientific one undertaken by the Abuclas: £9 estab si the genetic ink between the surviving family members and the missing children by tracing DN "The Abuelas, res, further developed the use of photography in sear peared grandchildren, While they have continued 9 use PN (65 1g for their disap- to find these children, they have also begun to rely heavily on photography: In an exh Plaza de Mayo” at the Centro tural Reco sxhibited the same photo- raph the Madres have long paraded around the plaza, Here the photos ‘Memoria grafic de Abuclas svere sot up in family units—the photos ofthe missing father and she miss veer Next to it, however, they inserted a minror (fig 6), Spectators look jing int that mirror ae prompted to ask themselves: Am Lthe missing child? {A photography exhibit might seem fo belong more to he archive than to the embodied repe is one stages a performance of shock and hope- fully, on some level, recognition. “The spectator may not be the disappeared child, bu five hunt ‘continue to be disappeared. Not just persona, or even mal memory and identity are at stake, As the Abuels pu sencontrarnos” (Bnding them is finding ourselves)” Multiple investigate ao 6. The pe acoment of mirrors ne nett images of photography exhibit “Menor pe esa the disappeared the lus de Plaza de Mayo” st the Centro oe 2001) ures spectators to ask hes : mnselves, ee y Kessler, courtesy of Paand reconeiliation commissions have been set in place the world over, and snational tribunals have been established to deal with the genocidal lega- ss andl countries apart, Memory, as the al prac- jnte ss that continue to tear communities suclas? exhibit “Memoria grafica” makes clear, then they ask us what we do, we can respond, “We remembe os the spectators unaware, and places them di YF violent polities. The mirrors remind the js an active pol Memory rectly within the framework of onlookers thac there are several ways: jin a museum may constitute a different form of presence ticipation demanded by performance, but this exhibit seizes che spectator ‘on and identification, ‘The DNA of performance heirs 10 ing there, Looking atan exhi an the live par demanding live participati reminds onlookers that they, ‘continuing struggle for national identity and definition, tuo, are in the genealogical Tine, 1 affliative bonds, 6 that p wrganization based on (but ‘Like the Abuelas and Madres, associ ot re izes its identity a8 an 0 1i.).0.8. emphi duced to) biological kinship. It identifies itself as “una organiza ssaparecidos y perseguidos poli- rechos humanas que agraps # los hijos de des ima dictadura militar Argentina” (a human rights organization politically persecuted vietims of tieos de fa that unites children of the disappeared and the last military dictatorship in know each other by accident, Just as the Madres stations and hospitals as they searched for their ofthe disappeared and politcal prisoners met ata conference on the disappeared held at the University of a Plata in ro9s. Like the Madees 1.1.0.8. does not hightight ‘consider themselves sociopolitical mothers of all the disappear the disappeared by bringing crimi er motto (just 4.1.0.5, struggles (o ins castigo” (Justice and punishment) is th {Live appearance or Live recovery] a ct on the repressors. Memory, for mostof these young people who grew up without th political project. ‘Like the Madres,11.1.0-5, continues its fightagainst impunity and forget> sing through the highly visible use of public spectacle using their bodies nals to tr as Madres used “Aparici theirs), and their sights ar ir parents, humiliate those i te th ower. Like the Madres, 1.1.0.8. meet mined ata predeter- ce carey out ther potest en mane ‘They me Singing, dancing, and hol eee arn hyo hs se risa Sm ‘visual features of their acti a eval ons ofc avin sent hea hat cers ie hizo tne with ume on 7) nd he ea Photographs of the disappeared (fig. 8). ae Nonetheless, thei ¥ ‘stead of the ritu: a Ploa de Mat 05. organics oon lishing: Herc (yn ieir demu stic protest and mouri serach, ra of ‘, or acts of pub- rhe to serach ighly to expose or to spit)'* constitute a new type of g. . that forces Argentina’s criminal pe — ts The perpetrators ange fom tan senso eth Sohal ote tes he limpo, where hundreds who opposed the mi d sur and disappeared, and Pan Candon he lites into the open by targ ins ispheric plan of cooper: among right-wing military factions that ensured ch i 2 ppearance would be abducted, torture: