UCLA

My dissertation examines the production of Ju?rez as an apocalyptic symbol of the future of the neoliberal world in the representations of journalists, graphic narrators, and contemporary artists. While trying to report on the effects of free trade and the War on Drugs, some of these authors recycle old stereotypes about the border and frame border people as violent and disposable, creating what I call a border muselmann, an unresponsive entity incapable of responding to his/her own plight. I maintain that the frequent comparisons of the maquiladora model to Nazi concentration camps tends to be iatrogenic; rather than shedding light on the precarious situation of the workers, it frames their existence into a pre-ordained and inescapable future of gloom. These narratives also contribute to the creation of a social imaginary that justifies violent military and high impact policing as a solution to social problems. However, I also analyze other works that attempt to explore new ways of assembling information and producing Ju?rez as an arena of thought and not just a death world. My dissertation is organized in four chapters. In the first one, I expose how journalist Charles Bowden launched a powerful set of frames to represent Ju?rez as a gulag and a laboratory of the future, portraying this city as a “worst-case scenario” to borrow a phrase from Claire F. Fox. In the second chapter, I review how Ju?rez has become a complex arena of reflection about the neoliberal model and how this has produced alternative ways of thinking about the representation of violence, its consequences and ways to combat and resist its structural sources. In this chapter I document how Ju?rez is a site of thought and resistance. The third chapter is dedicated to the analysis of how graphic narratives about Ju?rez are also heavily based on stereotypes about the local people. I examine how the artists who have travelled to the city to report on a crisis conceive of themselves. By thinking of themselves as rescuers of the Other, these graphic narrators contribute to an uneven distribution of rights. They reinforce the idea that local residents are either victims or perpetrators, waiting to be rescued from themselves. Finally, in chapter four I examine the work of Teresa Margolles, vis-?-vis the ideas of authors such as Eyal Weizman and Astrid Erll, in order to explore new ways to speak about violence without falling into the formulas that reproduce and reinforce stereotypes. In this final section, I try to demonstrate that this artist?s methods of working with human and social remains, allow for an assemblage of voices that can speak and render certain forgotten lives as grievable. At the same time, I contend, some of her pieces have the potential to become mnemonic artifacts that can carry testimony about grief, tragedy and resistance.