ae their country. The escraches aim to heighter ee unpunished n fic awareness that these 1s, criminals, a minal organizations continue to exis mn to democracy. Current neoliberal eco- hey argue, simp torship in more modern guise, the context of a supposed ret tue the economic *hes are large, festive, hum ec humorous, and mobile demonstrations indred and five hundred people, Gant puppets noe bian-wheels pad ehough the sree (igs 9 and 2) xluces photographs of perpetrators on pam; sad wie hep he ssn arts Grp ne Cone Post street signs marking the distance toa ree, Pin ecranoomcaniciner aston one ie of his house, Vans with loudspeakers See hundreds of people dan ‘0s Aires, Cordoba, a and military pigs-on- kin front ‘mounce the aims of the protest asthe blown-up photo ins ofthe disappeared 1 find 11.15.0.8.'s use of the recognizably ides disappeared displayed by the Madres is interesting, especially considering that they appear in the demonstrations after the Madres have stopped (for the most part) carrying theirs. The Madres continue to wear the small 1p heir necks. The large images on shoto, encased in a plastic sleeve, around th a nce past. The Madres? goal now lacards, however, belong to their perfor politics of impunity (fig. 14). “We know who the disappeared were,” the Madres said when they changed strategy in 1983. “Now let's see who the disappearers are.” The members of 14.4.0.5., on the other hand, never sought to give evidence inthe same ways They entered he politcal aren Jong afier the Madres had declared, “We know who the disappeared are ‘They never needed to prove, as the Madres did, that their loved ones were missing. When the protestors of 1.0.8 carry photo ibs atthe rallies, they y of a representational practice. They are quoting the index the conti : Madres, even as they acknowledge the other influences, here the carnival- esque Goya and images from other cultural registers. They, lke the Madres, {ake the archival photographs and doubly remobilize them: they signal both the archival use of the 1» and the performative use associated with the Madres. The archival photos are performed again, but n a more complicated ‘manner that signals various artistic and represemtational practices as well as the clearly defined political ones. The photographs of the disappeared, I contend, serve as placeholders in a sense, a way of assuring the place of the disappeared in the genealogical tims are neither forgotten nor in. The photographs assure that irrogated.” No one else will take their te the genetic line and to some \legree the political trajectory of defiance, calling attention to the vi the breaks." Unlike surrogation in Roa place, The members of #.1,1.0.8 nee of 1's genealogy of performance, whi covers up the vacaney by substituting one figure or person for another (the King is dead, long live the king), the nwa of performance demanstrates the continuity without surrogation. The specific link reeds to be identified for the genealogy, and the d though missing can and Fotografia Julio Pantoja's collection of portraits of the children of the disappeared, entitled “Tucumin, The Children: ‘Iwenty Years Later” represents another tole of photography in performance activist one that enables us to flesh out Some ofthe nuances between the DNA of performance and Roach’s yenealogy. Pantoja’s images occupy a different kind of space (the gallery wall) and form a diferent kind of archive (fg. 15). Here are portraits stead of photo ins, and (of imerest for my purposes) portraits that include photo ws (igs. 16, 17). These portraits sponse. They hang on wall spaces rather than pol for other forms of spectatorship and public re not people’s bodies, and occupy ce files. They do not move in the same terior viewing 2s placards performed in public spaces. Unlike the photo exhibit organized by the Abue- tas, these images do not part traits. Nonetheless, mages engage both the police and the contestatory uses of photography mentioned e: Unlike the case of the Abuelas, Madres, activisen, Pantoja’s “Tucuméi H.1.0.5., models of collective ” series constituted his own inclividual form of political intervention. When Antonio Domingo Bussi, a known torturerugunes 16 and 17. These children sappeared knew their parents o photographs. same age as their parents from of them are when they were disappeared, Photo exhibit by Julio Pantoja, “Lo Pucamén veinte aos después,” Tucumnin, 1999, during the die ip, was democratically elected as Tucumn’s governor, Pantoja was moved to express his sentiments through his own instrument: Photography.” The space and staging of Pantoja’s resistance differ from those of the other movements: the Madres confront the whole governm system by staging their der ¢ Plaza de Mayo; the Ab shock spectators into reconsidering assumptions about personal and national identity; 1.1.0.8, ‘ly denounces individual perpetrators and orga- nizations. Pantoja’s photographs, by contrast, spature of the trauma lived da dren, While re-presenting some o Madres—particul attention to the ongoing. ng chil- ‘to be taken out of the archive to be performed, Pantoja reverses this scheme: he archives the embodied nature of traumatic loss, Some of these young People are activists, part of 11.15.0.8. and other organizations. But these images capture the trauma outside of the solice of performance protest. are in focus, The Interestingly, Pantoja politicizes the tra Portrait photography as his form of intervention. Li ackes, he turns the military's use of the 1D against the \naits work against the restrictions, the exclusions, and the. ‘In these images, the children have chosen to situa pose alone (there are two photos of young women most eases, the} op culture, and polities all spaces uncler attack by the di attention. On one level, the simple labeling “Pablo Gargiulo, 20 aos, 1996” (see fig, 4 above) echoes the use of photography to reduce and categorize siibjects for the archive, On ano fhe caption to defy erasure. ‘The Madres marked the peared and the dates of their abduction to resist the n nnibilate both the individual and the evidence. Now, y's attempt 10 the children’s‘names and ages that appear, generational transmission vi | focus notwithstanding, Pantoja’s images function asa form of denunciation (like those of the Madres), as a re-presentation of the evi- dence (police archives or pa), and as works of art. As evidence, wroken by military violence. ‘The children es have be people an who chose to be photographed holding photos or with photos in the back- ground attest to the loss the military tried to deny. The tra enjoy their freedom outside the frame, These photographs constitute their ‘own type of eserache. Julio Pantoja i, in one way, an escrackador, another term, c. In these images, the for a photographer who exposes the uglier jireetly in that the target is not the person in the por- ice. The escracke works i trait but the criminal who, having escaped incarceration, flouts innocent faces looking out provoke a double-take and a visual layering or double exposure in the viewer—I see Bussi (and Ricoand Videla and Massera and...) in each of those faces. The photograp! nterpel- xd so urge them to act, The photos reach outside their their own wi late the spectator frame, calling the viewer to take them outside the space of the gallery by ‘making the connections. Pantoja’s weapon or tool of choice, photography, highlights the role of the Pargeted by the armed forces, the arts played a central arcs in social e role in the articulation and transmission of collective memory both during. and afier the Dirty War. The galleries, Pantoja reminds us, are not a privi- strife of civil conflict, The arts in Ar as these porta ingly separate worlds of arts and politics together in mutually defining ways ‘The black-and-white photographs brilliantly bring various visual worlds to- sgether—the black-and-white photo tb of the police archive, the black-and- | oo the face of these photographs— lren together as part of a series, a genetic pool of sors, Pantoja asked himself what diferentited the children of the disap. Peared visually from others? The resulting group of photographs reveals sone of the markers 1 suggest typify this DNA of per the thirty-three photographs in the c ‘mance. In twelve of dren locate themselves inrelation to a photo of the disappeared parent. The centr graphs, on one level, bespeaks a profound personal truth: these Pantoje tells us, knew their parents only from photographs. Man are now the same age as, genet id visibly, the ‘many of the chi parents were when they disappeared. Bi dren resist the their mi 8 of surrogation, \ iren ides mal sand fathers, they haven’t taken up their fight in any straightforward way—e: ws the fight for justice and human rights. Rather, they assume their place in a line that ity. The place of the is reserved, made visible, thn g member of the In four of these their demonstrations. The is By including these pay ‘own portraits, the children acknowledge not jst the existence oftheir parents but the violent history of Political struggle surro mages of the disappeared. In these pho- 16s, the parents reappear as desaparecides, Unlike the chosen by the other eight children, these four are-0 ‘mounted to be viewed in of images, they (like the v the Madres, the ine them, c photographs cropped, and arena, Used formerly as weapons in a war loss) prove impossible to domesticate, Like dren struggic to repossess the images and reontextual- er by reintroducing th the domestic space or by holding them against their bodies. ‘They he Madres, have become the paradoxi- embodied home of the remains. We see the past in the photographs as in the positioning of the children themselves. The children, like the Madres, represent themselves as duit of memory. This representational practice, to propose one possible reply to P: original question, is what visibly differe Peared from other young people their age, More than their perso es the children ofperhaps, they share a cul that history. They the fight against form of transmission, However, this form exists in relation to other forms of circulation. ‘The wall plastered with advertisements featur- “T-shirt signals another. He, with the Madres of wearing faces: in repeated poses, that serves asset ;perimposed on this of mass reproduction, the young man offers another model: a kind of genealogical family tree. His photograph highlights variox bers at seve I points in their lives. ‘The image signal ing system of representation, Pantoja's work thus offers both a model of vention and a warning understanding and re; fen images as specifically coded as those of disappeared can become commercialized and perfort always be controlled. ing. one’s forms of intervention to some narrow or istic understanding of the DNA of performance. With all the emphasis on collective action organized by survivors Abuelas, Madres, 1.0.8. Pantoja suggests that we not forget the polities of the respon- ate not victims, survivors, or perpetrators, but that say they have no zole to play in the global drama of human rights violations not wo ral practice of embodying and performing tims of trauma, carry thin them. Yet what links mal practices chat have 2000. Courtesy of Grupo CLUB ATLETICO ‘ig tncion6 wt sono sland. organized throw Condor, was truly hemispheric. ‘Thus, the DNA of performance, like current biological ppand, rather than limit, our sense of connect of genetic, search, might ex- share a great deal and sociaeconomic materials. As performance ere (fg. 18). Drotest reminds us, we are Notes 1. Nora, “Between Memory and Histor Fabre and Robert O’Meally, eds, History (New York: Oxford University Pres “La question de la ‘mémoire’ effective,(esp. 367-60), quoted in J. Bennett, “The Aesthetics of Sense-Memory: T we Visual Arts” (work in progres). Between Theatre and Anthropology ‘Trauma throug 2, Scheel jladelphia: University of Pennsyivania Press 1685), 36 3 Maurice Halbwachs, On Collette Memery, ed. and trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 43 See for example, Cathy Carus rience: Trauma, Narrative, and nature, Psychos History (New York: Routledge, 1992). 5. Felman and Laub, Testimony, 57,62. ltlies in the origi 6. *Performance’s only corded, documented, or otherwise participate inthe cir fon of representat thing of representations: once it dacs 80, it bee (Phelan, Unmarisd: The Politics of Performance [New York: Routledge, 1993], 146) ic Peformance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 2 8. Bernardino de Sahagiin was very suspicious and nervous about the new cult of the Virgin: Where the [pre-Hispani certain, but what we truly know is what the word signifies from its first imposition, is ‘Tonantzin was born is not known for to that ancient Tonantzin, and it is som churches of Our Lady and they do not go to them and [J di rom Sahagin’s Historia Gene ‘Trans. and ed. Arthur J. O. Anderson and (Santa Fe: Schoo! of American Research and University of Utah, 1982). Also quoted Plorescano, Memory, Myth and Time in Mexico, 133-34 9. Pratt, “Why the Vie pan Went to Los Angeles: Reflections on. Mobility and Globality.” Lecture at King Juzn Carlos IL of Spain Center, New York University, April 16, 2001 19, See Mary Carruthers, The Bask of Memory (Ces Press, 1990), 16, wa succinct discussion of DNA, see Matt Ridley’s C2nome (New York ant lands to this Tonantzin asin the olde times. ridge: Cambridge Univer- Harper Collins, 1999) 12, See Diana Taylor, Disappearing Acts: Spe vam: Duke University Press, 1997), chap. 7, 13. Sckul, “The Body and the Archive,” October 39 ( 84. Taylor, Diseppearing Acts 297 0.13, 15, Barthes, The Responsi ns: Critical Essays on Msi, Art, and Repre- sentation, tans, Richard Howard (New York: H 16, The archive reserve materials, and it threstens to eras 7, “Teatro por la identidad,” Posteard/ Ayer, Abuel 18, José Gobel Montoncros, ra, x other groups) ante los cuatro ai jue duro e! formalmente democritico gobierno de Bassi, me dedliqué sisematicamente a retratar a los hijos de vi a Tucamén, que segtin los arganismos de Derechos H esi. Al principio fue tal ver i antaja.com.ar/), 21, In developing this series, Pantoja asked the cl ver com sus historias" 22, Caruth, ed, Trauma: Explorations in Memory (1 University Press, r095). ore: Johns HopkinsA City that Improvises Its Globalization NESTOR GARCEA CANCLINI ‘for their ewenty-five years in Mesicn, Irto write about globalization is,as Arjan Appadurai say xdest exercise iven its size, is an ideal place to start. Apart from its vast size, Mexico's megalopolis meets the i have typically defined a global city: a strong presence of a multicultural mixture of populations drawn four criteria 1 transnational corporation: from diverse regions both within and outside of the country, ac of scientific and artistic elites from which the city derives prestige, ime of international tourism, Alchough the contradictory development of the capital denies Mexico City a ranking among the mast recognized global cities (New York, London, and Toky jn a second tier, alongside Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, and Hong Kong. Like these cities, Mexico's capital stands out for the prominence ofits financial sector ity, and design industries and also for its headquartering of the audiovi (Borja-Castells 1997, Sassen 2001). Ibis o these cultural and communicational resources could contribute to the socio- of the capital and the renovation of its deteriorated ultural policies would neod s economic influence in both the region and the world places dof its consulting, publ is essay [suggest ways in whi eve these objectives here Is to See? (City Muscum) has no permanent collection of an art, and only in the past five years have The Musca de la contemporary or historical Mes fa paltry budget, to revamp the museum with exhibitions highlighting themes related to urban life. Nor does the govern- ‘ment of Mexico City have an acquisitions policy that would begin to develop ‘basic stock of materials and documents to c werve the memory of the or that would establish collections of artistic works. ‘The federal government ‘has also paid only minimal attention to the preservation and celebration of urban culture, and what the economic crisis of 1982, Asa consequence of this neglect, one of the capitals of Latin American art is losing the possil effort it once made disappeared in the wake of y that new generations will be able to view what has been created over the past forty years. Many valuable works of art have been sold abroad or disseminated among private collections, For the millions of tourists who visit Mexico City every year, there is no building where they can oto sce a balanced ayerview of Mexican art after mur: ism and geometrism, ‘This absence of contemporary culearal representations reinforces the stereo that the post-1968 period was replete with abstract expres- sionism, conceprual art, novel manifestations of pub tion in the visual arts, A city polit art, andl experimenta- attracted the attention of artistic and journals, newspapers, and television because of its rebellious and innovative popular movements, its battles for democracy, and the feminism and youth movements of the away and their protagonists die off, their works are becoming increasingly dispersed and unavailable to the publi One of the challenges facing Mexico is what to do about the gaps in its recent cultural history. A nation cannot tively in a globalized world if it cannot itself creatively and competi- wow the world what its cul recently produced or how it prepared and improvised its entry into globaliza~ tion. To fill these gaps, researchers will have to has 1 as detectives of sorts, searching through pris to libraries and art collec tions in the United States.